
Escape the cloud database trap with serverless - jchrisa
https://fauna.com/blog/escape-the-cloud-database-trap-with-serverless
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EyeOhTee
The pay-go cloud model makes total sense for orgs of all sizes. Even the term
"serverless database" is a mind bender for me, but if it can scale that
quickly, and reliably, and fluidly (it's a word now), it sounds exciting.

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jchrisa
The reason the term is trending is because people are excited about not having
to worry about servers any more.

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Mo3
What are you talking about? The database agent still runs on servers. All this
does is take care of the maintenance and scaling and run multi-DC clusters, if
I'm not mistaken? Just because you don't "see" the servers in the big picture
anymore you can't just flat out call it serverless. Call it autoscaling or
fluid or something..

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jchrisa
We call it serverless because it fits the serverless model like a glove. You
wouldn't fault Amazon for calling Lambda serverless...

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marssaxman
Does this terminology make sense to anyone else? So far as I can see, the
article suggests that one should "escape the cloud database trap" by using a
"serverless cloud database". "Cloud", so far as I've ever been aware, just
means "somebody else's server"; so in what way can it be meaningful to say
that such an architecture could ever be "serverless"?

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jchrisa
Author here, let me know if you have any questions about the content.

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zenithm
What are some lessons you learned at Couchbase that you are applying at Fauna?

Importance of a cloud product obviously is one!

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jchrisa
Haha. Well I've wanted to focus on the kind of smooth developer experience and
on-ramping that you can only get with a cloud product. That's been super fun,
basically to work the experience of the product itself directly into the
signup flow.

Maybe more important are industry expectations, like knowing what a
multinational tech company is looking for when they do a proof-of-concept with
a database startup.

The most fun lessons are the ones I'm learning at Fauna, because we are
running a different hypothesis than Couchbase, and it lends itself to
different goals, processes, and atmosphere.

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stefmonge
Looking forward to seeing where you guys go with this. Good luck!

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ngrilly
Is it possible to run FaunaDB locally (in development mode)?

Is it open source?

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jchrisa
Yes there is a dev jar. We've removed the download for now because we are
running our recent release to cloud through the QA process. Check back in a
few weeks or contact us via the website and depending on what you are planning
to use it for we can give you an early copy.

FaunaDB is closed source (with plenty of open source companion code on Github)
[https://github.com/fauna](https://github.com/fauna)

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ngrilly
Thanks for answering.

This means any application based on FaunaDB is locked forever with FaunaDB
(because the query language is proprietary and the software is closed source)?

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jchrisa
We see database migrations all the time in my line of work. Lock-in is rarely
the main concern. Usually reliability, operability, and performance are what
close deals. Even big enterprises regularly move between radically different
architectures. Don't overestimate the cost of lock-in.

But yes, you'd have a hard time duplicating FaunaDB's query capability with
something else.

We have bulk export tools coming soon, so you can take your data anywhere that
accepts JSON.

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jimmy3737
Fauna is a major player in the market. Their knowledge base is second to none.

