Writer: Gabriel Tosin Ayodele
It’s important to build scalable and agile apps, as development increases in the world. An increasingly popular technique combines serverless systems with microservices.
By using this pairing, we may build systems that are loosely linked and scalable, which leads to shorter development cycles and lower operating costs.
As a senior software developer with backend system experience, I have personally witnessed how these designs can revolutionise the process of creating and implementing applications. In this post, I’ll discuss how serverless computing and microservices work together to improve performance, scale, and lessen the need for complex infrastructure administration.
The main goal of microservices design is to divide huge, monolithic programs into more manageable, standalone services.
Every service may be independently built, deployed, and scaled, and each one focuses on a certain functionality.
Development teams can work on separate portions of an application without stepping on each other’s toes because to its modularity. For example, updates to the authentication service won’t impact the payment service.
This level of independence makes microservices ideal for scaling applications over time.
However, with independence comes the complexity of managing multiple services. In a traditional setup, you need to manage servers, load balancing, scaling, and failover systems for each service.
Serverless architecture can help with it. Developers can concentrate just on building code since serverless computing abstracts the underlying infrastructure.
You don’t have to bother about provisioning or managing servers in a serverless environment. Instead, your code runs in response to specific events, scaling automatically as demand increases.
This notion of on-demand execution is a wonderful fit for the microservices methodology. When combined, serverless releases teams from the operational responsibilities of infrastructure management and enables microservices to operate in a highly efficient and economical manner.
In short, it’s a match made in heaven: serverless guarantees that each service can scale smoothly and only uses resources when necessary, while microservices offer the modularity.
A new degree of efficiency and scalability is made possible by the interaction between serverless computing and microservices. To help illustrate, consider managing a platform that handles hundreds of e-commerce transactions per minute.
In a microservices setup, you have independent services for orders, payments, and notifications. If the payment service suddenly sees a spike in traffic, only that service needs to scale, not the entire application.
These services can be deployed in a serverless environment, allowing each microservice to grow automatically in response to new requests. This flexibility ensures that the system stays responsive even under high load, which can save a lot of money by reducing the need for over-provisioning resources.
Furthermore, pay-as-you-go models are available in serverless settings, which are in perfect harmony with the modular architecture of microservices.
You don’t pay for idle infrastructure since you only pay for the computational power each microservice uses when it is actively processing requests.
This makes it an extremely economical method, particularly for applications with varying workloads.
Any application must take performance into account, and serverless computing and microservices provide special benefits in this area.
In traditional setups, you often have to deal with latency issues caused by servers that are always running, even when not handling requests. With serverless, functions are triggered only when necessary, reducing latency by eliminating idle time.
Another major benefit is geographic distribution. By enabling the deployment of microservices across several regions, serverless platforms enable the proximity of compute resources to end users.
This lowers latency and enhances user experience in general, especially for apps that need instantaneous replies. As a backend developer, these advantages are priceless to me. Microservices in a serverless environment guarantee that systems are both high-performing and cost-effective when developing decentralised apps (dApps) or dealing with blockchain technologies, where efficiency and speed are crucial.
The ease of use of continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines is one of this architectural approach’s main benefits. Because each microservice may be deployed independently, upgrades can be sent out more quickly without interfering with the functionality of other application components. The deployment procedure is made even more efficient by including serverless technology.
For instance, I can deliver an update without worrying about server configurations or scaling to a specific microservice that is operating on a serverless platform. The cloud provider handles all of that for me. Development cycles are sped up as a result, enabling teams to release new features without delay, address errors more rapidly, and iterate frequently. Naturally, there are difficulties with every architecture. Although serverless computing and microservices have numerous advantages, they also bring additional challenges, especially with regard to debugging and monitoring.
It is not easy to find problems like security flaws or performance bottlenecks when you have dozens, even hundreds, of microservices. To keep visibility throughout the system, tools like distributed tracing and monitoring are vital.
Furthermore, there are restrictions on the amount of resources that may be used and the execution time of serverless platforms. Not every microservice can be deployed serverless, particularly those that need a lot of processing power or lengthy operations.
In the future, I think that serverless computing and microservices will continue to develop together, especially with advances in AI and machine learning. In order to further reduce operational overhead, serverless solutions are currently available that can dynamically assign resources based on demand in real time. In conclusion, developing modern systems can be made more scalable, effective, and adaptable by combining serverless architectures with microservices.
This architectural style allows developers to remain nimble in a rapidly evolving technical context, while focussing on producing high-quality software by simplifying infrastructure administration and facilitating quick development.
To keep ahead of the curve, developers need to embrace this move towards more automated and modular solutions. Our applications may be made to be scalable, resilient, affordable, and simple to maintain by utilising serverless computing and microservices.
About the writer:
Gabriel Tosin Ayodele is a highly skilled DevOps and Software Engineer with expertise in automating infrastructure management and optimizing cloud architectures. His innovative solutions have significantly reduced deployment times, enhanced system performance, and improved security across multiple projects. Gabriel has played a pivotal role in the success of companies like Toffu AI and Steward, where his leadership in developing scalable systems and AI-driven infrastructure solutions has resulted in substantial cost savings and operational improvements. He is recognized for his ability to deliver high-impact results that drive business growth and technical excellence.
