The benefits of serverless computing include cost and time savings, development flexibility, and increased performance, to name a few benefits. Is that enough for companies to engage in serverless computing services? TechRepublic Premium conducted an online survey in April 2019 to find out. The survey asked the following questions:

• When does your organization plan to start using serverless computing services?
• Why has your organization decided not to use serverless computing services?
• Which cloud service provider do you currently use (or plan to use) for your serverless computing needs?
• What functions does your organization use serverless computing for?
• What benefits does your organization receive (or hope to receive) from using serverless computing?
• What issues has your company experienced with serverless computing technology?

Of the survey respondents, 47% currently use serverless computing services. More than half (57%) use the service to develop web apps. Other functions mentioned by respondents include business logic applications, support for database changes, and executing batch jobs or scheduled tasks.

The cloud service providers that respondents draw on for their serverless computing needs are no surprise. The top three include AWS (49%), Microsoft Azure (36%), and Google Cloud Platform (18%). Other industry heavyweights, including IBM Cloud (1%) and Oracle Cloud Platform (2%), ranked substantially lower on the survey in terms of meeting respondents’ serverless computing needs.

The availability of multiple cloud service vendors provides companies with plenty of serverless computing options; however, 37% of respondents believe that their choice for serverless computing provider has locked their enterprise into one single vendor, potentially negating the flexibility they wanted in the first place. The fact that no major vendors support a specific programming language required by their enterprise is another obstacle mentioned by 17% of respondents. In order to gain more supporters, the technology for serverless computing must evolve to meet the needs of users.

These drawbacks may influence potential users, as several respondents have not deployed the service, despite its purported merits. According to the survey, 28% of respondents have no plans now nor in the future to use serverless computing services, while 16% plan to use the service sometime beyond 12 months. Reasons for not utilizing serverless computing services range from security and cost concerns to no apparent business need or uncertainty on how to effectively apply the technology.

This report contains all the data, plus analysis, from the survey. For details on future TechRepublic Premium surveys, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn