For businesses of all sizes, servers are essential because they are responsible for “serving” information to other computers within the network. There are several types of servers that businesses could have, such as mail servers, web servers, and file servers. Companies are then faced with decisions related to the type of servers they will use. Because of the cloud, companies are no longer required to have their own servers in-house; they can utilize something called serverless computing. These services allow providers to allocate the resources according to what the customer’s workload indicates.

Companies that have been controlling their servers in-house are faced with a choice. Should they make the switch? Before deciding to change, however, it is important to weigh the pros and cons. Here’s more information:

Databases

It’s true that serverless computing has gained popularity over the past few years. AWS’s Lambda was on of the first to hit the market, but others, such as Microsoft’s Azure Function, have followed. Before going serverless was an option, companies could employ models such as running one large in-house server, using a monolithic architecture, or microservers. The major downside with these models is that companies are fully responsible for buying and maintaining the equipment. The databases also need to be scaled on a regular schedule to remain effective.

Serverless computing is much more cost-effective because companies are able to pay for only what they need. The downside of this is that if their usage requirements tend to be sporadic, companies could actually waste more money going serverless because they would be spending money for usage they don’t need. Businesses should examine their usage requirements over a long period of time before determining if serverless computing is a good option for them.

Containers

Containers are another hot topic, and many businesses may be considering using them instead of going serverless. One of the biggest reasons that containers are so popular is that they can make people’s jobs easier since they enable them to be more productive. This is especially true for those who work with large amounts of data and require faster deployments, such as developers, data scientists, and engineers. However, there is a downside to using containers that serverless computing can solve. Container infrastructures require teams of knowledgeable IT professionals to keep them running efficiently. This is an issue that serverless computing can solve because businesses won’t need to hire staff to maintain it, which can result in a reduction of costs.

Disadvantages

While there are many positive reasons why businesses of all sizes should embrace serverless computing, there are plenty of negative ones to consider, as well. One of the main disadvantages is that companies won’t have physical control of data backups. Although cloud providers do handle their own backups, they still aren’t within the business’s control. Downtime can also be problematic because if the cloud server goes offline, this could result in a loss of revenue for the businesses that rely on them. There are also limits related to severless computing because businesses may have data storage needs that far exceed the cost, value and risk of using a service providers. In this case, it might be better for the servers to remain in-house.

Are you wondering if serverless computing is right for you? Contact Roan Solutions for more information as to which options are the best for the business.