cloudserverlessserverless-frameworkfaas

Serverless Computing versus Function As A Service (FaaS)


From Azure Docs:

Serverless computing is a cloud-hosted execution environment that runs your code but completely abstracts the underlying hosting environment. You create an instance of the service, and you add your code; no infrastructure configuration or maintenance is required, or even allowed.

They seem to give serverless computing its own category, which is different than PaaS, Caas or FaaS.

My issue is that I don't quiet understand the difference between it and FaaS.

Where does Serverless computing stand from IaaS, PaaS, CaaS, SaaS, FaaS ?


Solution

  • You're right, it may be a bit confusing if you're getting started on it. Initially Serverless was used to describe

    -Backend as a Service

    -Functions as a Service

    more info: https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/serverless.html

    Now, many things evolved to Serverless approach. You can pick the latest announcements of SQL Database Serverless, Cosmos Db Serverless etc. So in summary, just consider that serverless is something triggered by event, and billed according to compute resources used and which you don't handle/manage the underlying infrastructure.

    -IaaS is not Serverless

    -PaaS is not Serverless

    -SaaS is not Serverless (but can be implemented using Serverless)

    -CaaS can be serverless

    -FaaS is serverless