Serverless versus Micro-services

Foreword

Both serverless and micro services were developed to rule out a few problems in the technical world and they both act as web services. Still, they are two different concepts. As we all know, serverless and micro services are technologies used to enhance the experience of using cloud computing applications.

Cloud computing applications are the ones that run on cloud that is, on internet or any machine. Servers are the computer programs and set of instructions that are used to connect several computers, known as clients, to a single computer.

Micro services are loosely coupled, independently deployable, independently developed and dynamically scaled. Whereas, the maintaining and other features that are not included in the coding of a program is done by a serverless service provider. Many people wrongly understand serverless as something that does not involve server, which is obviously not true.

Let us know about the two terms in detail.

What are serverless?

Serverless are programs that take care of servers on behalf of the customer. There are things other than coding that needs to be done while developing a website. Memory extension, data saving, modifications etc. need to be done. These are done by services called VPS. Whenever the servers go down or go slow, these serverless services take up the initiative to modify the servers.

There are serverless providing companies that you need to hire to avail their services. There is a benefit of these companies, they charge according to your server’s consumption. This means that there is no monthly subscription for such services, the modifications your server will need they will calculate their charges and give you the invoice. In other words, if there are only five users that unnecessarily you would not have to purchase the whole package kind of thing.

There are different servers for different services but all that is taken care by a single serverless.

Pros of serverless

• You can focus more on the server than worrying about its speed, modifications, bugs, and memory limitations.
• No need to pay extra for lesser services.
• These are best if your client base is going to increase and you are going to need more space.
• It boosts the productivity of your websites because now there is no need to worry about the maintenance of servers.
• It simplifies the complicated operations.

Cons of serverless

• It may result in response latency. Response latency is the term used for the time between request for action and performance of that action.
• If you have a small client base, serverless would not result in a very cost-effective service.
• It might hinder your security. Not all serverless service providers are trustworthy. Do research about the best ones in the market.
• Debugging could be an issue because it is mostly difficult to debug a serverless code.

What are Micro services?

These are the services that are enclosed in your website or application.  These are also the services that completely drive your application and enhance the experience of users while using your website. As we have already mentioned, there are different servers for different services, but they are all interconnected. This is called micro service architecture, which is an antonym for monoliths or single functionality entity.

For example in an e-commerce website, There are a few services provided by them, like adding to wish list, adding to cart, purchasing, making payments. These are a series of micro services. There is no hard and fast procedure or rule that an app needs to follow while outlining micro services.

Pros of micro services

• If you want to develop your website using different coding languages, you can do it easily because of micro services.
• These different micro services can interact with each other using API and communication protocols but do not depend on each other. This will result in independency of services.
• They can be developed independently, hence it promotes single responsibility.

Cons of micro services

• Since they need to interact with other micro services, security issues may arise.
• Since they need to contact other micro services, response latency may occur. We can also say that interaction between micro services may also result in poor performance.
• These are counted as extra requirements and may charge more to the small companies. In other words it may not be that cost-effective to smaller companies as much as to bigger websites.
• To maintain micro services, we need more man power, which would ultimately lead to more cost and more head-aches.

Difference between micro service and serverless

Serverless are the programs proving maintenance and modification for your server. It is a service provided for your servers. Whereas, micro services is the several small services provided by a website. They can be e-commerce websites.

Bottom line

We hope that we were able to clearly state the difference between serverless and micro services. Although they are web services but they serves two completely different motives.

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