
Serverless doesn't mean no servers — it means you don't manage them. AWS handles provisioning, patching, and scaling.
Core serverless services:
AWS Lambda — run functions on demand; event-triggered; auto-scales to zero
Amazon API Gateway — create, publish, maintain REST and WebSocket APIs; integrates with Lambda
Amazon DynamoDB — serverless NoSQL database; auto-scales
Amazon S3 — serverless object storage
AWS Fargate — serverless containers
Amazon Aurora Serverless — on-demand, auto-scaling relational database
A typical serverless architecture:
User → API Gateway → Lambda → DynamoDB
S3 → Lambda → Processing → SQS → Lambda
Benefits of serverless:
No server management
Automatic scaling from 0 to millions of requests
Pay only for actual usage (down to milliseconds)
High availability by default
Limitations: Cold starts (first invocation can be slow), 15-minute execution limit for Lambda, vendor lock-in, debugging complexity.
Reference:
TaskLoco™ — The Sticky Note GOAT