Cloud Computing - Feb 15, 2024

Scaling Smarter, Not Harder: The Battle of Serverless and Microservices Architectures

Introduction

With almost all businesses functioning online and migrating their workloads to the Cloud, the reliance on different categories of software architecture has become imperative for business operations. The monolithic architecture was ideal in the olden data center days because of the less advanced IT environment and fewer businesses functioning online. The days have changed, with almost every business entity relying on a multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud environment for its IT infrastructure. Advanced technology has made it essential for organizations to adapt to microservice and, subsequently, to a serverless architecture for better performance, scalability, and security.

 

This article discusses microservices and serverless architecture, helping businesses to decide which of the two is the better option, depending on their business requirements.

 

The Olden Days: Understanding The Monolithic Architecture

The term 'monolithic' represents a single piece. For instance, a monolithic sculpture is an art form carved from a single rock. Similarly, monolithic architecture in IT parlance signifies a traditional model of a software program or a self-contained software program independent from other applications. It is a single computing network catering to all software requirements of a business IT system.

● Advantages: Its advantages include easy development as one unit of code, simple deployment, often by deploying a single file or directory, simplified testing and debugging, and better performance for small in-house applications because of its centralized code base and repository.

● Disadvantages: Simultaneously, its demerits include lack of scalability due to often tightly coupled and interdependent components, slower development and deployment cycles, performance issues in a distributed cloud environment, less reliability, and the handicap of being inflexible.

 

What is a Microservice Architecture?

Considering the disadvantages and limitations of a monolithic architecture, businesses found it challenging to expand their application and network infrastructure in the Cloud. There was a need for multitasking or breaking down tasks into smaller processes that function independently. The idea was that the remaining application functions correctly even if any single code unit fails. A microservices architecture made it possible because it relies on a series of independently deployable services, each having its business logic and database.

 

Unlike a monolithic application architecture, microservices have a set of distributed code components that are small, autonomous units that work with other components to help an application function. Microservices use APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to let each service communicate with each other, making the entire process more scalable, elastic, and reliable. The best example of microservices architecture is the e-commerce platform that connects the client, inventory, shopping cart, and payment gateways to provide a unified service platform.

● Advantages :  A microservice architecture is better than a monolithic architecture because it allows each service to be developed, deployed, updated, and scaled individually without affecting the others. Therefore, they are easy to maintain and test, simplifying isolation and fixing faults and bugs in individual services. Microservices architecture facilitates agility and allows teams to be technologically flexible.

● Disadvantages :  Its demerits include improper management of its development sprawl (a situation where the proliferation of microservices in an application becomes unmanageable and counterproductive due to overly complex architecture) and exponential infrastructure costs. Since it comprises multiple services, debugging the network can be challenging. Besides, lack of standardization and clear ownership makes it difficult for teams to know the available services to leverage and whom to contact for support.

 

While microservices architecture is better than monolithic architecture, it still requires servers that can consume space and be vulnerable to physical damage. Therefore, there is a need to shift to a serverless architecture.

 

What is a Serverless Architecture?

Serverless architecture is a cloud-native software design approach that allows developers to build and run applications and services in the Cloud. The cloud service provider or CSP takes care of the servers on behalf of its customers and allows them access to machine resources on demand. The serverless architecture has servers deployed in the Cloud, far from the app development process. Developers write and deploy code, whereas a CSP provisions servers to run the applications, databases, and storage systems. In short, your applications still run on servers, but the CSP does all the server management.

Serverless architecture differs from other cloud computing models because the apps are launched only when needed. The user pays the CSP to purchase the apps' capacity. The user is responsible for upscaling the server capacity when the demand is high and downscaling it when the capacity is not required.

 

Example #1: The image below from Microsoft Azure shows serverless apps using Azure Cosmos DB. Azure Functions and Azure Cosmos DB are used to build distributed, scalable, serverless applications.

Image Source: learn.microsoft.com

 

 

Example #2: On the other hand, AWS offers Serverless deployment and management services via the AWS Serverless Application Model (AWS SAM) that leverages AWS Lambda.

Image Source: docs.aws.amazon.com

 

 

Advantages and Disadvantages of Serverless Architecture?

Like any other technology, Serverless architecture offers several advantages as well as disadvantages if not used appropriately:

● Advantages : Serverless architecture is more flexible, offers greater scalability, and consumes less time to release, all at a reduced cost. Developers pay for the server space they use. Besides, the CSPs manage the apps, allowing the developers to focus on writing the application code alone.

● Disadvantages :  The disadvantage of serverless architecture is it exhibits cold start problems where there is a predictable delay the next time a function needs to execute after the resources spin down completely. There could be application design constraints and loc-in concerns because the user cedes the control of these aspects to the cloud service provider. Changing your service provider can result in increased costs of upgrading the systems.

 

Difference Between Serverless and Micro-Services

While microservices are about structuring an application into independent services, serverless architecture is about how to run an application (or a part of it). Both these architectures have different approaches to resolving problems.

● Microservices is a software development architecture where an application is structured as a collection of loosely coupled servers. On the other hand, the serverless architecture is a cloud computing code execution model providing back-end services on an as-used basis. ● Microservices architectures have each service operating independently, using communication protocols and APIs for interaction. In a serverless architecture, the cloud service provider allocates complete storage and assets to execute each line of code.

● Microservice has the technology within a cloud-based environment, whereas serverless functions are the only way to host microservices. So, microservice is more mature than serverless architecture.

● Microservices architecture allows developers to create applications, whereas you can only run the applications on serverless architecture.

● Using multiple programming languages and developer tools, you can develop and deploy microservices on different platforms. It is more proactive, whereas serverless architecture focuses more on individual functions or pieces of code executed in response to events.

● Managing multiple solutions on microservice is possible, whereas monitoring and managing logs in a serverless architecture is difficult.

● Microservices are ideally suited for applications and systems that constantly evolve, are complex, and require high scalability. On the other hand, serverless architecture is more suited for code efficiency, which is a priority.

● Netflix, Amazon, and Uber are classic real-life examples of microservices architecture. Nordstrom, Figma, and Codepen are examples of serverless architecture.

 

Serverless or Micro-Services: Which Architecture Should Organizations Choose?

The choice between using serverless or microservices architecture depends on the specific requirements of the project, the application's expected evolution, and the organization's business goals.

 

Serverless architecture best suits businesses that build fast, scale effortlessly, and pay as they go. So, this approach is best for cost-effectiveness and quick deployment. Startups, API-powered companies, event-driven apps, and applications experiencing significant variations in usage benefit from using serverless architecture. Since the cloud service provider handles scaling and maintenance, serverless architecture eliminates the need for traditional server management.

 

Microservices architecture is a practical option if the organization intends to build an extensive, complex application where the product is expected to evolve and change continuously. So, companies with complex, evolving apps prefer microservices architecture. Such organizations require smaller, independent teams to build and update features quickly.

 

 

A Combined Approach to Serverless and Microservices

With cloud computing poised for tremendous growth, serverless architecture is gaining popularity. While the term 'serverless' gives the notion of an IT network without servers, it is not so because the servers are in the cloud environment and are abstracted away from the developers. However, serverless technology supports microservices architecture. Besides allowing systems to be scalable and reliable, microservices deliver a fantastic user experience. Since it depends on a serverless approach, combining serverless and microservices architecture benefits organizations.

● Combination of serverless and microservices - The combination of serverless and microservices enables rapid development and deployment cycles. It allows developers to focus on building small, specialized functions that can be quickly deployed as part of a microservices architecture, leading to faster iterations and releases.

● Event-triggered microservices - Microservices should be event-triggered to be serverless. They should respond to specific conditions and user actions to work together as a function. However, developers can increase the viability of serverless functions by integrating them.

● Cost-effective and efficient - Serverless architecture focuses more on cost-effectiveness. However, unlike microservices, its functions are short-term. They start functioning in response to satisfying a specific condition or input. Since serverless architecture is event-driven, the functions do not work without a trigger. However, it is an efficient development approach because the application does not consume more CPU than required.

● Different approach to IT operations - Microservices rely on developing team resources. It requires an in-house or outsourcing team for monitoring, deployment, support, and maintenance.

 

Both architectures have their own approaches to solving problems. They prioritize security in their own way. Therefore, the choice between serverless and microservices depends on the organization's specific needs and the project's constraints.

 

 

Final Words

IT networks require a robust architecture for the smooth functioning of their apps and systems. Since most businesses work in the cloud environment, they rely on cloud-native software for their storage and app functioning requirements. Besides, online operations require multiple platforms to function simultaneously. Therefore, a multiservices architecture approach has become essential instead of a monolith architecture. Businesses are better off choosing a combination of microservices and serverless approaches for effective functioning. Besides being reliable, scalable, and efficient, this approach saves money.

 

 

References

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