Figure 2: AWS Real-Time Stream Processing
Serverless Reference Architecture
The microservices architecture pattern is another area where serverless func-
tions are gaining momentum. Figure 3 shows a simplified cloud-native archi-
tecture for a microservice function. A more traditional architecture might
include EC2 instances in an auto-scale group behind an ELB in the application
layer and AWS RDS for persistence. But leveraging AWS Lambda and Dyna-
moDB is an option that can provide scalability at lower cost.
Figure 3: AWS Cloud-Native Microservices Architecture
Summing It Up
Serverless is relatively new, but it is gaining an enthusiastic following at a rapid
pace. As more people experiment they are finding it easier to provide scalable
solutions while keeping costs more directly tied to usage. This is extremely attrac-
tive to startups, as well as in the enterprise. As more details are worked out around
security, monitoring and testing, we believe that the use of serverless architec-
tures will continue to grow.
42 | THE DOPPLER | SPRING 2017