In the early days of the web, anyone who wanted to build a web application had to own the physical hardware required to run a server, which is a cumbersome and expensive undertaking. Then came the cloud, where fixed numbers of servers or amounts of server space could be rented remotely. Developers and companies who rent these fixed units of server space generally over-purchase to ensure that a spike in traffic or activity wouldn’t exceed their monthly limits and break their applications. This meant that much of the server space that was paid for usually went to waste. Cloud vendors have introduced auto-scaling models to address the issue, but even with auto-scaling an unwanted spike in activity, such as a DDoS Attack, could end up being very expensive.

Serverless architecture has opened a whole new world of possibilities for developers. We’re seeing so many cool projects being built with the Serverless Framework. The open-source Framework allows you to easily build web, mobile and IoT applications with serverless architectures using AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, OpenWhisk, Google Cloud Functions and more.

• Lower costs - Serverless computing is generally very cost-effective, as traditional cloud providers of backend services (server allocation) often result in the user paying for unused space or idle CPU time.
• Simplified scalability - Developers using serverless architecture don’t have to worry about policies to scale up their code. The serverless vendor handles all of the scaling on demand.
• Simplified backend code - With FaaS, developers can create simple functions that independently perform a single purpose, like making an API call.
• Quicker turnaround - Serverless architecture can significantly cut time to market. Instead of needing a complicated deploy process to roll out bug fixes and new features, developers can add and modify code on a piecemeal basis.