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Lesson 1 — What Serverless Really Means

Start with the truth​

Serverless does not mean “no servers.” It means you don’t manage them.

In traditional systems, you think about:

  • Servers
  • Capacity
  • Patching
  • Uptime

In serverless, you think about:

  • Events
  • Functions
  • Permissions
  • Data
  • Observability

What problem serverless solves​

Serverless removes:

  • Idle infrastructure
  • Manual scaling
  • Operational overhead

So teams can move faster and focus on business value.

What you still own (important)​

You are responsible for:

Serverless removes servers, not responsibility.

Simple Explanation​

What it is​

This lesson helps you build the right mental model: serverless means the provider runs the servers, while you focus on code, events, and data.

Why we need it​

Many beginners think serverless is magic with no responsibilities. In reality, you trade server management for architecture decisions, security, and observability.

Benefits​

  • Faster delivery because you do not manage servers.
  • Clear ownership of what you control vs what the provider controls.
  • Better cost alignment for bursty workloads.

Tradeoffs​

  • Less control over the runtime environment.
  • More design discipline needed for stateless, event-driven systems.
  • Cold starts can affect user-facing latency.

Real-world examples (architecture only)​

  • Signup event → Function → Store user in database → Send welcome email.
  • Nightly timer → Function → Generate report → Store in object storage.
  • Step Functions – workflows

Mental model to remember​

Serverless mental model

If you can explain your system using that sentence, you’re thinking serverless.

Project (Cloud-Agnostic)​

Describe a simple serverless workflow using the mental model: Event → Service → Data → Logs.

Deliverables:

  1. Define the event source.
  2. Describe the compute step.
  3. Choose the data store.
  4. Explain how you will observe it (logs/metrics).

If you want feedback, email your write-up to [email protected].

References​