Serverless Functions - A Beginner’s Guide

Introduction:
The way developers create and distribute applications is evolving due to serverless features.  Serverless servers, as opposed to typical servers, let you run code without having to worry about maintaining the supporting infrastructure.

What is serverless function?
A serverless function is a piece of code that runs in the cloud, triggered by events, and managed by a third-party provider, eliminating the need for developers to provision or manage servers. It's a way to execute code on demand without managing the underlying infrastructure.

Cloud providers take care of provisioning, maintenance, and scaling.  AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions, and Azure Functions are a few examples.

How Serverless Functions Work:

• Event-driven: functions trigger on HTTP requests, file uploads, database changes, etc.
  
  

• Short-lived: functions run for a limited time and then stop.
  
  

• Scalable automatically based on demand.
  

Benefits:

• No server management
  

• Automatic scaling
  
  

• Pay-per-use pricing
  
  

• Faster development cycles

  

Example:

// AWS Lambda example: simple hello-world

exports.handler = async (event) => {

    return {

        statusCode: 200,

        body: JSON.stringify('Hello from Serverless!')

    };

};

Conclusion:

Serverless functions are ideal for small APIs, event-driven tasks, and applications that need flexible scaling without worrying about server maintenance.