History of Serverless

By Keith Horwood - Standard Library

Presented at Functions 2018 / ServerlessDays Toronto

https://functions.events/2018/toronto/keith-horwood/

Transcript

1. The Serverless Carriage Past, Present and Future of Serverless
 
 Functions Conference 2018
 Keith Horwood
2. Hi! I’m Keith. Keith Horwood
 Founder and CEO, Standard Library
 
 ! Canadian
 " Coding since eight
 # Degree in biochemistry (UWO)
 National Canadian news for hacking
 Obsessed with APIs and systems design
 ☄ Seemingly infinite energy, sometimes puts it to use
3. Chapter One The Past
4. All was dark… 100 million seconds BC*,
 the internet was young and growing… * before cloud, roughly 2003/4
5. Suddenly…
6. Let there be LAMP!
7. Web Development, 2004. Simple. ~/projects/my-web-thing/users/create.php FTP /home/www/users/create.php Apache HTTP POST https://www.userland.com/users/create/
8. One Script, One Endpoint ~/projects/my-web-thing/users/create.php FTP /home/www/users/create.php Apache HTTP POST https://www.userland.com/users/create/
9. Servers Were Our Friends! ~/projects/my-web-thing/users/create.php FTP /home/www/users/create.php Apache HTTP POST https://www.userland.com/users/create/
10. They Served Content Admirably
11. But Internet Usage Grew Launched 2004
12. So We Built More Scalable Application Software Launched 2005 Launched 2006
13. Horizontal Scaling Became Easier
14. Until it Wasn’t
15. Powers at be
 were not pleased
16. One mortal saw the potential of software- managed virtualized infrastructure
17. (2006)
18. Virtualized Servers Reigned Supreme
19. More Scale, Less IT! Traditional Servers Cloud, Virtualization Scalability On-Prem Operational IT Support
20. Unspoken Tradeoff Traditional Servers Cloud, Virtualization Developer Operations Developmental Complexity
21. Developmental Complexity? Single Script x Single Endpoint
 Limited Scalability MVC, Router, Heavy Application
 Complex Deployments
 High Scalability
22. First We Tackled DevOps With Platforms Launched 2007 Launched 2011
23. Then With More Abstractions, Containers Launched 2013 Launched 2014
24. Internet Usage Kept Growing
25. And We Forgot About Complexity
26. Until… Why are we building all of this? Why are there so many ways to build things?
 Do we need this entire ecosystem to support business?
27. Chapter Two The Present
28. Introducing the Serverless Compute Model Launched 2014
29. What is Serverless Compute? Serverless technologies…
 
 roll up two decades of infrastructure abstraction
 and utilize economies of scale to provide
 instant on-demand computation with
 zero infrastructure management.
30. Serverless Vendors — Enterprise
31. Benefits of Serverless Computation (FaaS) Simplified compute model
 
 Single function, single endpoint
 
 Solves a business need quickly
 respond to an event within ecosystem with code
32. Web Development, 2018. Simplest. ~/projects/my-web-thing/users/create.js Standard Library,
 AWS, Azure, GCP w/ frameworks HTTP POST https://www.userland.com/users/create/
33. We’ve Come Full Circle
34. What Are People Building? https://serverless.com/blog/2018-serverless-community-survey-huge-growth-usage/
35. What Are People Building? https://serverless.com/blog/2018-serverless-community-survey-huge-growth-usage/
36. Serverless Vendors — API Integration
37. ( ) Serverless Vendors — API Integration
38. Chapter Three The Future
39. Are We Married to “Serverless"?
40. What Do I Mean? “Serverless” is a trend.
 The term isn’t going anywhere.
 
 But is it part of an even larger trend that will create or propel another technology forward?
41. Reflect: Serverless Computation (FaaS) Simplified compute model
 
 Single function, single endpoint
 
 Solves a business need quickly
 respond to an event within ecosystem with code
42. Reflect: Use Cases https://serverless.com/blog/2018-serverless-community-survey-huge-growth-usage/
43. So business need is…? Backend APIs
 Integrating 3rd Party Services
 Internal Tooling
 Chat bots
44. So business need is…? Backend APIs
 
 Integrating 3rd Party Services
 Internal Tooling
 Chat bots ( )
45. The Serverless Carriage: Semantics We invent and use transitional terms all of the time.
 
 Horseless Carriage → Motor Car → Car
 Wireless Phone → Mobile Phone → (Smart)Phone
 
 Is “serverless” a transitional term?
46. The Serverless Carriage: Thesis The main utility of serverless compute
 (as measured by companies in this room today)
 is building and connecting APIs without friction.
47. The Serverless Carriage: Statement Horseless is to Carriage
 
 as Serverless is to API
48. Is This the True Value of Serverless? We don’t have to dig deep to find the
 success of APIs in our industry.
49. Messaging APIs
50. Communication APIs
51. Financial APIs
52. A View of the Future People will try to define and redefine serverless as long
 as it generates interest, intrigue, and can be used
 as a launchpad to sell technology.
 
 But serverless, like all software and infrastructure,
 is the means to an end.
 
 That end is building APIs to connect businesses.
53. A Hypothesis on Development Serverless computation will fundamentally reshape
 the entire software development ecosystem.
 
 It will primarily do this by enabling less
 technical workers and non-developers
 increased capacity to learn about,
 build and integrate with APIs.
54. Conclusion Serverless, Reshaping the Landscape
55. Recap: Past Serverless exists as a final step of a decades-long journey to develop and distribute web-based software at scale.
56. Recap: Present You can use serverless technologies today to
 drastically increase the iteration speed of
 your software development teams.
 
 Most people are building APIs.
57. Recap: Future As a result of serverless compute,
 everyone will be able to build with and use APIs.
58. Interested in Learning More? https://stdlib.com
 
 A serverless platform that enables everyone to
 build, discover, integrate with and ship APIs to production.
59. Thank You! Keith Horwood
 Founder and CEO, Standard Library
 
 E-mail: keith@stdlib.com
 Twitter: @keithwhor