Welcome to The Long View—where we peruse the news of the week and strip it to the essentials. Let’s work out what really matters.
This week: Google’s full-stack, browser based development environment in the cloud. It’s not just a Copilot clone, but aims to help you “get an app from zero to production.” (more…)
When AWS announced Lambda–a serverless Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) technology offering–the idea of encapsulating a specific task into a function that resides in the cloud was introduced into mainstream access.
Now, with the rising popularity of microservices, DevOps is waking up the benefits of FaaS where it is used to build and maintain enterprise applications in agile environments. The move to serverless architecture using FaaS is one organizations are now increasingly likely to investigate in 2019.
Given these industry realities, we need to ask ourselves what place will FaaS take in contemporary computing environments and how will its core efficiency proposition enable DevOps to flourish and improve experiences for users at every level?
First let’s remind ourselves what any FaaS platform really does. It allows us to focus on developing and executing business logic because server provisioning and management is handled automatically at the backend. Developers can deploy applications into a space with zero server administration, yet with the ability to enjoy high availability and high scalability.
The impact for DevOps is immediately apparent.
Developers are able to work in a zone where they are essentially abstracted away from the servers their applications live and breath on. The services developers draw upon are event-driven and eminently scalable. Even if they have to scale by some massively parallel level of magnitude, server-side service optimization is handled at the backend by the FaaS vendor.
At the same time, the cost structure is shifted and operations staff are able to oversee compute billing models based on actual execution of functions, as opposed to being dependent on the physical size of a pre-provisioned cloud server established at best guess size and core optimization parameters for compute, I/O, storage, analytics and so on.
If we have so far looked at the FaaS efficiencies that reside at the backend server-side management element of the equation, let us also turn our attention toward the way FaaS allows developers to reduce the amount of time it takes to deploy code in a new environment.
Adopting a FaaS-centric approach to application architectures allows the developer team to encapsulate specific software tasks into functions, hence the name. For a mortgage calculation application, for example, we can encapsulate functions such as interest rate calculations, payments, length of contract etc., and then place those functions in the cloud on a FaaS platform. The FaaS provider is responsible for the hosting of that function and also looks after the heavy lifting associated with availability and redundancy.
The benefit to developers is a very rapid environment for deploying new code, getting feedback and iterating. The operations benefit is one of hosted happiness as the FaaS provider shoulders a significant administrative burden.
FaaS and microservices are now increasingly viable options in any modern technology architecture and it’s important to distinguish between the two.
Microservices are made up of self-contained elements of business logic designed to perform a very specific job. They are optimized for their single responsibility and can communicate with other services via application programming interfaces (APIs). Further, they can be developed, deployed and scaled independently without impacting other services.
A FaaS-based approach is well-suited for transactional workloads where code is run periodically. This is also a technology that is quicker to establish, as and when needed. A FaaS function might also make a call to other application logic that (in the case of our mortgage example) calculates interest rate and so on.
Like any still-nascent technology, FaaS has its functionality flaws and challenges. The automated nature of foundational provisioning in FaaS is great news, but it’s not a panacea.
Why? For one, DevOps teams will have limits on the debugging capabilities for applications that run on FaaS DNA. Also, functions are instantiated and then de-instantiated as needed, which requires time, especially for a cold start. This process can cause unwanted delays in time-sensitive operations. The transient nature of FaaS also impedes state preservation among dependent functions, which requires careful design considerations.
FaaS is a place where the burden of server resources control has been shifted. But there’s no such thing as a free lunch and this means DevOps won’t be able to interject some level of application monitoring function at the server level itself. You’ll need to know more about your FaaS-based application before you FaaS it up.
We must also remember for any distributed software architecture, there’s an up-front responsibility to design to accommodate the limitations and increasing options available in modern services.
Examples of FaaS now extend beyond AWS Lambda, we can also look to Microsoft for Azure Functions, Google for Cloud Functions, IBM OpenWhisk, Oracle Functions, Fn Project and IronFunctions with its Iron.io platform.
This sector of the software landscape is guaranteed to grow over the coming years. FaaS can be an appropriate option in an overall software architecture, but there are specific limitations, so choose wisely. Observing the evolution of FaaS over the coming years will be a fascinating process.
Agile environments increasingly are becoming a popular option for organizations large and small. Although initially created as a solution for small software development teams with short budgets and complex scopes, it’s been adopted (and refashioned) for all industries and team sizes.
The agile approach seems obvious to us now, but back in 2001 when the idea was incepted, it was a revolutionary one: Give employees the room they need to get the job done and let them do it. Throw out extensive documentation and overbearing technical documents for constantly moving, constantly changing, constantly reassessing and growing workplaces.
“In 2001, a group of experienced software developers got together and realized that they were collectively practicing software development differently from the classical waterfall methodology,” wrote Isaac Sacolick for InfoWorld’s “What is Agile Methodologies?”
“This group came up with the Agile Manifesto that documented their shared beliefs in how a modern software development process should operate,” he continued. “They stressed collaboration over documentation, self-organization rather than rigid management practices and the ability to manage to constant change rather than lock yourself to a rigid waterfall development process. From those principles was born the agile methodology for software development.”
An agile approach pursues the production of top-tier software. Without an agile framework (or something like it), there is often a distinct lack of purpose-driven principles. From an agile framework, companies can create strong cultures.
Why is higher purpose so important? After the great recession hit in 2008, we were left with some very important questions amid a financial disaster, the likes of which hadn’t been seen in 80 years. When the economic foundations of our world were rattled, many firms were forced to answer what their higher purpose really was.
Without the promise of a steady paycheck or a fat margin, there is all too often an absence of purpose. Even when the economy is performing in a spectacular manner, a lack of higher meaning pervades many mediocre organizations.
“Although a higher purpose does not guarantee economic benefits, we have seen impressive results in many organizations,” reported Harvard Business Review writer Robert E. Quinn and Anjan V. Thakor. “And other research—particularly the Gartenberg study, which included 500,000 people across 429 firms and involved 917 firm-year observations from 2006 to 2011—suggests a positive impact on both operating financial performance (return on assets) and forward-looking measures of performance (Tobin’s Q and stock returns) when the purpose is communicated with clarity. So, the purpose is not just a lofty ideal; it has practical implications for your company’s financial health and competitiveness.”
Joe Robles, the former CEO of USAA, found this utter lack of meaning to be of immense concern for every level of his organization. Concerned about his employees, he visited them to discern where the company culture could improve. He was surprised to find that his call center employees were happy to collaborate on every level.
It became his mission to imbue this type of mission-driven attitude to every employee and everyone in leadership, through major cultural education. How can other organizations emulate USAA’s successful purpose-driven culture? There are a few steps to achieving this goal.
The first step is to imagine the workforce you wish to have. In agile environments, there is a focus on efficiency. There is no unnecessary research, documentation or meetings; there are only results. Successful outcomes, however, only come from motivated, purpose-driven individuals. That means we must ascend above the employer-employee relationship and, instead, swap it with an inspiring mentorship program.
The next step is to make this dream a reality. Craft an authentic message, promote that message, then promote the supplementation of that message with continual learning, training and dialogue.
Agile environments foster meaning and cooperation. Instead of employees that mindlessly listen to the autocratic directives of their superiors, they are part of a task force who shoulder the responsibility of reaching a higher goal together. This means some critical and divergent thinking must be fostered, which can be frightening to traditionalists of all forms.
In agile environments, you will need to start asking questions that help expand how the team thinks and operates. In addition, listening, analysis and reflection skills must be a primary focus for a higher meaning to be divined.