Patterns for Serverless Functions (Function-as-a-Service): A Multivocal Literature Review

Davide Taibi, Nabil El Ioini, Claus Pahl, Jan Niederkofler

2020

Abstract

[Context] Serverless is a recent technology that enables companies to reduce the overhead for provisioning, scaling and in general managing the infrastructure. Companies are increasingly adopting Serverless, by migrating existing applications to this new paradigm. Different practitioners proposed patterns for composing and managing serverless functions. However, some of these patterns offer different solutions to solve the same problem, which makes it hard to select the most suitable solution for each problem. [Goal] In this work, we aim at supporting practitioners in understanding the different patterns, by classifying them and reporting possible benefits and issues. [Method] We adopted a multivocal literature review process, surveying peer-reviewed and grey literature and classifying patterns (common solutions to solve common problems), together with benefits and issues. [Results] Among 24 selected works, we identified 32 patterns that we classified as orchestration, aggregation, event-management, availability, communication, and authorization. [Conclusion] Practitioners proposed a list of fairly consistent patterns, even if a small number of patterns proposed different solutions to similar problems. Some patterns emerged to circumvent some serverless limitations, while others for some classical technical problems (e.g. publisher/subscriber).

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Taibi D., El Ioini N., Pahl C. and Niederkofler J. (2020). Patterns for Serverless Functions (Function-as-a-Service): A Multivocal Literature Review.In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Cloud Computing and Services Science - Volume 1: CLOSER, ISBN 978-989-758-424-4, pages 181-192. DOI: 10.5220/0009578501810192

in Bibtex Style

@conference{closer20,
author={Davide Taibi and Nabil El Ioini and Claus Pahl and Jan Niederkofler},
title={Patterns for Serverless Functions (Function-as-a-Service): A Multivocal Literature Review},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Cloud Computing and Services Science - Volume 1: CLOSER,},
year={2020},
pages={181-192},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0009578501810192},
isbn={978-989-758-424-4},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Cloud Computing and Services Science - Volume 1: CLOSER,
TI - Patterns for Serverless Functions (Function-as-a-Service): A Multivocal Literature Review
SN - 978-989-758-424-4
AU - Taibi D.
AU - El Ioini N.
AU - Pahl C.
AU - Niederkofler J.
PY - 2020
SP - 181
EP - 192
DO - 10.5220/0009578501810192