How Revolgy leverages serverless architecture to enhance efficiency

Imagine not having to manage servers yet still have your applications run flawlessly. Sounds enticing? That’s precisely what we at Revolgy have accomplished with our internal serverless solutions, adding extra efficiency and innovation.

This blog post offers a sneak peek at our high-tech world of leveraging serverless tech, shedding light on our Slackbot and IAM monitoring solution, among many more.

Understanding serverless architecture

Why is serverless so hyped?

Serverless computing embodies the attributes of efficiency, flexibility, and scalability, making it a compelling choice for users, especially for internal processes. By managing only the code, not the servers, it’s possible to focus on enhancing functionality without getting caught up in hardware constraints.

The reason behind choosing serverless

The following advantages influenced our choice to adopt serverless technology:

1. Lower operational costs: You pay only for what you use. No idle server costs mean reduced operational expenses.
2. Sustainability: Serverless architectures promote sustainability. Resources only run when handling a workload or a request, optimizing resource usage, and promoting eco-friendly tech solutions.
3. Resilience: In a serverless setup, applications are potentially distributed across various servers, reducing the risks of system-wide failures.
4. Improved scalability: Serverless architecture can automatically scale up or down based on demand, making it a perfect fit for fluctuating workloads.
5. Smoother deployment: With serverless, deployment becomes simpler and quicker. We can roll out features and fixes rapidly.
6. Enhanced productivity: With no servers to manage, our team can concentrate on the core task: writing and optimizing the code of these specific internal tools. This leads to increased productivity.

Go serverless with Revolgy! Download our free whitepaper and learn the pros and cons of the most commonly used Google serverless technologies.

The drawbacks of serverless systems

Certainly, while serverless architecture provides numerous benefits, it’s also crucial to consider its limitations and drawbacks:

1. Cold starts: In serverless computing, functions may take longer to run if they have been idle for a period, commonly referred to as a “cold start”. This can impact the performance of your applications, especially those that require real-time responses.
2. Debugging challenges: Given the distributed nature of serverless applications, traditional debugging methods can be difficult to apply. Consequently, developers often have to rely on cloud-specific tools, which may require additional learning.
3. Vendor lock-In: Since each serverless platform (like AWS Lambda or Google Cloud Functions) provides unique features and configurations, switching between providers can be challenging and might lead to high migration costs.
4. Cost predictability: While serverless architectures can be cost-effective, they may also make cost prediction more challenging due to the pay-per-use model. An unexpected increase in usage could lead to cost overruns.
5. Data privacy compliance: Serverless architectures might raise data privacy concerns, especially if the company handles sensitive data. Compliance with data regulations like GDPR or CCPA must be meticulously managed, as data might be processed in various locations depending on the cloud provider.

Serverless in automating internal processes

Serverless computing has been at the forefront of our efforts to automate internal processes. We have developed several serverless applications that have proven instrumental in enhancing operational efficiency and reducing manual workload.

Here we introduce two case studies that exemplify our use of serverless technology: the Slackbot app and the IAM monitoring solution.

The Slackbot: enhancing workflows one step at a time

Our serverless Slackbot, running on AWS Lambda, springs into action with different Slack processes. An API Gateway interfaces with Slack events, triggering the Slackbot for seamless communication.

AWS Secrets Manager secures our secrets and populates environment variables during deployment. The underlying infrastructure-as-code relies on the Serverless framework and CloudFormation, demonstrating our commitment to robust, scalable solutions.

Our serverless Slackbot operates within AWS, utilizing several key services:

• AWS Lambda: Provides the computing platform for our Slackbot, executing code only when triggered by different events within Slack.
• API Gateway: Acts as the “front door” for our Slackbot, interfacing with Slack events and managing traffic.
• Secrets Manager: Enables us to securely manage secrets and automatically rotate, manage, and retrieve database credentials, API keys, and other secrets throughout their lifecycle.
• Serverless Framework and AWS CloudFormation: These are used for developing and deploying our serverless applications, offering a model-driven management approach that facilitates infrastructure and application lifecycle management.

Security and efficiency of IAM monitoring

Our internal IAM monitoring solution epitomizes our emphasis on security and functionality. This serverless app shoulders the responsibility of monitoring IAM users within AWS and executing operations based on specific user characteristics.

From creating reports to disabling and rotating access keys, it performs a range of tasks efficiently. Its decoupled, event-driven nature encapsulates multiple plugins, each with a unique entry point, fostering a seamless flow of operations.

This brief introduction to our serverless solution unveils a fraction of what we’ve achieved.

Our IAM monitoring solution leverages an array of AWS services for efficient, secure operations:

• EventBridge rules: Triggers lambda functions on a scheduled basis, fostering an event-driven environment for seamless operations.
• Lambda functions: These are the workhorses of our IAM solution, handling everything from fetching IAM users and access keys to managing other complex processes.
• Step functions: We use these for orchestrating multiple AWS Lambda functions into serverless workflows. This facilitates more complex, multi-step tasks and error handling.
• Simple Queue Service (SQS): Receives requests and triggers Lambda functions, enabling decoupling between different components and ensuring high availability and reliability.
• S3 buckets: Integral to data management, the S3 buckets acts as both temporary and persistent storage for different operations.

Pioneering the future with serverless

At Revolgy, we’re constantly pushing technological innovation. The advantages we’ve derived from serverless — cost-efficiency, scalability, productivity, rapid deployment, resilience, and sustainability — have played a significant role in enhancing our internal operations.

Do you want to know more about the cloud services we offer? Head to Revolgy Cloud Services, check out our blog and case studies, or contact us.