Serverless and startups, the beginning of a beautiful friendship

@slobodan_ Can your startup beat competition with a much bigger
budget and team?

@slobodan_ Maybe, but you need a sling!

@slobodan_ A sling? Why?

@slobodan_ Do you remember a story of David and Goliath?

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ In a direct fight David wouldn't have a chance

@slobodan_ But David won!

@slobodan_ Why and how?

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ David was smaller and weaker, but he had some
advantages

@slobodan_ Davids advantages: • Speed • Agility • Unorthodox choice 
of weapon

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ Goliath didn't have a chance!

@slobodan_ What is your sling?

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ My answer is  SERVERLESS

@slobodan_ Wait, what's that?

@slobodan_ "Serverless is an abstraction level over a company’s IT
infrastructure, enabling product and engineering to focus significantly more on delivering software business value." Aleksandar Simovic  AWS Serverless Hero

@slobodan_ Or, if you prefer maps…

@slobodan_ Simon Wardley explains it nicely with "Why the Fuss
about Serverless?" and his Wardley maps

@slobodan_ From "Why the Fuss about Serverless?" (https://youtu.be/SPsaqiegOP4)

@slobodan_ That's serverless

@slobodan_ And that leads us to our topic…

Serverless and startups the beginning of a beautiful friendship

@slobodan_ But, before we continue…

Slobodan Stojanovic CTO @ Cloud Horizon & CTO @ Vacation
Tracker co-author of Serverless Applications with Node.js book AWS Serverless Hero @slobodan_ serverless.pub

@slobodan_ Let's go back to serverless

@slobodan_ Serverless computing is a cloud-computing execution model in which
the cloud provider dynamically manages the allocation of machine resources.

@slobodan_ Pricing is based on the actual amount of resources
consumed by an application, rather than on pre-purchased units of capacity.

@slobodan_ What does that mean?

@slobodan_ Serverless app costs you nothing* if nobody is using
it * except storage price

@slobodan_ Capital expenses (CAPEX) vs Operating expenses (OPEX)

@slobodan_ Benefits?

@slobodan_ • Autoscaling • Pay for used capacity only •
No server maintenance • Short time to market • Cheap

@slobodan_ Why is serverless important? to me »

@slobodan_ Most of the time we use big companies, such
as Netflix or Facebook, as role models for our tech. They do amazing things, but are they really good role models for small and medium startups?

@slobodan_ There's a big chance you'll never have most of
the problems they have. Should you use the same best practices?

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ On the other hand, serverless brings most benefits to
small and medium business

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ But that's not all!

@slobodan_ • Simplifies my apps • Allows small teams to
move fast and accomplish more • Per-function isolation • Managed infrastructure + autoscaling • Code reusability • Financial incentives for improvements

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ It also reduces the amount of back end code*
* code is liability, less code is a big win

@slobodan_ Scary parts

@slobodan_ Troubles in Paradise?

@slobodan_ Issues some people had with serverless: • Large binaries
• Nonsupported runtimes • Compliance • Cold start • Cold start with VPN

@slobodan_ Issues some people had with serverless: • Large binaries
• Nonsupported runtimes • Compliance • Cold start • Cold start with VPN In progress

@slobodan_ But almost every business person will ask about…

@slobodan_ BIG

@slobodan_ BAD

@slobodan_ VENDOR LOCK-IN

@slobodan_ What is vendor lock-in?

@slobodan_ "In economics, vendor lock-in, makes a customer dependent on
a vendor for products and services, unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs." Wikipedia

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ A guy with a lot of servers.  Let's call
him Jeff.

@slobodan_ Jeff is smart, and he knows how do you
use his servers.

@slobodan_ But what if Jeff is actually a villain?

@slobodan_ Your wallet would not be happy…

@slobodan_ Another guy with a lot of servers.  Let's call
him Bill.

@slobodan_ That's vendor lock-in in the cloud

@slobodan_ "My train of thought went like this: the term
“lock-in” is misleading. We are really talking about switching costs." Mark Schwartz  Enterprise Strategist at AWS

@slobodan_ "As soon as you commit yourself to a platform
or a vendor you will have switching costs if you later decide to change." Mark Schwartz  Enterprise Strategist at AWS

@slobodan_ How to fight vendor lock-in?

@slobodan_ Or how to keep your switching costs reasonable?

@slobodan_ • Planning and analysis • Good architecture • Deployment
procedures How likely will I need to switch? What would be the cost?

@slobodan_ Nice, but who is using serverless?

@slobodan_ Case studies

@slobodan_ CodePen

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ How many DevOps team members you need to be
able to handle 250 million preprocessor API requests per month? in your team (or to pay directly)

@slobodan_ 0 Yes, zero/null/nulla/nula…

@slobodan_ • Team of mostly frontend devs + one DevOps
• Ruby on Rails backend • Many preprocessors that needs full isolation • > 200k requests/hour in peak • Unexpected peaks (you never know when some pen will become popular)

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ • Lack of resources • DevOps engineer recommended serverless
• Frontend dev wrote a SASS converter • Everything worked, so frontend team migrates other preprocessors

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ Results?

@slobodan_ • Full isolation between services • Auto-scaling (up to
5000 parallel requests) • Decreased infrastructure cost (250 million requests costs $1180/month) • More DevOps time for RoR part of the app • Frontend developers with superpowers

@slobodan_ Vacation Tracker

@slobodan_ • In-company hackathon idea • Small startup with one
full time developer (+ small help) • One mostly frontend developer • Slack chatbot + API + Angular dashboard

@slobodan_ To minimize initial cost and to speed up development,
we used serverless from the beginning

@slobodan_ Current state of the system

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ Ok, it's more like this:

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ Results?

@slobodan_ • Almost 200 teams using the product • Current
infrastructure cost is $0 • Fast development cycles • Easy refactoring, because of microservices • Reusable parts for our next products

@slobodan_ Btw, do you know the cost of your latest
bug?

@slobodan_ We know the exact cost of our!

@slobodan_ $2.37

@slobodan_ $2.37 Free tier got us covered :)

@slobodan_ Should you even fix a bug that costs you
less than $5/month?

@slobodan_ No* * unless it affects user experience or it
creates a larger damage

@slobodan_ MindMup

@slobodan_ • 500,000 monthly active users • Company size: two
people • Migrated to serverless in ~1 month • Monthly AWS bill: $107

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ Where to start?

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ A Single Page App or a static website

@slobodan_ npm install scottyjs -g

@slobodan_ An Express.js application or API

@slobodan_ What's the benefit? Beside being easy to deploy it

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ bit.ly/serverless-expressjs

@slobodan_ Not the best solution, because…

@slobodan_ A better API

@slobodan_ Claudia.js + Claudia API Builder claudiajs.com

@slobodan_ Looks the same, but it's not!

@slobodan_ Faster means cheaper! You pay per execution time, milliseconds
matter

@slobodan_ P.S. You can do server-side rendering using similar approach!
There are also Lambda@Edge and Cloudflare workers

@slobodan_ APIs are boring, GraphQL FTW! That's easy too!

@slobodan_ AWS AppSync aws.amazon.com/appsync

@slobodan_ • Serverless GraphQL • Preconfigured access to AWS data
sources  (DynamoDB, Lambda or Elastic Search) • Real-time data access and updates • Offline data synchronization • Authorizers • Minimize backend development

@slobodan_ "Oh, and I only hire front-end developers at this
point. I have been the sole DevOps/backend/ middle-tier developer in the last two companies I started, and it’s been fine." Joe Emison (@JoeEmison)

@slobodan_ "With AppSync I could continue to be the CTO,
do all the backend and middle-tier code, and support up to probably about a hundred front-end developers before I would need a dedicated backend developer." Joe Emison (@JoeEmison)

@slobodan_ A file converter

@slobodan_ Claudia.js or AWS Serverless Application Repository serverlessrepo.aws.amazon.com/applications

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ Quick summary

@slobodan_ • Use serverless to gain speed and agility, and
to reduce costs • With serverless you can measure more things • Serverless downsides are fading away fast • Use Wardley maps • Be David, find your secret weapon

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ Links & recommendations

@slobodan_ • Wardley maps: wardleymaps.com • Switching Costs and Lock-In:
amzn.to/2S4iT3G • FinDev and Serverless Microeconomics:  amzn.to/2VLRQwF • David & Goliath book by Malcom Gladwell • Vacation Tracker: vacationtracker.io

@slobodan_ One more thing!

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ Serverless Applications with Node.js Use claudia40 promo code for
40% off serverless.pub/book @slobodan_

@slobodan_ Thank you!

@slobodan_ Thank you! Hvala!

Serverless and startups, the beginning of a beautiful friendship

Serverless and startups, the beginning of a beautiful friendship

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