Serverless computing is a cloud computing execution model in which the cloud provider allocates machine resources on demand, taking care of the servers on behalf of their customers. The advantages of this model are likely to be realised by more businesses into 2023, according to Rahul Pradhan, VP Products, Couchbase. This business model is among Pradhan’s computing predictions for 2023.
Databases will Streamline the Tech Stack, Enabling Developers and Operational Teams to do More with Less
Data is the ultimate currency of business and in relation to this Pradhan predicts: “With today’s organizations dealing with massive amounts of data in an uncertain macro environment, they will continue to move away from relational databases to multi-model databases, which can handle different data types and models, including documents, graphs, and relational and key-value databases – all from a single, integrated backend. Multi-model databases provide unified data management, access, and governance.”
In terms of core advantages, Pradhan cites: “This speeds up time to market and lowers deployment and operational costs, saving resources at a time when budgets are tight. We’ll also see next-generation databases emerge that can seamlessly support both transactions and analytics for real-time business insights. No longer will businesses need a separate vendor solution for operational analytics.”
Serverless Architectures will Continue to Gain Momentum
A major change to business technology is the adoption of serverless systems, promising lower operating costs and higher efficiency. Pradhan explains: “The emergence of serverless technologies has transformed the way applications and software are built right from application architectures to the DevOps toolchain to the economics of software development. Serverless Architecture will continue to see strong adoption across the stack. The serverless compute offerings across various cloud providers have seen an accelerating adoption. This trend will continue across the application stack with the availability and adoption of serverless data tiers by all major data vendors. Serverless Edge Computing platforms leveraging 5G/6G’s ms latencies and AI optimizations will facilitate a Cloud Continuum across multi-cloud and edge locations.”
The Rise of Distributed Clouds and the Cloud-edge Continuum
A distributed cloud is an architecture where multiple clouds are used to meet compliance needs, performance requirements, or support edge computing while being centrally managed by the public cloud provider.
Highlighting the advantages, Pradhan says: “Edge computing technologies that enable real-time analysis of information closer to the point of data generation will be adopted by the mainstream. Multi-cloud and edge locations will give rise to increased adoption of distributed cloud for best-of-breed services, resiliency, and eliminating vendor lock-in. The distributed cloud will have cloud services deployed at different physical locations across clouds, to the edge, and on customer premises.”
In terms of business efficiency advantages, Pradhan explains: “Enabling this flexibility by deploying cloud services physically closer to the point of computation unlocks several real-time and low-tenancy use cases while addressing data sovereignty, data gravity, and regulatory requirements where the location of the underlying infrastructure is determined by the point of need. The distributed cloud model forms the underpinning of a composable infrastructure approach we have started seeing customers adopt this year and will continue to gain momentum.”
Developers will Drive Edge Adoption with Emerging Technologies
Another important consideration involves exploiting the advantages of edge computing. Pradhan notes: “Emerging Technologies like WebAssembly (WASM) will start to gain more mindshare and adoption as developers start using these as significant accelerators of the edge story. WASM’s portability, security, and low resource overhead along with the lack of a cold start problem make it ideal for the edge. We are starting to enable database processing to be done within a browser that can be done at the edge. This brings compute closer to the data and eliminates costly network transfer costs of replicating data to the cloud while processing and providing actionable insights in real-time close to the data source.”
Furthermore, Pradhan predicts: “The trend and adoption of the distributed cloud with technologies that enable this with WASM and 5G/6G will accelerate the emergence of a distributed database that can reside and process data in real-time at the edge while synchronizing data back across multiple cloud regions and providers.”
