content/posts/demystifying-the-term-serverless.md

   1 ---
   2 title: "Demystifying the term Serverless"
   3 date: 2018-07-15T17:40:09+05:30
   4 lastmod: 2018-07-15T17:40:09+05:30
   5 tags : [ "serverless", "devops" ]
   6 categories : [ "tech" ]
   7 layout: post
   8 type:  "post"
   9 highlight: false
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  11
  12
  13 <img src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1000/1*JQwYsJYUjKLWCf8r4iEueQ.jpeg" width=800/>
  14 *Server, the physical hardware*
  15
  16 When people think of servers, they imagine a big machine or a large stack of them making humming noises and furiously serving millions of requests.
  17
  18 A server can also mean a computer program that is continuously running, listening for client requests and serving them. Think Apache, Nginx or Tomcat.
  19
  20 ![Apache HTTP server, the software](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*ANRQ-WLCLs5yM13GKGBtPg.png)
  21 *Apache HTTP server, the software*
  22
  23 When someone says that they have gone *serverless*, what they actually mean is that they are no longer running a software program listening to requests. There should still be a physical computer of some sort serving the requests of the clients.
  24
  25 The premise of serverless is that you don’t have to keep a computer program called a server continuously running to serve your clients’ requests. When a request comes in, a small program (maybe a single function) gets invoked, serves the request and terminates.
  26
  27 ### What is FaaS then?
  28
  29 *Serverless *(not running server programs) is the goal* *and* Function as a Service* (FaaS) should be considered one of its implementations.
  30
  31 ### Are microservices and P2P applications serverless too?
  32
  33 Not really.
  34 A lot of microservices use HTTP for communication and thus have a server component in them.
  35 A P2P application (e.g. Syncthing, BitTorrent) acts as both the client and the server and hence doesn’t need a server decoupled from the client.
  36
  37 Now that you know what serverless actually means, it’s time to learn more about it. I recommend starting with this [blog post](https://martinfowler.com/bliki/Serverless.html) by Badri Janakiraman.