Unveiling Serverless: A Systematic Review of Software Architectures
Md. Mahbub Alam · 2024
Serverless architectures and Function as a Service (FaaS) are revolutionizing software development by allowing developers to focus on coding without managing infrastructure. This study explores the principles, challenges, and solutions related to serverless architecture and FaaS, focusing on their impact on developer experience and non-functional requirements (NFR) such as security, availability, and reliability. A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted to examine the primary approaches and their applications in serverless architectures, following established guidelines, in which 60 articles were selected from the 481 articles published in different digital sources between the years of 2013–2023. Serverless architectures enhance developer productivity and cost efficiency through pay-as-you-go models and autoscaling capabilities. However, challenges include cold-start latency, complex dependency management, security vulnerabilities, and reliability issues related to the stateless nature of functions and debugging difficulties. Serverless architectures and FaaS offer significant benefits in scalability and operational simplicity, and addressing security, availability, and reliability challenges is crucial. Ongoing research and innovation are essential for fully harnessing the potential of serverless computing.