For the Love of Serverless: Predictions from Dave Townsend of Matson

In 2020, the adoption of serverless technology is gaining momentum despite challenges such as training existing staff in new methodologies and integrating infrastructure-as-code (IaC) into traditional development processes. Dave Townsend, a Principal Software Engineer at Matson, emphasizes the importance of starting small and iterating as organizations transition to serverless. While there are technical hurdles, like operational governance and the need for more account access, cloud vendors like AWS are closing gaps, particularly with improvements in Lambda startup time in VPCs. The serverless landscape is steadily evolving, with advancements in frameworks like Serverless Framework, SAM, AppSync, and Amplify, which simplify the development for frontend developers. Townsend also highlights the growing excitement around event-based architectures enabled by services like EventBridge, and dispels myths about serverless, such as the misconception of “no servers,” noting that the reduction in cold-start issues is helping to alleviate concerns.