Look Ma, No Server: Corporate IT Expects 'Serverless' Computing to Trigger Big Changes
October 26 2016 - 03:51PM
Dow Jones News
By Sara Castellanos
Corporate IT executives see promise in an emerging technology in
which the physical and virtual servers that are traditionally used
to run applications becomes invisible to the developers building
the apps.
It's called serverless computing, and according to General
Electric Corp.'s chief technology officer, it's what the "cool
kids" are thinking about.
GE CTO Chris Drumgoole predicts widespread adoption of the
technology could be seen between 2019 and 2026, but analysts
caution that it's part of the continuing shift to cloud services,
which requires a drastic organizational change within
enterprises.
Analysts say serverless computing refers to the use of
infrastructure usually offered by a cloud provider, in which
developers run applications on the cloud provider's services
instead of on their own servers. As a result, they can focus only
on writing code, without having to manage servers. The process, in
essence, becomes "serverless" for the customer.
The provider runs the customer's application on its own servers
or inside "containers," where they're broken into small pieces and
placed into software shells, allowing the pieces to be distributed
to any sort of device, in a digitally orchestrated manner, and at
lower cost. Enterprise customers or IT departments pay the provider
every time their code is triggered, instead of doling out cash up
front for machines or virtual servers that they may not need.
It's an evolution of a move toward cloud computing and greater
efficiency, which began years ago when physical servers largely
were replaced with virtual technology or software.
"If you're moving into the next generation of big shifts like
[artificial intelligence] and machine learning, the underlying
infrastructure that supports that stuff will be serverless," said
Mr. Drumgoole following a Monday conference hosted by the Open
Networking User Group, where business IT leaders advocate for
creating open networking standards.
Companies pioneering the use of so-called serverless computing
include International Business Machines Corp., Alphabet Inc.'s
Google and Amazon.com Inc.'s Amazon Web Services, which has been
offering serverless computing services with AWS Lambda since late
2014.
With Lambda, there are no servers for the customer to deploy or
manage. Rather, software developers write applications and upload
their code to the Lambda compute service.
Lambda manages the code and runs it on AWS's own servers. Lambda
then executes those applications at scale and bills for every
millisecond that a code is triggered.
Matt Wood, general manager of product strategy for Amazon Web
Services, says Lambda eliminates the need for customers to buy,
manage or maintain any virtual or physical servers.
"It's...a world where developers just have to worry about the
code they write," said Dr. Wood, who holds a Ph.D. in machine
learning and bioinformatics.
Other cloud services companies are launching competitors to
Lambda. Google Cloud Functions, which is currently open to limited
customers for testing, launched in February. IBM also launched a
Lambda competitor in February, known as Bluemix OpenWhisk. IBM's
serverless computing platform runs on open source software, so
developers can install it on their own machines and plug in their
own services.
"One of the largest pivots in cloud computing that we're going
to make in the next couple years is moving into serverless
computing," said Damion Heredia, vice president of IBM Bluemix's
cloud platform and design. "That's why we bet on it being open,
because without that, you're locked into each vendor."
As businesses continue their shift to cloud computing,
serverless computing will become a permanent feature of cloud
services, analysts say. It's particularly useful when running
applications for internet-connected devices such as Amazon's Echo,
because the apps require massive amounts of requests of short
duration.
But companies have different needs, so the technology will never
be used unilaterally, said Yefim Natis, vice president and research
fellow at Gartner Inc. It's still years away from even becoming
mainstream, he said.
"It cannot take on the world," Mr. Natis said. "What we have
today is Day One."
Write to Sara Castellanos at sara.castellanos@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 26, 2016 15:36 ET (19:36 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
General Electric (NYSE:GE)
Historical Stock Chart
From Feb 2024 to Mar 2024
General Electric (NYSE:GE)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2023 to Mar 2024