Best Practices for Serverless Computing

Posted on by uplatzblog

Best Practices for Serverless Computing

  • As part of the “Best Practices” series by Uplatz

 

Welcome to another expert edition of the Uplatz Best Practices series — your blueprint for leveraging modern cloud paradigms.
 Today’s focus: Serverless Computing — the architecture that lets you run code without managing infrastructure.

🧱 What is Serverless Computing?

Serverless Computing allows you to build and deploy applications without provisioning or managing servers.
 Cloud providers handle the underlying infrastructure, and you pay only for execution time.

Popular platforms:

  • AWS Lambda

  • Azure Functions

  • Google Cloud Functions

  • Cloudflare Workers

  • Knative / OpenFaaS (for self-managed setups)

✅ Best Practices for Serverless Computing

Serverless unlocks scalability and cost-efficiency — but comes with its own set of architectural challenges. Here’s how to make the most of it:

1. Design for Statelessness

🧠 Functions Should Not Store Session or State Data
 📦 Use External Stores Like DynamoDB, S3, Redis, or Firestore
 🔄 Idempotency Is Key for Retry Scenarios

2. Optimize Cold Start Performance

❄️ Minimize Package Size and Dependencies
 🧰 Use Lighter Runtimes (e.g., Go, Node.js)
 ⏳ Consider Provisioned Concurrency for Latency-Critical Functions

3. Set Appropriate Timeouts and Memory

⏱ Match Timeout to Realistic Execution Time
 📊 Benchmark and Adjust Memory to Avoid Throttling or Waste
 ⚠️ Monitor for OOM (Out-of-Memory) Errors

4. Use Event-Driven Architecture

📥 Trigger Functions via Queues, HTTP, Streams, or Cron
 🔁 Use Pub/Sub or EventBridge for Loose Coupling
 📡 Avoid Direct Service Calls Between Functions Where Possible

5. Secure Serverless Applications

🔐 Apply Principle of Least Privilege for IAM Roles
 🧪 Scan Function Code for Vulnerabilities (Snyk, Checkov)
 🚫 Avoid Hardcoding Secrets — Use AWS Secrets Manager, Azure Key Vault, etc.

6. Centralize Logging and Observability

📋 Use Cloud-Native Logging Tools (CloudWatch, Azure Monitor, GCP Logs)
 📈 Trace Execution With X-Ray, OpenTelemetry, or Zipkin
 📊 Visualize Latency, Error Rate, and Invocation Metrics

7. Use CI/CD for Serverless Deployments

🔁 Automate Packaging and Deployment Using SAM, Serverless Framework, or Pulumi
 🔍 Test Locally Before Pushing to Cloud
 🔄 Implement Blue/Green or Canary Deployments

8. Control Costs with Quotas and Budgets

💰 Set Function-Level Concurrency Limits
 📦 Optimize Invocations and Payload Sizes
 🧾 Use Billing Alerts and Cost Breakdown Tags

9. Handle Failures Gracefully

🔁 Use Retry Logic and Dead Letter Queues (DLQs)
 🛑 Catch and Log Errors Explicitly in Code
 🧠 Design With Circuit Breakers or Fallbacks for External Services

10. Modularize and Reuse Logic

📦 Avoid Monolithic Serverless Functions
 🧩 Break Down by Domain or Use Case
 🛠 Use Shared Layers or Middleware Libraries for Common Code

💡 Bonus Tip by Uplatz

Serverless is not “no ops” — it’s smart ops.
 Focus on code, not infrastructure, but still own reliability, observability, and security.

🔁 Follow Uplatz to get more best practices in upcoming posts:

  • Event-Driven Microservices

  • Serverless Monitoring

  • Multi-Cloud Serverless Patterns

  • Integrating Serverless with DevOps Pipelines

  • Serverless for ML & Data Pipelines
     …and 40+ more on cloud-native engineering and AI-first infrastructure.