The Full Stack Serverless Manifesto

Full Stack Serverless applications incorporate the following three characteristics:

1. Decoupled frontends
2. Infrastructure as code
3. Serverless technologies for maximum scalability with minimum devops

By combining Serverless technologies with end to end full stack architectures, developers are able to pick up, replicate, deploy to the cloud, and iterate on sophisticated scalable cloud applications in a way that, in the past, was not possible to do or accessible for the majority of developers.

Because many Serverless technologies like AWS Amplify, CDK, and the Serverless Framework (among others) are lowering the barrier to entry in building cloud applications with IAC (Infrastructure as Code), there is a new generation of traditionally front-end developers that can use their existing web and mobile skillset to build the types of applications that were traditionally out of their reach.

When I say use their existing skillset, I'm assuming that the typical front end or full stack developer is familiar with the following:

1. JavaScript, TypeScript, or Python
2. Interacting with a CLI
3. A basic understanding of interacting with RESTful and / or GraphQL APIS

Full Stack Serverlesss applications can be shared and deployed as an end to end project without much concern about the developer's local environment because all of the infrastructure is running in the cloud. They can be put down, shared, iterated on, and picked back up with ease.

Back end infrastructure can be created and destroyed within only a few minutes enabling developers to not have to worry about incurring much development cost. Because the services are Serverless, whatever development costs incurred will be low anyway.

Why Serverless

Full Stack Serverless relies heavily on the Serverless philosophy for building out back end functionality. This means that the following are taken into consideration:

1. Developer velocity is valued above service ownership
2. Focus on creating business value vs re-inventing the wheel
3. Total cost of ownership should be understood at a fundamental level (Pay per compute -> variable vs capital expense)
4. Code is a liability
5. If it's available as a service, then it should never be built from scratch
6. Serverless functions fill in the gaps that managed services do not cover

Research also suggests that cloud computing is becoming more and more Serverless, meaning that Serverless is more future-proof than Serverful.

In Cloud Programming Simplified: A Berkeley View on Serverless Computing, the predictions for the future of cloud computing were this:

• We expect new BaaS storage services to be created that expand the types of applications that run well on Serverless computing. Such storage will match the performance of local block storage and come in ephemeral and durable variants. We will see much more heterogeneity of computer hardware for Serverless computing than the conventional x86 microprocessor that powers it today.
• We expect Serverless computing to become simpler to program securely than Serverful computing, benefiting from the high level of programming abstraction and the fine-grained isolation of cloud functions.
• We see no fundamental reason why the cost of Serverless computing should be higher than that of Serverful computing, so we predict that billing models will evolve so that almost any application, running at almost any scale, will cost no more and perhaps much less with Serverless computing.
• The future of Serverful computing will be to facilitate BaaS. Applications that prove to be difficult to write on top of Serverless computing, such as OLTP databases or communication primitives such as queues, will likely be offered as part of a richer set of services from all cloud providers.
• While Serverful cloud computing won’t disappear, the relative importance of that portion of the cloud will decline as Serverless computing overcomes its current limitations.
• Serverless computing will become the default computing paradigm of the Cloud Era, largely replacing Serverful computing and thereby bringing closure to the Client-Server Era.

In the above paper they redefined the term Serverless to be this:

Put simply, Serverless computing = FaaS + BaaS.

The definition of Serverless is no longer only Functions as a service, but now also encompasses backends as a service (Baas). You will also often see Serverless discussed more as a philosophy, strategy, or a spectrum where the end goal is to be "Serverless" vs a black and white description of what Serverless means or is.

In addition to the traditional advantages of Serverless technologies, there is another main reason why Serverless technologies are preferred over Serverful:

Lower barrier to entry for traditionally non-back-end developers

Because developers are leveraging managed services for functionality like authentication and databases and not having to manage infrastructure, it is a lower barrier to entry for new developers than traditional Serverful cloud computing.

For more of my previous thoughts on what Full Stack Serverless means and represents, check out my early 2019 post titled Full-Stack Development in the Era of Serverless Computing