Thoughtworks XConf Tech Talk Series: Serverless vs. Kubernetes when deploying microservices

If many events are simultaneously triggered, the cloud provider auto-scales and you only pay for the executed functions.The other part of the serverless stack is the backend-as-a-service that handles storage, eventing, orchestration, ETL, analytics, etc. Cloud providers ensure a set of tools for end-to-end visibility of function execution and application logging observability.Deployment strategies Kubernetes natively supports rolling updates.


PTI | India | Updated: 24-01-2022 11:38 IST | Created: 24-01-2022 11:38 IST
Thoughtworks XConf Tech Talk Series: Serverless vs. Kubernetes when deploying microservices
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Authors: Ashish Bhalgat, Cloud Solution Architect and Surya Sreedevi Vedula, Quality Analyst Application development and deployment strategies are constantly evolving. While planning for a new microservices-based architecture, architects should think about a deployment strategy – choosing between a serverless function or container orchestration (Kubernetes) or a dedicated Virtual Machine (VM). At this time, a one-size-fits-all solution that delivers applications both economically and at scale does not exist. What is serverless computing? Serverless isn't being devoid of servers. In fact, the servers exist but are managed by the cloud provider.

How is serverless computing different from 'serverful' computing? Let's use a car rental analogy – serverful computing is akin to a regular car rental. Pick your car up, drive it, fill it with fuel, maintain it in a good condition for as long as you are using it and pay for entire days of use. Serverless has more in common with an Uber-like setup; you hitch a ride and get out of the vehicle when you have reached your destination. You only pay for what you use.

To call something a serverless service, it would have to follow four principles: ● Servers need to be hidden ● Pay only for what you use ● Have high availability out of box ● Be able to scale on demand Serverless stack One part of the serverless stack, the function-as-a-service or serverless compute, takes care of abstracting the server. You pack your applications and dependencies in a zip file or a container image and 'give' it to the cloud provider. They will instantiate the container and execute the function on the server – entirely event-driven. If many events are simultaneously triggered, the cloud provider auto-scales and you only pay for the executed functions.

The other part of the serverless stack is the backend-as-a-service that handles storage, eventing, orchestration, ETL, analytics, etc. Many cloud provider services have adopted a 'pay-for-use' pricing. For e.g. Azure Cosmos DB, a NoSql DB store now offers serverless pricing where one pays only for request units consumption (or read and write operations) and the amount of data stored. Our suggestion is for architects to have a serverless mindset and use the entire serverless stack when building the solution. You will be able to access 9's reliability at a 'pay-as-you-go' cost. Serverless vs. Kubernetes Every microservice should be independently deployable, scalable, monitorable and reliable. To meet these needs, you need a platform that can auto-scale, perform resource management for efficient utilization of underlying infra, have an ecosystem for observability and allow various deployment strategies at optimized costs.

We compare Kubernetes and serverless on each of these factors: Auto-scaling Kubernetes can scale in three dimensions – increasing the number of pods, pod size and nodes in the cluster. It can scale based on server metrics like CPU and memory or custom metrics like the number of requests per second per pod.

In serverless computing, scaling happens as per the application itself. For instance, Lambda can auto-scale exponentially up to burst traffic. After that, linearly up to concurrent limits. These limits apply to all functions in a region, so care needs to be taken that the maximum concurrent instances in applications falls below the limits. The concurrency limit encourages fine grained function with small execution times.

Resource management In Kubernetes, CPU and memory requirements for service are specified at the pod level. However, in serverless, memory requirements are mentioned in the deployment manifest which implicitly decides the CPU allocation.

Observability Most organizations use tools on top of Kubernetes clusters for collection, aggregation and visualization of logs, metrics and traces. They install these tools as operators or demon sets in the cluster. Since logs and telemetrics grow in large volume, they need storage services provisioned and managed at scale.

With serverless, the metrics are slightly different. You need to measure metrics of function with respect to the cost model. Due to the concurrency limit, you will also need to watch the number of concurrent executions and processes along with their duration. Cloud providers ensure a set of tools for end-to-end visibility of function execution and application logging observability.

Deployment strategies Kubernetes 'natively' supports rolling updates. For blue/green and canary, you need add ons. In serverless, the API gateway can ship traffic to two Lambda versions – which can be used for blue/green or canary.

Cost When deciding between Kubernetes and serverless, it is essential to look at the total cost of ownership – including infrastructure, development and maintenance costs. While cloud providers offer discounts for reserved instances, it can be leveraged economically to deploy Kubernetes clusters, but operating costs of running clusters, manageability and observability should also be accounted for – Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). This means applications with medium and low traffic or unpredictable traffic patterns – gain considerable savings in the serverless model. For high-traffic applications with predictable load patterns, Kubernetes could cost less.

Key takeaways If you are planning to move to serverless computing models for microservices-based applications, here are some pointers to help you through the decision-making process: Standardization/vendor lock-in: there is no Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF)-backed serverless codebase like there is for Kubernetes. Each provider has its own implementation and features. You will need to adapt to these differences.

Execution time: long-running or batch processing kinds of use cases cannot run seamlessly with serverless yet. There is limited support for runtime and languages as well.

Security: there is a common misconception that as servers are abstracted, there is no multi-tenancy. Not always true. You will need to shell out more for dedicated servers.

Cold start: to overcome the problem of latency in serverless, cloud providers have launched pre-warmed instances. If your application is latency-sensitive, use cloud providers.

Full-stack serverless: to make the most of serverless computing, leverage it across the stack and not just compute.

Flexible deployment models: it is recommended to design your applications so that switching deployment models between serverless and container orchestrator is as economical as possible. This can be achieved by enforcing strict separation between what is dependent on the actual target platform, what is common and independent. You will need to enforce a neat separation between business logic and deployment related code, to reap switching the deployment benefits. Containers are great for predictable workload, heavy traffic, high compute intensive and long batch running applications. They are proven and you should consider leveraging cloud provider managed services.

Serverless is the mindset of 'owning less and building more.' Serverless offers faster time to market, high elasticity, availability and low entry cost. Most organizations and startups start with serverless and focus on solving customer use cases.

We recommend building using modular code patterns so that deployment models are flexible and easily change-able. Serverless are effective for event streaming, IoT data processing, chatbots and cron jobs. But they are not the best solution for every use case.

As described above, every choice comes with a specific trade-off. The right decision depends on the goals you want to achieve. Hence, said Containers are great packaging abstractions for the past but serverless is reimagined for the future. Definitely first steps towards No-ops.

For more information on this subject, here is a video of our detailed XConf talk. XConf is Thoughtworks' annual technology event created by technologists. It is designed for technologists who care deeply about software and its impact on the world. Thoughtworks is a global software and technology consultancy that integrates strategy, design and engineering. We are 10,000+ people strong across 48 offices in 17 countries. Over the last 25+ years, we've delivered extraordinary impact together with our clients by helping them solve complex business problems with technology.

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(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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