What is Serverless

These types of architecture are usually used for fast deployment and efficient scaling. There is a Backend as a Service (BaaS), which you can use as a normal backend with API. The other type is Functions as a Service (FaaS), in which they have one job, understandably they are smaller since they are doing one job. It is recommended to keep them as small as possible, you need to avoid growing them large, as you will start facing limitations that will prevent you from solving issues and doing special operations.

Backend as a service (BaaS)

BaaS is a pre-built backend with an API so that developers can use it to build their applications. BaaS can be larger than Faas, or a group of FaaS make one BaaS, it's a group of functions that are accessible through some API. You need to be careful to not add a lot of functionality, if a BaaS took 3 months to develop, you need to assume you will need 9 months to switch it to a microservice.

Function as a service (FaaS)

FaaS are usually small and they do one job. This is just a function where it will be executed for you in the cloud, they are called lambda functions. You can do anything within this function, the platform itself will handle scaling and library dependencies. One of the first cloud computing platforms to provide this was amazon with AWS lambda.

Real-world example

At one of my previous jobs, we utilized a FaaS to retrieve files from an FTP server, save them, and process them.
This helped us because we did not need an extra service just for this functionality, and we did not need any custom steps for this.
Another case is to use the BaaS for analytics, authentication, or notifications.

Benefits

• One main benefit of this architecture is that you don't need to worry about deployment and scaling servers on demand, this is done automatically.
• Simplicity: You can focus on writing code and not worry about deployment and not worry about infrastructure.
• Another benefit is that you don't need to worry about libraries and language support.
• Cost saving: Because you don't have to scale up or down manually, everything is done automatically so it is more cost-efficient.

Drawbacks

• BaaS can change unexpectedly, so you need to make sure the versioning is not changing and breaking your functionality.
• You should be careful of the trap which it allows you to build very easily but usually the very special changes you want to do, you will not be allowed.
• If your company works with sensitive data this type of architecture is not recommended for that.
• Different platforms have different limits and delay ex: Execution duration and cold start.

Conclusion

Serverless architecture is very useful for a small functionality in which you don't want any cost in deployment, maintenance, and scalability. Cloud services will provide you with the best response time and handle the scaling.
You need to be careful to only expand on them a little, otherwise, you might end up asking something that is not possible. Overall, if your project involves writing and deploying small, single-purpose functions, then FaaS could be a good fit.