Confusion In The Land Of The Serverless

45-90min Presentation
Picture source, licence

An exploration of serverless platforms, and some of the unanswered questions around them

Serverless computing is the hot new thing. Like any hyped technology, it promises a lot. However questions remain around concept and implementation, especially when you start to compare how we've built systems in the past, and what serverless offers us now. Is Serverless the future, or just the emperor's new clothes?

Topics

This talk will very briefly introduce serverless computing, but will then dive into some of the questions that aren't always asked in conjunction with this technology. Topics will include:

  • How does your attitude to security change?
  • Is it easier, or harder, to create reliable, resilient systems?
  • Do patterns like Circuit breakers and connection pools make sense any more?
  • Is vendor lock-in a problem?
  • Is serverless computing only for microservice architectures?
  • Which problems fit serverless computing?

By the end of the talk you should have a firm grasp of what serverless computing really can offer, cut through some of the hype, and get an understanding about where and how you can use it in your own organisations.

Video

You can see a recording of this talk from Goto Berlin 2017 below.

Material

You can view the slides here, although please note that given the way I use presentations, it may be hard to get a sense of what the talk is about just by looking at the slides.

Find More Talks