Abstract
Serverless is an emerging cloud computing paradigm that facilitates developers to focus solely on the application logic rather than provisioning and managing the underlying infrastructure. The inherent characteristics such as scalability, flexibility, and cost efficiency of serverless computing, attracted many companies to migrate their legacy applications toward this paradigm. However, the stateless nature of serverless requires careful migration planning, consideration of its subsequent implications, and potential challenges. To this end, this study investigates the intentions, strategies, and technical and organizational challenges while migrating to a serverless architecture. We investigated the migration processes of 11 systems across diverse domains by conducting 15 in-depth interviews with professionals from 11 organizations. We also presented a detailed discussion of each migration case. Our findings reveal that large enterprises primarily migrate to enhance scalability and operational efficiency, while smaller organizations intend to reduce the cost. Furthermore, organizations use a domain-driven design approach to identify the use case and gradually migrate to serverless using a strangler pattern. However, migration encounters technical challenges i.e., testing event-driven architecture, integrating with the legacy system, lack of standardization, and organizational challenges i.e., mindset change and hiring skilled serverless developers as a prominent. The findings of this study provide a comprehensive understanding that can guide future implementations and advancements in the context of serverless migration.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Jonas, E., et al.: Cloud programming simplified: a Berkeley view on serverless computing. arXiv preprint arXiv:1902.03383 (2019)
Datadog: The state of serverless (2022). https://www.datadoghq.com/state-of-serverless/. Accessed 12 July 2023
Katie Costello: The CIO’s guide to serverless computing. Accessed 12 July 2023. https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/the-cios-guide-to-serverless-computing
Hamza, M.: Software architecture design of a serverless system. In: Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering, pp. 304–306 (2023)
Yussupov, V., Breitenbücher, U., Leymann, F., Wurster, M.: A systematic mapping study on engineering function-as-a-service platforms and tools. In: Proceedings of the 12th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing, pp. 229–240 (2019)
Lin, C., Khazaei, H.: Modeling and optimization of performance and cost of serverless applications. IEEE Trans. Parallel Distrib. Syst. 32(3), 615–632 (2020)
Taibi, D., El Ioini, N., Pahl, C., Niederkofler, J.R.S.: Patterns for serverless functions (function-as-a-service): a multivocal literature review (2020)
Wen, J., Chen, Z., Jin, X., Liu, X.: Rise of the planet of serverless computing: a systematic review. ACM Trans. Softw. Eng. Methodol. 32, 1–61 (2023)
Taibi, D., Spillner, J., Wawruch, K.: Serverless computing-where are we now, and where are we heading? IEEE Softw. 38(1), 25–31 (2020)
Lenarduzzi, V., Panichella, A.: Serverless testing: tool vendors’ and experts’ points of view. IEEE Softw. 38(1), 54–60 (2020)
Rinta-Jaskari, E., Allen, C., Meghla, T., Taibi, D.: Testing approaches and tools for AWS lambda serverless-based applications. In: 2022 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops and other Affiliated Events (PerCom Workshops), pp. 686–692. IEEE (2022)
Wen, J., et al.: An empirical study on challenges of application development in serverless computing. In: Proceedings of the 29th ACM Joint Meeting on European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering, pp. 416–428 (2021)
Eskandani, N., Salvaneschi, G.: The uphill journey of FaaS in the open-source community. J. Syst. Softw. 198, 111589 (2023)
Eismann, S., et al.: The state of serverless applications: collection, characterization, and community consensus. IEEE Trans. Software Eng. 48(10), 4152–4166 (2021)
Taibi, D., Kehoe, B., Poccia, D.: Serverless: from bad practices to good solutions. In: 2022 IEEE International Conference on Service-Oriented System Engineering (SOSE), pp. 85–92. IEEE (2022)
Leitner, P., Wittern, E., Spillner, J., Hummer, W.: A mixed-method empirical study of Function-as-a-Service software development in industrial practice. J. Syst. Softw. 149, 340–359 (2019)
Benbasat, I., Goldstein, D.K., Mead, M.: The case research strategy in studies of information systems. MIS Q. 11, 369–386 (1987)
Robinson, O.C.: Sampling in interview-based qualitative research: a theoretical and practical guide. Qual. Res. Psychol. 11(1), 25–41 (2014)
The Journey to Serverless Migration: An Empirical Analysis of Intentions, Strategies, and Challenges. Zenodo (2023). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8233478
Braun, V., Clarke, V.: Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qual. Res. Psychol. 3(2), 77–101 (2006)
Zhou, X., Jin, Y., Zhang, H., Li, S., Huang, X.: A map of threats to validity of systematic literature reviews in software engineering. In: 2016 23rd Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC), pp. 153–160. IEEE (2016)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Hamza, M., Akbar, M.A., Smolander, K. (2024). The Journey to Serverless Migration: An Empirical Analysis of Intentions, Strategies, and Challenges. In: Kadgien, R., Jedlitschka, A., Janes, A., Lenarduzzi, V., Li, X. (eds) Product-Focused Software Process Improvement. PROFES 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14483. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49266-2_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49266-2_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-49265-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-49266-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)