Leveraging Serverless Architecture

To Gently Break Apart Your Monolith

Linda Nichols

@lynnaloo

Norfolk.js

norfolkjs.org

RevolutionConf

Virginia Beach, VA

www.eta.im

@etechadvisor

The Monolith

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The Monolith

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Single-tiered
Performs all tasks
Not modular
Legacy technology
On-premises/On a Mainframe
Expensive to host/maintain

The Monolith

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The Monolith?

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The Monolith Onion

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Long-lasting, yet perishable
Contains many layers
Difficult to modularize
Messy when applied directly to bare metal
There can be a "smell"

The Monolith Onion

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The Monolith Onion

BREAKING APART the monolith

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Separate the application tiers
Create microservices
Upgrade legacy technology
Re-write application code
Move to "the cloud"

refactoring is expensive

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legacy stays legacy

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Patching is cheap.

works "just fine" now.

containers, containers, containers...

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breaking apart the monolith

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what is serverless

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Serverless Architecture is an event-driven system that uses remote functions (via a BaaS or a FaaS product) without concern for the operations of the containers that execute the code.

Example: AWS with Aws Lambda

serverless functions

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No Ops required*
Developers focus on code
Triggered by internal or external events
Built-in API Gateway
Costs nearly nothing

serverless functions

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serverless functions

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'use strict';

const catNames = require('cat-names');

function getCatName(event, context, callback) {
    callback(null, { payload: `Your cat name is ${catNames.random()}.` });
}

module.exports.getCatName;

Functions are microservices

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Responsible for one specific task
Lightweight and fast
Re-usable
Deployed independently
Stateless
Not dependent on other services

gently break apart the monolith

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Look for functionality that has the fewest dependencies executable by an event:

Cron jobs
Background services
Calls to APIs
Maintenance scripts
Logging/analytics
Message bus

break off serverless microservices

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break off serverless microservices

conclusion

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As more functionality is removed, less compute power is needed for the monolith. Re-engineering a small core is now more manageable and less expensive.

conclusion

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Modernization doesn’t have to be a one-time effort.

Serverless architecture facilitates gradual changes and results in a more immediate reduction in complexity and cost.

Thank You!

@lynnaloo

Photo Credit

@lynnaloo

@PaulCHINJR