What is Serverless? - Definition & Meaning

Definition

Serverless is a cloud computing model where the cloud provider automatically manages, scales, and maintains the server infrastructure. Developers write only the application code in the form of functions, without worrying about servers, capacity planning, or infrastructure management. You only pay for the actual execution time.

Technical explanation

Serverless encompasses two main categories: Functions-as-a-Service (FaaS) and Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS). FaaS platforms like AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, Google Cloud Functions, and Supabase Edge Functions execute individual functions in response to events (HTTP requests, database triggers, message queues). Each function invocation gets an isolated runtime environment that automatically scales from zero to thousands of concurrent instances. Cold starts occur when a new instance must be spun up after a period of inactivity. Strategies to minimize cold starts include provisioned concurrency, lightweight runtimes, and avoiding heavy imports. Serverless architectures are inherently event-driven and often combine multiple managed services: API Gateway for HTTP routing, DynamoDB or Supabase for data, S3 for storage, and SQS/SNS for messaging. The pay-per-invocation pricing model makes serverless very cost-efficient for workloads with variable traffic. Limitations include maximum execution time per invocation, limited local memory, and the challenge of distributed monitoring.

How MG Software applies this

MG Software leverages serverless architectures strategically. We use Supabase Edge Functions for lightweight API endpoints, webhooks, and background tasks. Vercel's serverless functions power our Next.js API Routes. For clients with highly variable traffic, such as seasonal e-commerce or event-driven applications, serverless provides automatic scaling without overcapacity. We combine serverless functions with managed databases and storage for fully managed architectures that require minimal maintenance.

Practical examples

• An e-commerce startup using AWS Lambda for their checkout flow: during a flash sale, the system automatically scales from ten to a thousand concurrent requests and back to zero after, paying only for actual usage.
• A PDF generation service using a serverless function to convert Word documents to PDF: each upload automatically triggers a conversion without requiring a permanent server.
• An IoT platform processing sensor data through serverless functions as it arrives, storing data in a time-series database, and sending alerts when values fall outside normal boundaries.

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