The ability to process information in order to take certain actions and provide services is an important venture in our world today and equally important is the way we compute.

It used to be that anyone wishing to host a website, or any online/ web application needed to have a server which had its own series of problems. Procuring or developing one is a time-consuming and expensive venture, not to mention the hassles involved when the server is down. Almost anyone who uses a browser can identify with the frustration that comes with the 404 error. These issues combined led to an innovation in serverless computing.

Why Serverless Computing?

Serverless computing does not mean computing or hosting websites without a server. It is however, a cloud computing model in which a cloud provider manages and runs a server and at the same time manages the allocation of the resources involved. Unlike having a server and underlying infrastructure being managed by a tech company or individual, the serverless computing model allows such companies write and deploy codes and websites without having to pay attention or worry about the server.

Serverless computing is a product of many contributions by individuals and tech giants. Google with the launch if it’s Google App Engine in 2008 was the pioneer in this space. With such an innovation, developers could create and deploy apps without having to worry about server infrastructure.

Amazon also launched Lambda, a similar interface in 2015, but with improvements. Developers could now deploy codes with absolutely no worries operating system maintenance, scalability or locality.

Many tech companies today opt for serverless computing for these reasons:

• Cheaper- not having to worry for the cost of procuring, maintain and upgrading a server allows for time invested in other innovative tech solutions.
• No infrastructure- deploying a code used to mean driver support, redundancy, the swappable components and the fault tolerating nature of the server. With serverless, you just need to think of is resource allocation in terms of memory and runtime which also needs to be paid for.
• Quick deployments and updates are possible as serverless computing has no need for a backend configuration in order to release the working version of any application or website as opposed to time spent managing a server.

Serverless Computing in Nigeria

As much as the world is advancing in cloud and serverless computing, Nigeria still has some challenges:

We face anxiety and fear about the government’s data policies. These policies are a result of the scepticism of governmental officials towards technology. There are security concerns for developers and tech companies in Nigeria. Since in serverless computing, the vendor runs the entire backend configuration process, there is an associated fear for the compromise of personal data. As such, companies like banks and fintechs running online banking apps are weary of adopting this method of computing. Switching between vendors- vendors run the backend services for applications and that increases over reliance. In addition to this, different vendors offer different services from each other, as such, migrating from one server vendor to the other might be a difficult and at times an un-wise decision.

Our way out?

Tech is like football, anything can happen. With the progression of time, improvements will be made to cover the lapses of serverless computing as explained in this article, but still, the good of serverless computing far outweighs the bad. It is undeniably a wonderful feeling to deploy an application or website without having to worry about the infrastructural peculiarities of a server.

The fact remains, Serverless computing is the now and the future, the sooner we get on board, the better for our progression.