Serverless

Serverless is a cloud computing execution model where the cloud provider dynamically manages the allocation and provisioning of servers. The key idea is that developers don't have to worry about infrastructure and can simply deploy code.

Serverless platforms like AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions, and Azure Functions allow you to deploy event-driven functions that run only when triggered. For example, you could set up a function that gets invoked whenever someone uploads a file to cloud storage. The serverless platform automatically handles provisioning resources to run the function and scaling based on usage. This auto-scaling capability is a major benefit, as you don't need to predict workload or manage capacity. Other benefits include faster development and reduced operational costs. A downside is vendor lock-in, as serverless code relies on proprietary services. Overall, serverless represents a shift away from always-on servers towards a finer-grained, event-driven architecture. It enables developers to build applications faster and only pay for compute resources when functions execute.