Jovan StosicServerless computing is a cloud computing execution model in which the cloud provider runs the server, and dynamically manages the allocation of machine resources. Pricing is based on the actual amount of resources consumed by an application, rather than on pre-purchased units of capacity. It can be a form of utility computing.
Serverless computing can simplify the process of deploying code into production. Scaling, capacity planning and maintenance operations may be hidden from the developer or operator. Serverless code can be used in conjunction with code deployed in traditional styles, such as microservices. Alternatively, applications can be written to be purely serverless and use no provisioned servers at all.
This should not be confused with computing or networking models that do not require an actual server to function, such as peer-to-peer (P2P).
Serverless runtimes
Most, but not all, serverless vendors offer compute runtimes, also known as function as a service (FaaS) platforms, which execute application logic but do not store data. The first “pay as you go” code execution platform was Zimki, released in 2006, but it was not commercially successful. In 2008, Google released Google App Engine, which featured metered billing for applications that used a custom Python framework, but could not execute arbitrary code. PiCloud, released in 2010, offered FaaS support for Python.
AWS Lambda, introduced by Amazon in 2014, was the first public cloud infrastructure vendor with an abstract serverless computing offering. It is supported by a number of additional AWS serverless tools such as AWS Serverless Application Model (AWS SAM) Amazon CloudWatch, and others.
Google Cloud Platform offers Google Cloud Functions since 2016.
IBM offers IBM Cloud Functions in the public IBM Cloud since 2016.
Microsoft Azure offers Azure Functions, offered both in the Azure public cloud or on-premises via Azure Stack.