Definition
Serverless is a cloud computing model where applications run using cloud provider managed functions and services, without the business provisioning or managing the underlying servers directly.
Importance
Provisioning and managing servers for workloads that vary considerably in demand, spiking occasionally and sitting idle the rest of the time, means paying for capacity that goes unused most of the time. Serverless architectures scale automatically with actual demand and only charge for what's used, which makes them particularly cost effective for variable or unpredictable workloads, though they're not the right fit for every application.
Application
We use serverless architectures where a workload's demand is variable or unpredictable, event driven processing, occasional batch jobs, APIs with inconsistent traffic, since the cost and operational benefits are clearest in exactly those scenarios. For steady, predictable, high volume workloads, traditional or containerized infrastructure often works out more cost effective, so we evaluate a workload's actual usage pattern before defaulting to serverless purely because it's currently a popular architectural choice.
