Serverless for startups - Podgorica, Montenegro

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

@slobodan_ Maybe, but you need a slingshot!

@slobodan_ A slingshot? Why?

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

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ In a single combat, 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_ • Speed • Agility • Unorthodox choice of weapon
Davids advantages:

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ Goliath didn't have a chance!

@slobodan_ What is your slingshot?

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ How to find your slingshot?

@slobodan_ Let's see an example: leave tracking for small and
medium businesses

@slobodan_ Meet Wardley Maps!

@slobodan_ A Wardley Map is a representation of the landscape
in which a business operates. It consists of a value chain (activities needed to fulfill user needs) graphed against evolution (how individual activities change over time under supply and demand competition).

@slobodan_ What's the result?

@slobodan_ Something like this.

@slobodan_ And, our slingshot 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 Stojanović CTO @ Cloud Horizon & CTO @ Vacation
Tracker co-author of Serverless Applications with Node.js book AWS Serverless Hero @slobodan_

@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?

@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 a lot of
benefits to small and medium business* * it also brings benefits for large enterprises

@slobodan_

@slobodan_ But that's not all!

@slobodan_ • Simplifies my apps • Allows small teams to
move fast and accomplish more • Gives us per-function isolation • comes with managed infrastructure and autoscaling • allows better code reusability • has financial incentives for improvements Serverless:

@slobodan_

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

@slobodan_ Scary parts

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

@slobodan_ But what 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_ What about vendor lock-in in the cloud?

@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_

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

@slobodan_ That's what people think vendor lock-in in the cloud
is

@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_ Howtofight vendorlock-in?

@slobodan_ Better question: 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

@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_ VacationTracker.io

@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_ • More than 300 paying teams using the product
• Current infrastructure cost is less than $20 per month • Fast development cycles • Easy refactoring, because of microservices • Reusable parts/services for our next products

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

@slobodan_ We know the exact cost of our bugs!

@slobodan_ $2.37

@slobodan_ $2.37 Free tier got us covered :)

@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_ https://console.aws.amazon.com/amplify

@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_ APIs are boring, GraphQL FTW!

@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_ ERR_TOO_MANY_TOOLS

@slobodan_ One tool to rule them all

@slobodan_ AWS Amplify aws-amplify.github.io

@slobodan_ • Deployment (with and without CDN and HTTPS) •
Auth using Amazon Cognito (+ social signins) • GraphQL backend using AppSync + real-time • Media storage using S3 • Nice client-side libraries for React and others • And much more…

@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_

Serverless for startups - Podgorica, Montenegro

Serverless for startups - Podgorica, Montenegro

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