Guest Lecture on ’Serverless Computing’

The Department of Information Science and Engineering organized a Guest Lecture on ‘Serverless Computing’, on 19^th November, 2022. The event which was conducted in Smt. Rajalakshmi Jayaraman Seminar Hall started at 10:00 am and concluded at 12:30 pm. 158 students from the 5^th semesters of the Departments of ISE and Data Science participated in this event.

Mr. Rajat Agarwal, Senior Systems Analyst from first American Pvt. Ltd., was the Resource Person. Sharing his Industry knowledge about Serverless Computing, Cloud computing and AWS, he started his talk with an introduction to Serverless computing and Cloud Computing and its basic concepts. He then spoke about the importance of Cloud Computing in the IT field. He elaborated on the different models of Cloud. He also gave a demo to the students about how a Cloud can be setup using AWS. The students actively participated in the event, by interacting with Mr. Rajat Agarwal and asking interesting questions on Cloud Computing. The session concluded at 12.30 pm, with a vote of thanks by Prof. Praveena.

The speaker gave detailed inputs to the students, on the following:

Serverless computing is a method of providing backend services, on an as-used basis. Servers are still used, but a company that gets backend services from a serverless vendor, is charged based on usage, not on the basis of a fixed amount of bandwidth, or the number of servers.In the early days of the web, someone who wanted to build a web application had to own the physical hardware required to run a server, which is a cumbersome and expensive undertaking. Then came cloud computing, where a fixed numbers of servers or amounts of server space could be rented, remotely. Developers and companies who rent these fixed units of server space generally over-purchase, to ensure that a spike in traffic or activity will not exceed their monthly limits, and by this, break their applications. This means that much of the server space that gets paid for can go to waste. Cloud vendors have introduced auto-scaling models to address the issue, but even with auto-scaling, an unwanted spike in activity, such as a DDoS attack, could end up becoming very expensive.Serverless computing allows developers to purchase backend services on a flexible ‘pay-as-you-go’ basis, meaning that developers only have to pay for the services they use. This is like switching from a cell phone data plan with a monthly fixed limit, to one that only charges for each byte of data that actually gets used.The term ‘serverless’ is somewhat misleading, as there are still servers providing these backend services, but all of the server space and infrastructure concerns are handled by the vendor. ‘Serverless’ means that the developers can do their work without having to worry about servers.
Benfits and advantages of serverless computing.
Other cloud backend models – explanation and comparison with the serverless model.
The Demo of AWS service.
Placement opportunities.

Faculty Coordinator of the Event:

Prof. T. Gayathri (AP, Dept. of ISE)

Student Coordinators:

Saurav Kumar (1MJ19IS087)
Ritik (1MJ19IS078)
Shashank (1MJ19IS088)

Outcome of the Event:

The participants understood the concepts in Cloud Computing, its advantages, applications and challenges. They also became familiar with AWS for setting up the Cloud environment. Students were able to analyse the AWS service and cloud models, and enhance their technical skill, applying it to various topics and fields related to Information Science and Engineering. The Guest Lecture aimed to bridge the gap between study materials and practical exposure, and this aim was fulfilled. The students benefitted from the POs, Engineering Knowledge, Problem Analysis, Design / Development of solutions, Modern Tool Usage and Life Long Learning.