I've been reading about serverless architecture and I'm curious about how functions are actually executed on-demand, how automatic scaling works, and the associated cost model. On paper, it seems ideal for applications with unpredictable traffic, but are there significant limitations in terms of latency, state management, or vendor lock-in? When would you recommend adopting serverless over a traditional container-based architecture? I'd love to hear about experiences and best practices.
How does serverless architecture work and when is it viable to use it?
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The biggest advantage you see in auto-scaling usually comes with "cold starts." When a function hasn’t been invoked in several minutes, the provider needs to spin up a new container, which introduces latency that can be noticeable in critical paths (login, checkout, etc.). Have you already measured the startup time in your use case and evaluated whether that variability fits within the SLA your product requires?
Another often-overlooked point is state management. Serverless is designed for pure functions; if you need to share data between invocations, the solution involves external services (databases, caches, storage) that add latency and extra cost. What data architecture are you considering, and how does it impact pricing when traffic becomes steady?
Finally, vendor lock-in can be an issue if your mid-term strategy includes moving the workload to another cloud or a hybrid solution. Platform-specific APIs (e.g., S3 or DynamoDB triggers) can make portability difficult. Do you already have an abstraction layer that lets you switch providers without rewriting business logic?