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

SLA (Service Level Agreement)

A formal agreement between a service provider and customer defining guaranteed levels of service availability and performance.

IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)

A cloud service model providing virtualized computing resources like servers, storage, and networking over the internet.

Automatically adjusting the number of computing resources based on current demand to maintain performance and optimize costs.

A strategy of using services from multiple cloud providers to avoid vendor lock-in and leverage best-of-breed capabilities.

Cloud Load Balancer

A managed service that distributes incoming network traffic across multiple servers to ensure high availability and optimal resource utilization.

IAM (Identity and Access Management)

A framework for managing digital identities and controlling who can access which cloud resources and services.

View All Cloud Computing Terms →