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Serverless Architecture
Definition
Serverless Architecture allows you to build and run applications without managing servers. The cloud provider automatically provisions, scales, and manages the infrastructure needed to run your code. You only pay for the compute time you consume, with automatic scaling from zero to peak demand.
When to Use It
- Building event-driven applications with unpredictable traffic
- You want to minimize operational overhead
- Applications with sporadic or variable workloads
- Rapid prototyping and MVPs
- Backend for mobile or web applications
- Data processing pipelines and ETL jobs
Pros & Cons
✓ Pros
- No server management required
- Automatic scaling (including to zero)
- Pay only for execution time
- Built-in high availability
- Faster time to market
- Reduced operational costs
✗ Cons
- Cold start latency issues
- Vendor lock-in concerns
- Limited execution duration
- Debugging can be challenging
- Not suitable for long-running processes
- Stateless execution model
Architecture Diagram
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Client / Browser │
└──────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────┘
│ HTTPS Request
▼
┌───────────────────┐
│ API Gateway │
│ (REST/GraphQL) │
└─────────┬─────────┘
│ Triggers
┌─────────────┼─────────────┐
│ │ │
▼ ▼ ▼
┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐
│ Lambda │ │ Lambda │ │ Lambda │
│Function 1│ │Function 2│ │Function 3│
│(Auth) │ │(CRUD) │ │(Process) │
└────┬─────┘ └────┬─────┘ └────┬─────┘
│ │ │
│ ▼ │
│ ┌───────────┐ │
│ │ DynamoDB │ │
│ │ Table │ │
│ └───────────┘ │
│ │
▼ ▼
┌─────────┐ ┌────────────┐
│ Cognito │ │ S3 Bucket │
│ User │ │ (Storage) │
│ Pool │ └────────────┘
└─────────┘
Event Sources:
• API Gateway (HTTP requests)
• S3 Events (file uploads)
• Database Streams (DynamoDB)
• Scheduled Events (CloudWatch)
• Message Queues (SQS)