Google entered the Functions as a Service arena in February 2016 with the alpha launch of Cloud Functions. At time of writing, Cloud Functions is transitioning to general availability, and support is limited to JavaScript functions for a select few types of events. Still, in this early phase of Cloud Functions, the platform offers a tremendous amount of utility for certain classes of problems.
One of the primary use cases for Cloud Functions are as glue to create cross-service integrations between various GCP services, as well as external services such as user-defined web services and external third-party systems. However, teams may choose to develop entire service layers using the functions. When taken to the extreme, this can result in a pure microservice pattern, where each API operation is implemented as a discrete function.
Google Cloud Functions are...