Cloud Computing Intermediate

What is Serverless Computing?

A cloud execution model where the provider manages servers and dynamically allocates resources, charging only for actual usage.

Serverless does not mean "no servers" — it means developers do not manage them. Code runs in stateless functions triggered by events (HTTP requests, file uploads, database changes). The cloud provider handles scaling, patching, and availability.

Services include AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, Google Cloud Functions, and Cloudflare Workers. Benefits include zero server management, automatic scaling, and pay-per-invocation pricing. Limitations include cold starts, execution time limits, and vendor lock-in.

Learn More About This Topic

AWS Lambda & Serverless for Beginners

Related reading

Cloud Computing Basics

Related reading

AWS EC2 & VPC for Linux Administrator

Related reading

Related Terms

Cloud Monitoring

Services that collect, analyze, and alert on metrics, logs, and traces from cloud infrastructure and applications.

Virtual Machine (VM)

A software-based emulation of a physical computer that runs its own operating system and applications.

Elastic Load Balancing

An AWS service that automatically distributes incoming application traffic across multiple targets like EC2 instances and containers.

SaaS (Software as a Service)

A cloud delivery model where software applications are hosted and managed by a provider and accessed by users over the internet.

Lambda Function (Cloud)

An AWS serverless compute service that runs code in response to events without provisioning or managing servers.

Microsoft's cloud computing platform offering IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS services for building, deploying, and managing applications.

View All Cloud Computing Terms →