Have you ever read term serverless? The term serverless refers to a development model where an application or service is deployed in the cloud, with cloud resources like compute and storage automatically allocated in near-real-time based on demand. It’s considered ‘serverless’ from a developer’s perspective because server management tasks, such as scaling up or down, are abstracted and managed by the service provider.

In this article, we will discuss the concept of serverless and a serverless database, its characteristics, why serverless is needed in the first place, some examples of a serverless database, and its advantages and disadvantages.

What is a Serverless Database?

Just like a serverless model, a serverless database is a database that separates complex concerns like infrastructure, data management, data backup, security, and the architecture from the user. Here, the only thing that the user is concerned with is the data. If we go back in time, traditional databases were widely used by businesses. In this type of database, the businesses used to set up their own database server, manage other hardware resources, configure and optimize the database management system, etc. Although this provided high control and flexibility to the users, it demanded a lot of continuous management from the teams. Fast forward to the present, and we now have the concept of a serverless database that is managed by the cloud service provider and not the user itself.

Why Serverless Database?

The serverless model is growing day by day and being accepted by businesses of all kinds for multiple reasons, such as:

• No server management: Management of any kind of physical hardware or server software is eliminated, so developers can focus on the code, and thereby, on the actual product. Users don’t need to worry about any security updates and backups as it is the responsibility of the vendor to manage the server.
• Pay for what you use: The serverless model charges users based on resource consumption. The users pay only for the computing resources that the model uses. In other words, they don’t pay for a dedicated server infrastructure.
• Simpler development process: With the elimination of all the major management tasks and overhead, the development process of the application can significantly improve and will eventually benefit the developers and the application owners.

Examples of a Serverless Database include:

• SQL serverless database: CockroachDB Serverless, Amazon Aurora Serverless, PlanetScaleDB, etc.
• NoSQL serverless database: ScyllaDB Serverless, Google Firestore, Astra DB, etc.

Characteristics of a Serverless Database

There are certain characteristics that a database needs to comply with in order to be called “serverless.” Some of them are mentioned below:

1. Automated scalability: A serverless database automatically scales up and down as per the workload, even if it is unpredictable. For example, if there is no demand for data, the database scales down to zero. And if some demand comes, it scales up without the intervention of a developer. This is true for functions like data storage and data read/write transactions.
2. Deployment speed: Creating a database cluster on a serverless database takes a few seconds to a maximum of a few minutes, which is considerably faster than a traditional database. Moreover, there is no need to plan or configure the database.
3. Simplicity: Since serverless databases are a relatively new technology, working with them should be simple and fast. To make them simpler to work with, they provide features, such as: Fully managed operations , REST APIs to work with the database and many more.
4. Consumption-based billing: In a serverless database, users don’t need to pay for the storage. Rather, they have to pay for the resources that they use and when they use them. This is a consumption-based billing system and it optimizes the overall cost of the database.

Advantages of using a Serverless Database

1. Less Management Required

Utilizing the concept of a serverless architecture, a serverless database does not let its users or developers worry about database management. Tasks such as scaling, server provisioning, sharding, and data backup are handled by the service provider. This helps the developers to simply focus on finding the solution to their problems, or, in other words, what really matters.

2. High Cost Savings

Due to the consumption-based billing model, a serverless database optimizes the costs incurred by a user. This is a huge advantage for small businesses, as whatever they save, they will be able to invest it in another department. This is possible only when they pay for the resources they use.

3. Optimum Scalability

A big specialty of a serverless database is that it can scale automatically in response to a fluctuating workload. If the traffic spikes in volume, the database will scale up and vice versa without making any changes to the application. This automatic operation eliminates the manual scaling task that would be done by a developer, resulting in cost optimization.

4. Top-notch Availability

In case of untimely events like hardware or software failures, a serverless database can still survive. This is because it is built-in resilient and fault-tolerant. If a database is fault-tolerant, it means that it has a greater ability to handle outages and different errors without any loss of data and functionality.

5. Faster Deployment

Working with a serverless database is considerably faster than its counterparts. Integrating it with other services is relatively easy, which can help in a faster development process. Moreover, a serverless database can be instantly accessed by the user whenever it is required. Eliminating the need for database management increases the development speed and the speed of deployment too.

Disadvantages of Using a Serverless Database

1. Less Control to the User

A serverless database gives the operational management tasks to the service provider, making the user free of the complex database management tasks. However, this gives more control of the database to the service provider. Now, the user cannot decide which infrastructure architecture to choose from based on the requirements. The user will have minimum control over changing anything at any level of the deployment.

2. Data Privacy Concerns

Owning less control over a serverless database raises data privacy concerns for the user. The user cannot establish the necessary levels of protection over certain places for their data and customers. Also, serverless databases may use “multi-tenancy,” where code for multiple clients runs on a single server. This can cause a greater risk to the security of the application, and it can become vulnerable to hackers. Hence, before choosing a serverless database, the user will have to trust the service provider.

3. Variable Performance

Processing times may vary by a wide margin in a serverless database. Due to multi-tenancy, the performance of the application may be affected as there is no dedicated server provided for the deployment. The service providers may use only one server to run code for several clients. Since there is less control over the database for the user, it might be difficult to spot the issues and rectify them to increase performance.

Conclusion

In this fast-paced environment, businesses need a robust data infrastructure that can support several things, like minimum downtime, data backup and security, optimum performance, instant access, and scalability. These mentioned things can be provided by a serverless database.

In this article, we saw what a serverless database is why the concept of serverless is needed, what things make a serverless database, and its pros and cons. It is up to you to decide which kind of database to use according to your specific needs for your next project or business.