Introducing serverless to your organization

Serverless computing offers the benefits of accelerated delivery and reduced operations costs. However it also brings tooling and architectural challenges. What are safe yet effective methods to introduce serverless to your organization? Mike Roberts discusses several options, drawn from his experience with teams that have faced this precise question.

Serverless computing is a recent trend within cloud computing that embraces the use of fully managed vendor services—products such as ephemeral functions-as-a-service platforms and externalized application components such as databases, user management, and artificial intelligence. While the primary benefit of serverless is a further progression of the cloud in general (i.e., cheaper operations and reduced time-to-market), it requires a different architectural and operational mindset from many other software design models. At the same time, the patterns and tools around serverless are still not fully mature. Because of these concerns, and others, many organizations are reticent to embrace serverless, preferring to wait for current adopters to tease out better practices and understanding. But for those willing to embrace their adventurous side, what are good ways to start embracing these technologies? And how can the benefits of serverless be embraced safely? And most importantly, what are experiments that a company can perform that provide intrinsic value yet also provide a chance to learn? A consultant specializing in serverless computing, Mike Roberts has come to know and work with many teams who have gone through this experience. Join Mike to explore a catalogue of ideas for trying serverless as well as a framework for evaluating their effectiveness within your organization.