How Your Startup Can Benefit From Serverless Approach

The popularity of hiring vendors for handling application backend has spiked tremendously over the last 5 years. On the one hand, startup owners go serverless to save infrastructure costs and pay for resources as they go. As the company scales, relying on third-party vendors allows getting access to backend resources as quickly as possible.

Although implementing cloud-based infrastructures is mainly popular among startup owners, large-scale companies use distributed architectures as well. Amazon Polly, for one, fully relies on AWS for project support.

In this post, we will take a look at the most prominent advantages of serverless for startups. You will find out why going with distributed applications is the right choice for your next project.

Pros of serverless for startups

Serverless computing allows business owners to pay for servers only when a user request or an event is triggered. As such, tech teams eliminate idle time, making sure they don’t pay extra for server power. Other than that, by going serverless, startup managers can hire less talent for project maintenance and can focus on promoting the company’s core services.

Cost- and time-efficiency aren’t the only benefits for startups in serverless computing. Let’s take a closer look at the full list of distributed architecture advantages.

#1 Simple deployment and continuous delivery

Unlike a server-based architecture, the backend for distributed systems is easier to set up and deploy. Connecting the source code to whichever serverless security for startup vendor platform you chose (AWS, Google, Azure, etc) is all it takes to deploy the project.

Continuous delivery is another benefit of joining serverless and startups. Every change to the code is deployed automatically after testing. The entire process is automated — there’s no need for your team to watch over every update.

#2 Infrastructure cost savings

As mentioned above, serverless architecture is a powerful way for business owners to control infrastructure expenses. If a startup website has fewer than 1,000 visitors, switching to a pay-as-you-go model can cut up to 90% of backend maintenance and resource costs.

To understand the full cost-efficiency of serverless, take a look at these serverless startup development examples:

• The founders of a startup called Heavywater started spending $30 instead of $4,000 for backend maintenance after choosing serverless architecture;
• Nordstrom founders exploited the high scalability potential and cost-reducing power of the serverless infrastructure by using it to support a high-traffic web application. The company used AWS Lambda and APIs Gateway as the project’s technical backbone;
• Postlight’s startup founder dealt with high backend spending by moving to serverless computing, reducing infrastructure costs from $10,000 to $370 a month.

#3 Infinite scalability

On-server apps have scalability limitations. The increasing number of users means the need to rebuild and renovate the tech backbone of the app. That’s why companies that prioritize traffic or user acquisition prefer serverless startups development for its next-to-infinite scaling power.

As the number of requests grows, the vendor’s servers will provide the app with the needed server power automatically. Thus, there’s no way for a serverless application management team to be taken aback with a sudden traffic spike.

#4 Easier pivoting

Serverless adaptability to pivoting is one of the reasons why it’s so popular among startup owners. At some point, it’s common for company owners to realize they’ve been targeting the wrong audience. So, they redirect their efforts in a new direction either by separating a service into several smaller ones or by targeting a new audience.

Here’s how serverless computing promotes pivoting efficiency:

• Increases product flexibility making it easier to create microservices;
• The use of containers makes revamping parts of the product without crashing the entire system easier;
• Allows you to increase your audience reach (unlimited scaling capabilities gives company managers a possibility to reach new audiences without giving up on the current one).

#5 Real reusability

Serverless architecture makes project development much easier as the elements you create are reusable. Why does serverless promote reusability better than other infrastructure types?

The thing is, most serverless functions are available as an HTTP request and aren’t reliant on source code to run. Using layers across the Lambda function promotes reusability as well by creating encapsulated, testable code.

Since serverless computing is an excellent fit for short-term, stateless code, most event-driven structures like microservices are typically serverless.

Conclusion

Although serverless computing has a long way to go before it becomes a mainstream technology, there’s no denying that a growing number of startup owners choose distributed applications. This new type of infrastructure is highly welcoming for startup owners who take the need to spend a dime on infrastructure off their plate and will be able to align their expenses with the number of application visitors.

With high cost-efficiency, huge scalability potential, and pivoting-friendliness, microservices can change the way IT teams consume resources. In the future, harnessing the benefits of serverless for startups will lead to the proliferation of more powerful, functional, and innovative projects.

To create a serverless project or switch from a server-based architecture to a serverless vendor, you need the support of a top-notch tech team. TechMagic, for one, is a team of ace developers who follow the best practices of designing distributed applications and microservices. We will help you choose the right vendor for backend infrastructure and data storage, move your project to serverless, and keep it running.

Previously published at https://blog.techmagic.co/benefits-of-serverless-for-startups/