Governance for Serverless Architectures
Serverless architectures have been gaining popularity as they offer several benefits like low costs, automatic scaling, and reduced management overhead. However, managing serverless architectures requires proper governance to maximize these benefits and minimize risks.
In this blog post, we will compare different governance strategies for managing serverless architectures and analyze their strengths and weaknesses.
What is Serverless Governance?
Serverless governance is a set of policies and procedures to manage serverless architectures. It includes managing permissions, monitoring usage and costs, ensuring compliance with regulations, and addressing security concerns.
Self-Service Governance
Self-service governance allows developers to manage their serverless resources without involving central IT. Developers can create, modify, and delete their functions, APIs, and other resources without requiring approval from central IT.
Self-service governance offers several benefits, such as increased agility, reduced management overhead, and improved developer productivity.
However, it also has several drawbacks. It can lead to increased costs due to unoptimized usage and can pose security risks if proper policies and procedures are not in place.
Centralized Governance
Centralized governance involves central IT managing all serverless resources. Developers submit their requirements, which are reviewed and approved by central IT before deployment. Central IT is responsible for ensuring compliance, security, and optimization of serverless resources.
Centralized governance offers several benefits, such as better control, optimized usage, and improved security.
However, centralized governance can lead to longer deployment times, increased management overhead, and reduced agility.
Hybrid Governance
Hybrid governance offers a mix of self-service and centralized governance. Developers can manage their serverless resources within certain limits and conditions, while central IT manages the rest.
Hybrid governance offers several benefits, such as increased agility, better control, and optimized usage.
However, hybrid governance can be complex to implement, and developers may require training to understand the policies and procedures.
Conclusion
The choice of governance strategy for managing serverless architectures depends on several factors like organizational structure, policies, and procedures, and requirements. Self-service governance offers increased agility but can pose security risks and increased costs. Centralized governance offers better control but can lead to longer deployment times and increased management overhead. Hybrid governance offers a mix of benefits from both strategies but requires careful implementation and management.
In summary, managing serverless architectures requires proper governance to maximize benefits and minimize risks. Organizations should carefully evaluate their options and choose the strategy that best aligns with their requirements.