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Author: Kyle @ Contributor of PermaDAO
Translator: Kyle @ Contributor of PermaDAO
Reviewer: Xiaosong HU @ Contributor of PermaDAO
Cloud computing is a computing paradigm based on the internet, where shared software and hardware resources are provided on-demand to computers and other devices as per the requirements, using the computing infrastructure provided by the service providers. — Wikipedia
In the past decade, cloud computing has gained prominence, becoming not only a crucial foundation for mobile and content services but also gradually replacing traditional enterprise computing environments. Servers, as the core of computing hardware, have diversified and evolved to meet various computing needs.
The origin of cloud computing is debatable, but many attribute its creation to Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google. He first introduced the concept of cloud computing at a search engine conference in 2006, and it has been around for almost two decades now. To trace the evolution of cloud computing, it has roughly gone through the following stages:
| Stage | Description |
|---|---|
| Physical Servers | In the early days of the internet, web infrastructure relied on large, expensive, and hard-to-maintain physical servers, leading to issues like resource wastage and application conflicts. |
| Virtualization | Virtualization simulated physical server hardware through software, increasing program portability but still requiring consideration of hardware needs and operational costs. |
| Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) | IaaS provides network, storage, and computing resources that customers use on-demand, reducing hardware management costs but still requiring infrastructure management. |
| Platform as a Service (PaaS) | PaaS is a service on top of IaaS, simplifying application deployment and management but sometimes restricting language, libraries, and functionality choices. |
| Cloud Computing | Cloud computing provides computing, storage, and services over the internet, allowing users easy access to and use of resources without depending on local devices, offering a flexible and convenient way for computing and resource management. |
In the era of rapidly advancing cloud computing technology, a natural outcome has emerged: Cloud Computing 2.0—Serverless.
The serverless architecture was first introduced by Iron in 2012, but it gained recognition when Amazon Web Services launched Amazon Lambda in 2014. As a specific computing model within cloud computing, Serverless allows developers to focus solely on writing code without worrying about the management of underlying servers. The Serverless architecture consists of FaaS + BaaS.
Serverless has three core values: elastic scalability, usage-based payment, and operational simplification, making it considered the next-generation computing engine. As Johann, the author of the Serverless Whitepaper, points out—Serverless simplifies cloud computing programming, representing another revolution in programmer productivity, similar to the evolution from assembly language to high-level languages.