While this concept may sound counterintuitive — after all, how can an app function without a server? — it’s a powerful model that’s transforming how web applications are developed and deployed.

Here, we will dive deep into what serverless architecture is, how it works, and why it’s revolutionizing web app development. We’ll explore its benefits, common use cases, and the key providers driving this shift.

Let’s explore how serverless architecture is changing the landscape of web apps, enabling businesses to deliver faster, more efficient services with less overhead.

What is Serverless Architecture?

At its core, serverless architecture doesn’t mean there are no servers; rather, it means developers don’t have to worry about managing them. In a serverless model, the cloud provider fully manages the server-side logic and state.

Serverless architecture refers to a cloud-based computing model where developers can run code for web applications without having to manage the underlying infrastructure.

The responsibility of provisioning, scaling, and managing these servers is handled by cloud providers like AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.

With serverless architecture, developers write code, deploy it, and the cloud provider takes care of the rest. This allows companies to focus on building their applications rather than worrying about managing the servers that power them.

The most popular form of serverless computing is Function as a Service (FaaS), where applications are built by composing functions.

These functions run in stateless compute containers that are event-triggered, ephemeral (may last for one invocation), and fully managed by the cloud provider. Examples include AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, and Google Cloud Functions.

The Mechanics of Serverless

Serverless architecture is revolutionizing web app development by offering several powerful features that make it more efficient, scalable, and cost-effective. The key features of servless architecture employed by web apps:

1. Event-Driven Execution

Serverless web apps are built around an event-driven model. This means that application code is executed in response to specific events or triggers, such as an HTTP request, file upload, or a change in a database.

The function (small units of code) is invoked when the event occurs, and it performs its task in a stateless and isolated manner.

Example: In a serverless web app, an image upload to cloud storage can trigger a serverless function that processes the image (e.g., resizing or converting formats) automatically.

2. Automatic Scaling

Serverless platforms automatically scale your application based on the incoming demand.

If there’s a sudden spike in traffic or an increase in requests, the serverless system dynamically provisions the resources needed to handle the load. When demand decreases, resources are automatically scaled back down to optimize costs.

Benefit: Developers don’t have to worry about manually configuring or provisioning additional servers. The serverless platform handles scaling seamlessly.

3. Pay-Per-Use Pricing Model

One of the most appealing aspects of serverless architecture is the pay-as-you-go pricing model. Instead of paying for reserved server instances, you’re only charged when your functions are running.

This means that companies save on costs by only paying for actual execution time and resources used during processing, which can lead to significant cost savings.

Example: If your web app only experiences traffic during business hours, you only pay for the resources used during those hours, as opposed to paying for idle time.

4. Statelessness
In serverless web apps, each function is stateless, meaning it does not retain any information between invocations.

Each execution is independent, and any data that needs to persist (such as user preferences or transactions) must be stored in external services like databases or object storage.

Example: Statelessness allows for better fault tolerance and easy recovery, as there’s no dependency on previous executions or memory. This helps improve the reliability of web apps.

5. Simplified Infrastructure Management

With serverless architecture, developers are abstracted from managing servers, load balancers, and scaling mechanisms.

The cloud service provider automatically takes care of provisioning, managing, and maintaining the infrastructure. Developers only need to focus on writing and deploying their application code.

Benefit: This reduces operational overhead, freeing up developers to focus on building features and improving the application rather than managing infrastructure.

6. High Availability

Serverless platforms are designed for high availability. They distribute workloads across multiple data centers and regions, ensuring that your web app is resilient and highly available. This built-in redundancy helps prevent service downtime and improves overall performance.

Example: If one server location experiences issues, the serverless provider can automatically reroute traffic to a healthy instance in another region, minimizing service disruptions.

7. Faster Time to Market

Since serverless platforms handle most of the infrastructure management, development teams can build and deploy applications much faster.

Without the need to configure servers or set up complex infrastructure, developers can quickly focus on the business logic and functionality of their web apps.

Benefit: Companies can release new features or products faster, gaining a competitive edge in the market.

8. Built-in Security

Many serverless platforms come with built-in security features, such as automatic patching, network isolation, and encrypted data storage. Cloud providers take care of security at the infrastructure level, ensuring that the underlying servers are secure and up-to-date.

Benefit: Serverless architecture offloads security responsibilities to the cloud provider, reducing the risks associated with manual security management and patching.

9. Integrated with Cloud Services

Serverless web apps integrate seamlessly with other cloud services such as storage, databases, APIs, and messaging systems. This deep integration enables developers to use a wide array of cloud-native tools and services without worrying about compatibility or manual configuration.

Example: A serverless app can easily interact with Amazon S3 for file storage, DynamoDB for database services, and Amazon SNS for messaging.

10. Built for Microservices

Serverless architecture is naturally suited for microservices design, where applications are divided into small, independently deployable services.

Each microservice is typically implemented as a serverless function that is triggered by specific events. This decoupling allows each service to be developed, deployed, and scaled independently.

Benefit: Microservices architectures enable faster development cycles, easier updates, and improved maintainability of web applications.

Serverless architecture can be applied to a wide range of applications like microservices, real time data processing, API backend, and file processing.

Challenges and Considerations

While serverless architecture offers numerous advantages, it’s not without its challenges. Understanding these limitations is crucial for making informed decisions when adopting this model.

Cold Starts: One of the primary criticisms of serverless is the latency associated with “cold starts” — the time it takes to initialize a function for the first time or after inactivity. This can be a hurdle for applications requiring real-time responses.

Vendor Lock-in: While serverless platforms offer convenience, deep integration can make switching providers costly and complex.

Debugging and Monitoring: Traditional tools for debugging and monitoring might not be as effective in a distributed, ephemeral environment like serverless, necessitating new strategies or tools.

State Management: Since functions are stateless, managing session data or application state across multiple function calls requires careful planning or reliance on external services.

The Future of Web Apps with Serverless

Looking ahead, serverless architecture promises to redefine web application development:

1. Democratization of Development: By removing the need for server management knowledge, serverless can empower a broader range of developers, including those from non-traditional tech backgrounds, to create complex applications.

2. Microservices Evolution: Serverless naturally aligns with microservices, where applications are broken down into small, independent pieces. This synergy could lead to more modular, resilient, and scalable systems.

3. Edge Computing: With the rise of IoT and the need for low-latency processing, serverless functions could run closer to data sources or users, reducing latency even further through edge computing.

4. Integration with AI/ML: Serverless environments can easily scale to handle the computational demands of AI and machine learning models, making these technologies more accessible to web applications.

5. Security Paradigm Shift: While serverless offers security benefits by abstracting away some vulnerabilities inherent in server management, it also introduces new security considerations, especially around function permissions and data access.

Conclusion

Serverless architecture stands at the forefront of a shift towards more efficient, scalable, and developer-friendly web application development.

While it isn’t a silver bullet and comes with its set of challenges, the advantages it brings to cost, scalability, and developer productivity are compelling.

As the ecosystem around serverless matures, we can expect to see more sophisticated tools for monitoring, debugging, and managing state, further solidifying its place in the future of web apps.

For businesses, adopting serverless might mean not just a technological shift but a cultural one towards more agile, responsive, and cost-effective solutions. As we move forward, serverless isn’t just understanding the future of web apps; it’s actively shaping it.

Kreyon Systems helps you unlock the power of web apps & serverless computing. Scale effortlessly with serverless architecture & transform your business with our solutions. For any queries, please contact us.

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Mobile App Development Trends: Innovations & Trends to Watch

The mobile app landscape is on the cusp of a revolution. Here’s a look at the latest trends and innovations in mobile app development.

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PWA is making it possible for many businesses to combine their mobile and web teams. The experience between mobile site and app is blurring these days. It no longer serves a great deal of purpose for most organisations to have separate apps and mobile websites. Many of them are now combining their apps and mobile site into one.

With the advent and advancements in progressive web apps, the best of mobile sites and apps can be combined with PWAs.

The mobile app users have had their reasons for not switching to the mobile web, but with PWAs most of their concerns are addressed. A progressive web app offers app shell, offline access, navigation bar, performance and even many device specific features.

Here we explore reasons your business can integrate web and mobile teams using progressive web apps.

1. No need to have Separate Teams:

Most businesses also find it hard to maintain separate platform teams for Android, iOS & other platform apps. Supporting multiple platforms can be tedious for companies. There are often separate platform teams for every platform and they need to synchronise all changes for consistent user experience.

It is also hard to synchronize things between web and mobile teams. There is additional cost and time associated with the developments. With mobile site and PWA, a single codebase can serve for web and mobile users. The time to market and cost of developments are also reduced with PWA.

2. Easier Accessibility for Customers:

Accessing a mobile site or PWA is very easy for customers. They can access it through browser or add the PWA to their mobile home screens. With the overload of apps, customers often find it hard to find them on app stores.

The PWAs don’t require any install time and can be used instantly without going through app stores.  It provides a much more convenient option for customers. Trivago, the travel related app saw an increase of 150% people who added its PWA to their home screen.

The Google case study on Twitter progressive web app found an increase of 65% increase in pages per session, 75% increase in tweets sent  and 20% decrease in bounce rate.

3. Consistent Experience:

Consistency is synonymous with good experience for users. Today when users have plethora of devices and platforms, it is easier to get lost. Consistent user experience, design and functionality can make life easier for customers.

A progressive web app or mobile website can help businesses to maintain consistent experience. The consistent experience can help to improve visitor engagement, conversions and business opportunities for brands.

Pinterest rebuilt their mobile site as a progressive web app with amazing results. The core engagements increased by 60%. Pinterest saw an increase of 44% in user generated ad revenue & time spent on the site increased by 40% too.

4. Search Engine Visibility

The world’s most convenient source of information is Google. Most of our basic  queries start with a simple online search. When you build a PWA or use mobile web, the chances of users finding you are much higher compared to an app. The progressive web apps are optimised for search engine optimisation and help users find your site easily.

Although, Google doesn’t give any preference to PWAs, but they do cover the basic needs for a site to rank higher by design. The progressive web apps have optimised loading time, include meta data, mobile friendly design, keywords in headings, are accessed over https, which helps with SEO.

5. App Stores

Statista reports, as of March 19, there are more than 2.1 million apps on Google play, over 1.8 million apps on Apple’s App & over 0.669 million apps on Windows store.  The app stores have become overcrowded. When you submit your new app to these stores, chances are that your app will be unnoticed. No one will bother about your new app & you still have to go through the pain to submit the app.

The progressive web apps offer an alternative to App stores. No more stringent guidelines, policies and waiting for reviews of your app. You can create your progressive web app and make it available instantly for the users.

The progressive web app can be accessed through the URL or the mobile. With PWA there is also no need to update your app on App stores after every update. The users are able to instantly access the latest versions of your app automatically.

Conclusion

According to U.S. Mobile App Report by ComScore, mobile web drives traffic growth. The report indicates that audience reach via the web is three times more than that of mobile apps. Simply put mobile web matters more than ever. With progressive web apps, it is quite possible to combine the mobile site and app experience like never before.

Your business may be able to deliver a compelling and end to end experience for users with progressive web apps. In most situations, the native app for your business may not be needed. If you need any assistance to build progressive web apps for your business or have any questions for us. Please get in touch.

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Why Progressive Web Apps are the future of Web Development

PWA‘s speed, reliability, and offline functionality make them the future of web development, delivering engaging and user-centric experiences across all devices. This video explains why Progressive Web Apps are the future of Web Development.

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So, what exactly are progressive web apps? Well, progressive web apps are regular web pages but can appear to the user as a native app. They combine the best of the app and web worlds. They are accessed through the modern browsers and take advantage of features like service workers and web app manifests. These features make it possible for the progressive web app to be accessed in offline mode, handle push notifications and receive updates.

As of 2017, for an app to be called progressive web app,

• Secured Origin: The site should use display data using https connections. Mixed content is not allowed.
• Offline Functionality: The app should work in offline mode (even if it is a custom offline page). For offline mode, the progressive web apps require service workers.
• Reference a W3C Compliant Web App Manifest file with at least the four key properties: name, short_name, start_url, and display (with a value of standalone or fullscreen).

Progressive web apps has garnered a lot of attention since it was proposed by Google in 2015. The ease of development, improvement of user experience, performance etc make it a very appealing proposition for mobile web.

1) Responsive

Progressive web apps are designed to work on different screens and devices. These apps are designed to work and provide native look and feel on desktops, laptops, table and other mobile devices. The responsive design allows the web app to adapt according to the device of the users.

2) Progressive

The web apps are designed to work for all users across various browsers. The aim of the progressive apps is to improve continually in principle. The constant evolution of web technologies is driving the progressive web apps.

3) Offline-first

The traditional web applications had limitations working offline. However, PWAs are not dependent on internet connection. The service workers ensure that the app content is available in offline or low internet connectivity.

4) UI/UX

The progressive web apps have a native application’s look and feel. The interactions, navigation and user experience of progressive web apps are on par with native apps. Progressive web apps support slick and animations in UI. The progressive apps can be accessed in full screen mode.

They feel like apps because of the app shell model which separates the application functionality from the application content. With good UI and UX designs, it is hard to differentiate between native and progressive web apps.

5) Always Fresh

The concept of service workers keeps the content of the up to date. The data is always fresh. The data synchronization is done in the background by the service workers. The progressive web apps use the App Shell model to keep the shell of the app UI and content separated. These are also cached separately, improving the data synchronization and loading times for the app.

6) Safe & Reliable

These apps used secured connections to ensure safety of the data. The progressive web apps work with native APIs and service workers that deal with sensitive data. The data is delivered over https connections only providing them protection against snooping and network attacks.

7) Flexibility for Installation

The progressive web apps allow flexibility for users. They provide the choice to their users on how they want to use the app. The users can either use it from their web browser or install it on their mobile device. An option of installing the app on the home screen for quick access without the need for visiting the app stores makes PWA quite lucrative. Your web development efforts will automatically take care of your progressive web apps too. No need to separately deploy things for the PWA.

8) Push Notifications and Re-engagement

The users can get push notifications from their progressive app. These push notifications are one of the key features facilitated by service workers. The service worker can subscribe to receive push notifications. This lets users to receive notifications and updates when they opt it. The push notifications are useful in engaging users and also deliver timely content like discounts, offers etc to them.

9) Linkable

Sharing the progressive app is very easy. It doesn’t require the users to visit App store or download the app. These apps can be accessed and shared via URL. The links to subpages of the app can also be shared that may be accessed on the browser by users.

10) SEO friendly

The SEO for traditional apps was restricted to listings and rankings in the App store. With progressive web apps, the app can be indexed by the links. The apps can be shared by the links, which are indexed by Google. These individual links can be listed in Google Searches. There can be subpages of the app that can be ranked separately; an xml site map can also be integrated for search engines.

Do PWAs work on all Platforms?

PWAs have gained immense popularity ever since they have been introduced by Google. Sending Push notifications, adding app to home screen, offline content and device agnostic approach are some of the features that are driving the adoption of progressive web apps. But are progressive web apps at a stage where they can replace native apps for all platforms? Well not quite at this stage, the progressive apps are accessed through browsers that support service workers and manifests. Traditional browsers lack this support. Chrome and Firefox are browsers that offer support for progressive web apps, others are still catching up. So, do progressive web apps work on iOS? Again, Safari doesn’t support PWAs at the moment. Even Chrome on iOS has limited support for PWAs at the moment. Although, Apple is now working on providing basic support for PWAs on Safari. Both Chrome & Firefox support PWAs fully on Windows 10 OS. Microsoft is also working on Edge and Windows 10 OS to fully support PWAs.

Limitations & Recommendations to use PWA:

Progressive web apps can be used to achieve most features offered by native apps & are constantly evolving with web technologies. However there are certain use cases that are yet not attainable with PWAs like telephony features for accessing phone number, read voice mail, making phone calls, alarms, access to hardware features like sensors, accelerometer, system settings etc. PWAs are also not suitable for highly interactive applications, games and other applications that extensively use phone’s hardware options. PWAs on Safari and iOS are also quite limited at this stage and might not be able to replace native apps yet. Here we look at some use cases where you can use progressive web apps:

• A site that updates content frequently for e.g. news portals, stock prices inventory prices and levels or sites that need realtime data.
• An ecommerce portal that requires real time updates, push notifications for discounts, offers etc.
• Users who are mostly on Chrome and Firefox.
• Maintenance of native apps can be hard on various platforms. Progressive web apps provide a way to create a single code base that can cater to multiple devices and operating systems.
• Apps are much smaller in size, have fast loading times & high performance. For ecommerce and m-commerce sites, this can result in improved business opportunities.
• For sites that want to create engaging web experiences on par with their mobile app.

For apps that want to minimize the mobile data usage. Progressive web apps tend to have less data footprint compared to native apps.

The world of web is constantly evolving and charting new frontiers. Progressive Web Apps are among the technologies that have the power to shape the web in the years to come. It is surprising to find that even iOS users are benefiting from PWA, even though iOS doesn’t support PWAs at this stage. As per Google, Ali Express has increased its conversions by 104% for new users across browsers; 82% increase in iOS conversion rate. With the rapid adoption and success of PWAs, more companies are now encouraged to reap its benefits. Web Applications are now converting to PWAs for improving performance, retaining users and improving experience through progressive evolution of the web.

Kreyon Systems is regarded among of the best progressive web development companies. If you are looking for a progressive web app company, please get in touch with us.

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