We’re entering the next stage of virtualization. We’ve gone from physical servers, to virtual machines, to containers — and, now, to serverless apps, also known as functions as a service. At each stage, the number of instances goes up, and the lifespans get shorter. And each stage required new approaches to monitoring and security.
With serverless apps, the lifespans are no longer measured in minutes or hours, but in fractions of a second. The tools used to monitor the previous generations of virtualization technology aren’t going to cut it.
The rise in serverless apps is a direct result of the adoption of micro-services, said Antony Edwards, CTO at Eggplant, a London-based digital automation intelligence company. The main advantage is flexibility, he said. “Unfortunately, greater flexibility means more opportunity for attackers to get your system to do unintended actions.”
