With the rise of the serverless trend, the word has come to mean more than just server functions that abstract away their servers.
Nowadays, the term serverless can mean a cloud service or resource that is fully managed by the cloud provider, leaving the user with little to no server management required.
I wrote an article on serverless functions and how they simplify backend development, you can read it here if you're curious.
But what about a serverless database?
How is that different than serverless functions and what are the benefits of a serverless database compared to a non-serverless database?
What Is A Serverless Database?
Perhaps the best way I can put it is that a serverless database is a database that is fully managed by a cloud provider.
A traditional database requires you to deploy your database system on your own server and maintain that server from time to time. Often times updates are needed — or a storage node may crash and fixing it is required before being able to use the database.
By contrast, a serverless database gives you the piece of mind to never think about launching and maintaining that server, nor update or fix it.
A serverless database will automatically scale to meet an increase in traffic of reads and writes.
A great example of a serverless database is Amazon DynamoDB — it requires no maintenance on the user's part, it will scale virtually infinitely and storage nodes auto-heal when needed.
Ultimately, with a serverless database you only focus on data storage instead of database infrastructure.
How Does a Serverless Database Work?
A serverless database abstracts away much of the database management tasks such as backups, maintenance, configurations and updates.
Serverless databases also provide us with robust security, access controls, encryption, and network isolation to keep our data safe and secure.
All these provided features mean one important thing for us, the users:
Serverless databases can be setup and ready to use in minutes.
Some of the major elements serverless databases provide us are the following.
On demand configuration
Serverless databases provide us with the database throughput capacity we need based on the demands of our application.
They can effortlessly scale up to meet high traffic or down to zero to remain cost-efficient so we don't pay for no usage.
Custom Endpoints
With serverless databases, you can configure database endpoints to route the workload to specific configured instances while isolating others [1].
This allows you to load-balance workloads across different instances.
Read Replicas
With serverless databases we can create low latency read replicas to support read requests at large scales.
These read replicas will share the same database storage which will minimize lag time and reduce costs.
Benefits Of A Serverless Database
There are several benefits of serverless databases, let's explore the biggest ones here:
Scalability
One of the most sought after benefits of serverless databases is their inherent ability to scale super high.
With on-demand scaling you ensure that your database can handle sudden spikes in requests without impacting the performance of your application.
This increases the reliability of your database system, and reliability at high scale is very valuable for businesses.
Reliability
Serverless databases often provide high availability which makes your database system not only reliable but resilient to regional failures.
Some methods with which serverless databases offer high reliability is by ensuring data durability through the use of read replicas, multiple availability zones, self-healing storage nodes, fault tolerance and distributed data strategies. [1]
Automated Management
Another highly sought after element of a serverless databases is that they are fully managed by their cloud provider.
Over time your database system will need maintenance and updates to ensure optimal service for your data storage needs.
Instead of you focusing on this heavy maintenance and updates, the cloud provider manages all of these low level tasks, letting you focus only on storage and delivering business value.
Pay-as-you-go Pricing
Lastly, serverless databases use a pay-as-you-go pricing model.
Effectively, this means you only pay for the capacity your application uses. There is no minimum payment.
If your database spends an entire weekend without any interaction, you won't be billed for that time.
This often provides the best cost value for businesses.
Serverless Databases Use Cases
Here are some use cases for going with a serverless database:
Variable Workloads
Sometimes your application will have irregular or unknown usage patterns.
In these situations it is often beneficial to use a serverless database which offers pay per consumption pricing models.
SaaS Applications
Software as a service applications sometimes manage individual database instances for every customer.
A serverless database allows SaaS providers to provision database clusters for each customer without worrying about additional costs. When a database is not in use it will shut down to reduce consumption and costs.
High Scale Databases
Traditional databases are often difficult to scale for high traffic.
Serverless databases allow you to split databases across several instances to improve throughput. You can adjust capacity to automatically match demand.
With a serverless database you always have enough capacity and offer much lower downtime for your customers.
Infrequently Used Applications
Some databases are never used at nights or weekends — such as employee-accessed databases at companies that operate only during typical work hours.
For applications like these, it is often cost inefficient to pay for "always on" database servers.
With serverless databases these companies would only pay for the requests they make and nothing more.
Conclusion
Serverless databases offer a simplified and modern approach to managing data by eliminating the need for manual maintenance and scaling, allowing developers to focus solely on data storage and application development.
The automated management, scalability, reliability, and cost efficiency provided by serverless databases make them an attractive option for a variety of use cases, from SaaS applications to high-scale and variable workloads.
By leveraging serverless databases, businesses can achieve greater flexibility, reduced operational overhead, and optimized resource utilization.
👋 My name is Uriel Bitton and I'm committed to helping you master Serverless, Cloud Computing and AWS.
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Thanks for reading and see you in the next one!
References
- "What is a serverless database?". AWS Website. https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/serverless-database/?trk=faq_cardm
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