How does serverless computing affect the cost of internet services?

Serverless computing helps the organization to be more productive and efficient in a way such as, - Eliminates the maintenance of the infrastructure - No need to be worried on Software/ Tool upgradation, individual licensing cost. etc., - Pay for what you use - Saves the cost of maintaining the infrastructure (as serverless platforms are monitored and administered by service providers) - Pay for the duration of using the tools - Eliminates deployment complexities In turn serverless is not actually a serverless, it is a server monitored, administered and maintained by service providers rather than having an internal resource to manage the infrastructure.

One of the key advantages of serverless computing is its scalability. Traditional server-based architectures require developers to anticipate peak loads and provision servers accordingly. This often leads to over-provisioning, resulting in wasted resources and increased costs. With serverless computing, resources are automatically scaled up or down based on demand, ensuring optimal performance and cost-efficiency. Another benefit of serverless computing is its pay-per-use pricing model. Unlike traditional server-based architectures, where developers pay for a fixed amount of server capacity regardless of usage, serverless computing allows developers to pay only for the actual execution time of their functions.

Some organizations with growing business might actually decide to host their own serverless compute. The cost benefits from the infrastructure alone is a preferred way to utilize serverless to the fullest. The control and scalability, not to mention the customization options can be unlocked once serverless goes a bit "server-like".

The productivity of the team improves drastically as you are not spending time on every configuration, or update. You can focus on your core competencies. Along with autoscaling, you get the benefit of auto-tuning. Based on cloud providers' AI capability your invisible infrastructure is optimized without you worrying about it .

In my experience, Serverless computing can and has had a significant impact on the total cost of not only internet services but also the total cost of ownership for server and application management. No matter the vendor (Microsoft, Amazon, Google), there are multiple options for managing how the per-minute costs are done. Additionally, unlike on-prem datacenters or Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solutions, with serverless computing, you only pay for what is used. While you can automate the IaaS servers being online and available when needed, it can still open up risk if something is missed. Another benefit is that the scalability of serverless computing can reduce your overall overhead for operations.

The biggest problem is that not all solutions support serverless computing. So if you are managing cloud instances for some applications and serverless for a few others, you anyway will have to have administrators who will manage cloud infrastructure and configurations. While cost optimizing you have to learn the trick of the trade for both.

As much as serverless can be a cost optimized way for some organizations to deliver their services as fast as possible without operational effort, this can also backfire. In reality, most growing organizations have the need to control and to scale their serverless operations, and the managed consumption-based service might be just too expensive for their taste.

Look for interoperability! Can you easily switch your workload from serverless to instances? Your ability to experiment should not be compromised as you might need different solutions for different use cases.