Is Multi-Cloud good or bad? How about Serverless? The answer to all these questions is Yes, sometimes. Whether you're new to all this or a long-time industry veteran, you'll surely come away from this approachable talk with a new understanding of cutting edge technology and actionable insights on how to make smart trade offs. Vancouver Cloud Summit 2024 (2024-04-22)

1. Slides

2. 👍
👍

3. 👍
👍

4. Agenda
1. Context: R E P
2. Serverless: S3, Shape, S3, S3
3. Multi-Cloud: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
4. Recap: Actionable Takeaways

5. MATTIAS
ANDERSSON
‣ SFU Computing Science grad, 2001
‣ Dev on Microsoft Office Shared
Services
‣ Many hats in software development:
architecture, security, leadership, etc.
‣ Taught hundreds of thousands to
architect, build, & run cloud systems
‣ AWS Community Builder, Serverless

6. Agenda
1. Context: R E P
2. Serverless: S3, Shape, S3, S3
3. Multi-Cloud: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
4. Recap: Actionable Takeaways

7. This is…
The
Control-Responsibility Spectrum
Control Responsibility

8. This is…
The
Control-Responsibility Spectrum
Control Responsibility
NOT

9. This is…
The actual
Control-Responsibility Spectrum
Control
Responsibility

10. Control-Responsibility Spectrum
Control
Responsibility Not My Problem
It Just Works
“Managed”
We hope
trust
to fix problems

11. Control-Responsibility Spectrum
Manual Work
Control Managed
Time-Efficient
Possibly
resource-efficient
(maybe)
(certainly not certain)

12. Control-Responsibility Spectrum
Manual Work
Control Managed
Time-Efficient
YOU’LL NEVER BELIEVE
THIS ONE SIMPLE TRICK!!!

13. Control-Responsibility Spectrum
Manual Work
Error-prone Expert-Managed
Time-Efficient

14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth

16. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesperson_problem

17. Travelling Salesman Problem Efficiency
https://xkcd.com/399/
Super-easy, barely
an inconvenience
0h, really?

18. premature optimization is the root of all evil
— Donald Knuth

19. “Programmers waste enormous amounts of time
thinking about, or worrying about,
the speed of noncritical parts of their programs, and
these attempts at efficiency
actually have a strong negative impact
when debugging and maintenance are considered.
We should forget about small efficiencies,
say about 97% of the time:
premature optimization is the root of all evil.
Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%.”
— Donald Knuth

20. Responsibility
Efficiency
Programmers

21. Programmers?
Java
C++
C
Assembly
Machine Language
Transistors
Javascript
R
Python Scratch
Spreadsheet
Mail Client

23. “I decided data processors ought to be able to write
their programs in English,
and the computers would translate them
into machine code.
That was the beginning of COBOL…
I could say 'Subtract income tax from pay'
instead of trying to write that in octal code”
— Grace Hopper

24. The most damaging phrase in
the language is
“We’ve always done it this
way!”
— Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper
in an interview in
Information Week, March 9, 1987, p. 52

25. I think many developers
look down on configuration as
“not real programming”.
There’s an idolatry of coding today.
We’ve been told that
“software is eating the world”,
and we’ve inaccurately translated that to
“coding is eating the world”
…
Configuration is your friend.
Days of programming can save
hours of configuration.
— Ben Kehoe

26. Effort ≠ Value

27. Work Smarter,
Not Harder

28. Responsibility:
Now, for everything you are outsourcing, you are still
accountable. Your users don’t care if their bad experience is
caused by a third
party you’re using, it’s still your problem…
Accept the discomfort of not owning your own destiny
Efficiency:
The business value that your organization
is trying to create is the point…
You should go serverless because
you want to focus on creating value
Programming:
Configuration is your friend.
Days of programming can save
hours of configuration.
— Ben Kehoe

29. You should go serverless

30. Agenda
1. Context: R E P
2. Serverless: S3, Shape, S3, S3
3. Multi-Cloud: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
4. Recap: Actionable Takeaways

31. S3 Time!
Surprising
Serverless
Stories!

32. Serverless Story 1: How Many Australians Can You Fit on a Website?
‣ “Austin Wilshire and Bernd Hartzer received world-wide attention in August [2016]
when they built an alternative Australian Bureau of Statistics Census website for $10
million less than the Australian government.”
‣ “The kicker? The official ABS site crashed almost immediately after launching.
Whereas, the site created by Austin and Bernd at a weekend hack-a-thon remained
stable because it was built using serverless architecture. It also cost less than $500
compared to the government’s $10 million price tag.”
‣ Said Austin: “[T]o set up the actual architecture, it took me
most of Saturday because I’d never touched AWS in my life.”

33. Serverless Story 2: Serverless Startup Shoots for the Stars
‣ Sam Kroonenburg took 4 weeks off work (as a Dev Manager at Microsoft)
‣ With the goal to build a Learning Management System
w/ Video Lessons, Quiz Engine, Online Store, Sign Up / Login, etc.
‣ And asked himself what he could reuse instead of rebuilding
‣ AWS: S3, Lambda, CloudFront, Elastic Transcoder, etc.
‣ Other services: Auth0, Webtask, Firebase DB, Stripe

34. True
cloud-native
is simpler,
not
more complex.
https://turnoff.us/geek/enterprise-vs-startup-journey-to-cloud/

35. Serverless Story 3: Wait, What?!?
‣ Enterprise setting, traditional system project of 20 people
‣ 7 months into a 9-month timeline; overrun guaranteed
‣ 2 people built it over the weekend, using Serverless
‣ Took them 1 month to convince team;
whole project finished 1 month early
!!!

36. Another Enterprise: Capital One
‣ “It’s been nearly a decade since Capital One made
the decision to transition to the cloud…
‣ “In 2021, we closed our last remaining data center…
‣ “Much of our success goes to technologies like AWS
Serverless Application Model (SAM), which
enables our talented developers to do in minutes
what previously took months to do.”

37. Another Enterprise: Capital One
Serverless… enables… talented developers to
do in minutes
what previously took months to do.
— Capital One,
Fortune 150 Company

38. What is Serverless?
To truly spell it out, the term “serverless”
is a bit of a misnomer.
The servers are still there
— they’re physically in Amazon’s data centers
— SAM simply removes any infrastructure concerns.
— Capital One,
Fortune 150 Company

39. What is Serverless?
Scales:
1. Automatically
2. Linearly (or less)
3. Continuously
4. From zero
5. Based on usage
6. Infinitely
7. Transparently (i.e. expertly-managed)

40. Value
Cost
What is Serverless?
Scales:
1. Automatically
2. Linearly (or less)
3. Continuously
4. From zero
5. Based on usage
6. Infinitely
7. Transparently (i.e. expertly-managed)

41. Value
Cost
What is Serverless?
Scales:
1. Automatically
2. Linearly (or less)
3. Continuously
4. From zero
5. Based on usage
6. Infinitely
7. Transparently (i.e. expertly-managed)

42. Value
Cost
What is Serverless?
Scales:
1. Automatically
2. Linearly (or less)
3. Continuously
4. From zero
5. Based on usage
6. Infinitely
7. Transparently (i.e. expertly-managed)

43. Value
Cost
What is Serverless?
Scales:
1. Automatically
2. Linearly (or less)
3. Continuously
4. From zero
5. Based on usage
6. Infinitely
7. Transparently (i.e. expertly-managed)

44. Value
Cost
What is Serverless?
Scales:
1. Automatically
2. Linearly (or less)
3. Continuously
4. From zero
5. Based on usage
6. Infinitely
7. Transparently (i.e. expertly-managed)

45. The Shape of Serverless
Scales:
1. Automatically
2. Linearly (or less)
3. Continuously
4. From zero
5. Based on usage
6. Infinitely
7. Transparently (i.e. expertly-managed)
Value
Cost

46. My Favourite Serverless Service
‣ S3 (or Google Cloud Storage, or Azure Blob Storage)
‣ Core to virtually every system
‣ Storage durability is a…
‣ Early serverless service (truly cloud-native)
‣ Non-compute
(enlightening some who assume
Serverless = Lambda/Functions)
MAJOR PAIN IN THE BUTT

47. Sample Serverless Services (AWS)
‣ S3
‣ DynamoDB
‣ Lambda
‣ API Gateway
‣ CloudFront
‣ Certificate Manager
‣ EventBridge
‣ StepFunctions
‣ Cognito
‣ SQS
‣ SNS
‣ Rekognition
‣ Transcribe
‣ Comprehend
‣ Translate
‣ Polly
‣ Lex
‣ Elastic Transcoder
‣ Kinesis Firehose
‣ Glue
‣ Athena
‣ SageMaker Serverless
Inference
‣ KMS
‣ IAM
‣ CloudWatch
‣ CloudFormation
‣ …

48. Sample Serverless Services (GCP)
‣ Google Cloud
Storage
‣ BigQuery
‣ Firestore
‣ Cloud Functions
‣ Cloud Run
‣ Pub/Sub
‣ Workflows
‣ Eventarc
‣ Cloud Translation
‣ Cloud Vision
‣ Text-to-Speech
‣ Speech-to-Text
‣ Document AI
‣ Vertex AI
Recommendations
Predictions
‣ Vertex AI Generative
AI
‣ Cloud CDN
‣ Cloud Build
‣ Artifact Registry
‣ Cloud Shell
‣ Cloud Monitoring
‣ Cloud Logging
‣ Cloud Trace
‣ Error Reporting
‣ …

49. Sample Serverless Services (Azure)
‣ Azure Blob Storage
‣ Azure Functions
‣ Durable Functions
‣ Azure CDN
‣ Queue Storage
‣ Application Insights
‣ App Service Platform
‣ Azure Container Apps
‣ Azure Cosmos DB
Serverless APIs
‣ Azure Repos
‣ Azure Artifacts
‣ Azure AI Speech
‣ Azure AI Language
‣ Azure AI Translator
‣ Azure AI Vision
‣ Azure AI Content Safety
‣ Azure AI Document
Intelligence
‣ Azure OpenAI Service
‣ Azure Front Door Classic
‣ API Management v1
Consumption
‣ Azure Active Directory
External Identities
‣ …

50. How to Architect and Develop Serverlessly
1. Think Event-Driven
2. Build Statelessly
3. Embrace Managed

52. Agenda
1. Context: R E P
2. Serverless: S3, Shape, S3, S3
3. Multi-Cloud: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
4. Recap: Actionable Takeaways

53. Buying Decisions

54. Buying Decisions

55. Cheaper Insurance — Half Price!

56. Ugly: LCD Multi-cloud
Lowest Common
Denominator
(Everything you build should be able to run on any cloud)
i.e. Don’t use any new technology
i.e. Only use commodity old stuff
i.e. Very little serverless
i.e. Super-inefficient
1/3
3/4
-6/61
5/99
8/25
“Avoid Vendor
Lock-In!”

57. Ugly: LCD Multi-cloud
59 minutes
59 minutes
≈ 1h
Serverless… enables… talented developers to
do in minutes what previously took months to do.
1.1 months
1.1 months
* 25 days / month
* 8h / day
= 220h
1h vs 220h?
>220x longer to stick with the old way and avoid lock-in? Yikes!

58. Ugly: FUD
Fear
Uncertainty
Doubt

59. Good: Combo Cloud
Remember S3-2?
A Cloud Guru

60. Good: Combo Cloud
‣ AWS: S3, Lambda, CloudFront,
Elastic Transcoder, etc.
‣ Other services: Auth0, Webtask,
Firebase DB, Stripe
‣ Combo Cloud
‣ “Best in Class” Multi-cloud

61. Bad: Complexity
Beware overconfidence
Don’t assume
Be careful with security!

62. Multi-Cloud
The Good The Bad The Ugly
Combo Cloud! Complexity LCD / FUD

63. Agenda
1. Context: R E P
2. Serverless: S3, Shape, S3, S3
3. Multi-Cloud: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
4. Recap: Actionable Takeaways

64. Recap of
Actionable
Takeaways

65. Manual Work
Error-prone DIY Expert-Managed
Time-Efficient
Try to Live Here
Limit to 3%
1. Mind the Control-Responsibility Spectrum

66. Serverless is the New Black (and the True Cloud-Native)
2. Build solutions, not programs/systems
(No one cares about your code, only how you can help them.) So…
3. Seek out and use
expertly-managed services/apps
(You’re probably not as good as you think at the details.)
4. Architect systems to be
stateless and event-based
(This helps align your system costs to value achieved.)

67. Serverless is the New Black (and the True Cloud-Native)
Value
Cost
5. Remember that
Serverless comes
in many forms,
not just functions
6. Always look at the
pricing page early
7. Recognize the shape
of serverless:

68. Navigating Multi-Cloud
8. Decline the overpriced insurance offered by
Lowest Common Denominator Multi-Cloud
(People will happily take your gorilla-protection money.)
9. Don’t buy the FUD; Multi-Cloud can work
(Ignore the haters; do what works for you.)
10.Embrace Combo-Cloud when its ROI is high
enough to outweigh the complexity cost
(And only then.)

69. More Resources
11.Read “Serverless is a State of Mind”
(And Ben’s other articles.)
https://ben11kehoe.medium.com/serverless-is-a-state-of-mind-717ef2088b42
12.Read “Multi-Cloud is the Worst Practice”
(By the always-snarky Corey Quinn.)
https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/multi-cloud-is-the-worst-practice/
13.Do the Cloud Resume Challenge
(It’s not just for finding a job,
it’s about realizing the potential of today’s tech.)

70. MATTIAS
ANDERSSON
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattias-andersson
14. Reach out!

71. One more thing…
All the QR codes in this talk
point to a serverless link-redirecting system
that I bootstrapped in a day
with no functions; just config
L
i
k
e
t
h
i
s
o
n
e

72. Wrap-Up
Questions?
Feedback?

73. MATTIAS
ANDERSSON
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattias-andersson
Reach out!
Slides