It's an exciting time to be in the software industry. Over the past few years, we've seen an evolution in architectural patterns, with a considerable movement away from large, monolithic applications toward microservices. As cloud computing has evolved, so too have the systems and services we software developers have at our disposal. One of the most revolutionary tools in this domain is lambda functions, or more accurately, Functions as a Service. A step beyond microservices, being able to run, manage, and deploy a single function as a different entity has pushed us into the realm of nanoservices.

Of course, this book focuses on design patterns for serverless computing. The best place to start then is: what are design patterns and what is serverless computing?

If you're just beginning your journey into the world of serverless systems and patterns, I encourage you to read other resources to get more details on these and related topics. Our upcoming discussion intends to set the stage for building systems with patterns, but it's not necessary to explain the foundations of serverless platforms or its concepts in excruciating detail.

In this chapter, I'll first define a few relevant terms and concepts before diving deeper into those topics. Then, I'll discuss when serverless architectures are or are not a good fit. Finally, I'll explain the various categories of serverless patterns that I'll present in this book. I presume that you, the reader, are somewhat familiar with these large topics, but absolute mastery is not required.

At the end of this chapter, you should be able to do the following: