Serverless computing: a multivocal literature review

Abstract

Serverless computing is a cloud computing execution model which enables developers to focus more on business logic rather than on infrastructure or maintenance of servers. This new paradigm has become a source of attraction for developers and organizations alike as it does not only reduce but simply eliminates the overhead of scaling, provisioning and infrastructure altogether. Given the novelty of the phenomenon, this paper is meant to study the phenomenon in a systematic way in order to define the core components of serverless computing, its benefits, challenges and what lies in the foreseen future of the serverless concept. To this end, authors conducted a multivocal literature review in order to better comprehend the state-of-art on serverless computing. The study shows that serverless computing is a solution that allows users to create functions that intercept and operate on data flows in a scalable manner without the need to manage a server, although presents several challenges.