The server less computing: The pluses and minuses of this very new concept

By Milica D. Djekic

The cloud’s computing is a quite recent paradigm that would offer you a chance to store your content on the web. Many experts would discuss how secure this concept is and according to those findings – we should work hard in order to assure the better security to these systems. The cloud’s technology is a web-based paradigm providing us an opportunity to manage data, files and even much-sophisticated contents on the internet. For those purposes – the cloud’s systems would use servers and data centers as well as some internet communication channels in order to maintain talk with their databases and services.

Through the past period of time – the cloud’s access control could appear as the ongoing concern to its security, but at this stage – we would notice that the cloud’s access control is not that concerning – because many industry players would know how to tackle this issue. On the other hand, the cloud’s technologies would undoubtedly need stronger encryption if we talk about their communications and data storage. From the user’s experience perspective – the cloud’s environment would seem like any other web location using the web browser to get called on.

The studies would show that so many people worldwide would use the cloud-based systems and they would not even get aware that they deal with such technology. Well, the topic of this effort would suggest that we would cope with the serverless computing, but though this article – we would talk about the cloud’s systems. So, why is it important to understand the cloud’s technologies – before you start thinking about serverless computing? And, what is that serverless for real and why we would need to pay more attention to that concept? At this stage, let’s begin our discussion about this very new paradigm trying to explain why it matters and what its advantages and disadvantages are.

The serverless computing is a sort of the cloud’s technology which primary role is to store programming code on the web. The first commercial usages of this concept would start with the AWS Lambda solution that would enter the marketplace in 2014. Next, the very first adaptation of this effort would begin at the end of 2016 and from this perspective – we can say that the serverless computing is still at its very beginning. The time would show if we would accept or reject this solution in the future. Also, it’s significant to mention that there would not exist a lot of research efforts regarding this area of interest – because this technology is still quite new.

We can only guess that the idea for such a solution exists probably sometime back – because we are strongly aware that all brilliant ideas existing today as commercial solutions would deal with their root coming many years before from defense industry. And, indeed – the main purpose of the serverless technology is to save the programming code on the web and offer us the chance to execute it when we want to. From that point of view – the serverless is so similar to the container’s technology, but
– on the other hand – the application containers would offer much more options for the code storage. In addition, the serverless would cost us only if we use it and that’s really the big advantage having in mind that this system would be quite cost-effective. Also, it’s important to mention that the serverless computing is the way of cloud’s computing – but, in this case, we would deal with the Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) cloud’s deployment model.

So, we would make a good talk about this very new paradigm, but we would not try to explain why we use the term “serverless” for this concept. The first and logical question here would be if there are any servers being applied in this case. The name “serverless” would suggest to us that we would not deal with servers, data centers or any services. The fact is that there would be so many servers, data centers, and services in the practice like in any other cloud’s system, but we would use the very small functions being the pieces of a code that would get stored without any limitations within the IT infrastructure. In other words, this is not any revolutionarily new solution, but rather the way to save your confidential code within the web environment.

Also, it’s important to know that there are some weaknesses regarding this new technology. For instance, there would be so high risk for its data centers to get hacked and as it would use an HTTP communication channel – we are quite concerned that so many cybercriminals could take a big advantage over the vulnerabilities of this communication line. Also, this very new paradigm would cope with some access control concerns – but, let’s say that’s not that alarming as we would believe before. At this moment – there are the quite encouraging moves being made on the marketplace that would promise us that we should worry less about the access control.

On the other hand, we would get aware that the hackers would easily obtain someone’s IP address and they could take full advantage over some data center, IT infrastructure or communication line. In such a case, it’s so significant to highlight that we should always get prepared the good disaster recovery and business continuity strategies that would provide us an opportunity to repair once the breached system.

In the end, we would mention that the serverless computing is still the cutting edge technology and time would show if some of the future solutions would choose that direction to go on. At this stage, we can say it’s a quite convenient way to save your private code and it’s quite a suitable solution to the developers who want to protect their work. Right here, we would not speculate if this effort could deal with any sustainability, because it’s still so young. In other words, maybe the serverless is only a step that would bridge the gap and lead us into a completely new technological age.

About the Author
As a frequent writer for Cyber Defense Magazine, and since Milica Djekic graduated at the Department of Control Engineering at University of Belgrade, Serbia, she’s been an engineer with a passion for cryptography, cybersecurity, and wireless systems. Milica is a researcher from Subotica, Serbia. She also serves as a Reviewer at the Journal of Computer Sciences and Applications and. She writes for American and Asia-Pacific security magazines. She is a volunteer with the American corner of Subotica as well as a lecturer with the local engineering society.