Adopting serverless architectures in IT Service Management: Benefits and Limitations

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37431/conectividad.v7i1.338

Keywords:

Serverless architecture, Serverless computing, Service management, ICT

Abstract

The serverless architecture model has emerged as an emerging and innovative alternative in the field of cloud computing, as well as in the management of various IT services. This implementation allows applications to run without the need to directly manage the infrastructure. This systematic review aims to analyze the benefits and limitations of adopting serverless architectures in IT service management. Twenty articles published between 2020 and 2025 were examined. The results showed that serverless architectures provide significant advantages such as cost optimization, automatic scalability, and reduced energy consumption (up to 70%). However, important limitations were identified, such as the "cold start" phenomenon that affects performance, vendor lock-in, and new security challenges. The research also highlighted the contribution of these architectures to the sustainability of IT services, although proper management of service fragmentation is required to maximize environmental benefits. In conclusion, serverless architectures represent an efficient alternative for IT service management, but their successful adoption depends on specific strategies to mitigate the identified challenges.

References

Abdulrahman, M., Alqahtani, R., & Bashar, A. (2024). Review of opportunities, challenges and solutions for FaaS performance and security management. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Inventive Computing Technologies (ICICT), 1392-1398. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICICT60155.2024.10544765 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ICICT60155.2024.10544765

Akour, M., & Alenezi, M. (2025). Reducing environmental impact with sustainable serverless computing. Sustainability, 17(7), 2999. https://doi.org/10.3390/su17072999 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/su17072999

Baldini, I., Castro, P., Chang, K., Cheng, P., Fink, S., Ishakian, V., Mitchell, N., Muthusamy, V., Rabbah, R., Slominski, A., & Suter, P. (2017). Serverless computing: Current trends and open problems. In Research Advances in Cloud Computing (pp. 1-20). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5026-8_1 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5026-8_1

Barnabas, A., & Johnson, J. (2025). The future of cloud: Exploring cost-effective serverless architecture. ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Emmanuel-Mabel/publication/389761832_The_Future_of_Cloud_Exploring_Cost-_Effective_Serverless_Architecture/links/67d149b6e62c604a0dd72b83/The-Future-of-Cloud-Exploring-Cost-Effective-Serverless-Architecture.pdf

Batool, I., & Kanwal, S. (2025). Serverless Edge Computing: A Taxonomy, Systematic Literature Review, Current Trends and Research Challenges (No. arXiv:2502.15775). arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2502.15775

Bodner, T., Radig, T., Justen, D., Ritter, D., & Rabl, T. (2025). An Empirical Evaluation of Serverless Cloud Infrastructure for Large-Scale Data Processing (No. arXiv:2501.07771). arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2501.07771 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13222-025-00496-7

Del Busto, P. J. F., Tambra, R. V. A., & Moroco, J. A. F. (2023). Serverless web application for the life cycle of software development projects using scrum in South America. Proceedings of the 2023 2nd Asia-Pacific Computer Technologies Conference (APCT), 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1109/APCT58752.2023.00008 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/APCT58752.2023.00008

Encinas Cortés, J. (2020). Arquitecturas serverless: qué son y a dónde nos llevan [Trabajo de fin de grado, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid]. Repositorio UAM. https://repositorio.uam.es/handle/10486/692856

Fati, S. M. & Alenezi, M. (2024). Transforming Application Development With Serverless Computing. International Journal of Cloud Applications and Computing (IJCAC), 14(1), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJCAC.365288 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4018/IJCAC.365288

Harambasa, M., Josic, K., & Basic, M. (2024). Serverless architecture and security. Proceedings of the 35th DAAAM International Symposium, 299–305. En B. Katalinic (Ed.), DAAAM International. https://doi.org/10.2507/35th.daaam.proceedings.041 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2507/35th.daaam.proceedings.041

Jangda, A., Pinckney, D., Brun, Y., & Guha, A. (2019). Formal foundations of serverless computing. Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages, 3(OOPSLA), 149:1-149:26. https://doi.org/10.1145/3360575 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3360575

Kounev, S., Herbst, N., Abad, C. L., Iosup, A., Foster, I., Shenoy, P., Rana, O., & Chien, A. A. (2023). Serverless computing: What it is, and what it is not? Communications of the ACM, 66(9), 80-92. https://doi.org/10.1145/3587249 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3587249

Kumar, A., Gupta, R., & Bhandari, R. (2022). WoS bibliometric-based review on serverless computing model. Proceedings of the 2022 Seventh International Conference on Parallel, Distributed and Grid Computing (PDGC), 600-605. https://doi.org/10.1109/PDGC56933.2022.10053142 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/PDGC56933.2022.10053142

Lande, J., Mehra, S., Bhadauria, G. S., Nijhawan, G., Karthik, A., & Sravani, A. (2023). Managing cloud computing assets for scalability and cost efficiency. Proceedings of the 2023 10th IEEE Uttar Pradesh Section International Conference on Electrical, Electronics and Computer Engineering, 573-576. https://doi.org/10.1109/UPCON59197.2023.10434392 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/UPCON59197.2023.10434392

Leung, J. (2021). Serverless computing in enterprise application integration: An organizational cost perspective [Tesis de maestría]. Universidad de Ciencias Aplicadas de Finlandia. https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2021052110253

Marin, E., Perino, D., & Di Pietro, R. (2021). Serverless computing: A security perspective (No. arXiv:2107.03832) . arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2107.03832 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13677-022-00347-w

Nastic, S. (2024). Self-provisioning infrastructures for the next generation serverless computing. SN Computer Science, 5(6), 678. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42979-024-03022-w DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42979-024-03022-w

Nookala, G. (2023). Serverless data architecture: Advantages, drawbacks, and best practices. Journal of Computing and Information Technology, 3(1). https://universe-publisher.com/index.php/jcit/article/view/19/19

Poth, A., Schubert, N., & Riel, A. (2020). Sustainability Efficiency Challenges of Modern IT Architectures – A Quality Model for Serverless Energy Footprint. En M. Yilmaz, J. Niemann, P. Clarke, & R. Messnarz (Eds.), Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement (pp. 289–301). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56441-4_21 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56441-4_21

Pusuluri, V. S. R. (2022). Taxonomy of security and privacy issues in serverless computing [Tesis de maestría]. Universidad Estatal de St. Cloud. https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1171&context=msia_etds

Tang, Y., & Yang, J. (2020). Lambdata: Optimizing serverless computing by making data intents explicit. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing, 294-303. https://doi.org/10.1109/CLOUD49709.2020.00049 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/CLOUD49709.2020.00049

Tilles, J. (2020). Serverless computing on constrained edge devices [Tesis de maestría]. Universidad de Helsinki. https://helda.helsinki.fi/server/api/core/bitstreams/bc3ea493-3964-4042-a488-11ffa981424e/content

Tsenos, M., Peri, A., & Kalogeraki, V. (2023). Energy efficient scheduling for serverless systems. Proceedings of the 2023 IEEE International Conference on Autonomic Computing and Self-Organizing Systems, 27-36. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACSOS58161.2023.00020 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ACSOS58161.2023.00020

Upadhyay, A., Kaushal, A., & Dhiman, P. (2024). Serverless web application [Proyecto de pregrado]. Universidad Jaypee de Tecnología de la Información. http://www.ir.juit.ac.in:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/11487/1/Serverless%20Web%20Application.pdf

Verma, P., Goel, P., & Rani, N. (2024). A review: Cold start latency in serverless computing. Proceedings of the 2024 Sixth International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Communication Technologies, 141-148. https://doi.org/10.1109/CCICT62777.2024.00034 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/CCICT62777.2024.00034

Yang, J., & Abraham, A. (2024). Analyzing the features, usability, and performance of deploying a containerized mobile web application on serverless cloud platforms. Future Internet, 16(12), 475. https://doi.org/10.3390/fi16120475 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/fi16120475

Published

2025-10-30

How to Cite

Quiliche Plasencia, D. E., Monzón Llanos , J. E., & Mendoza de los Santos, A. C. (2025). Adopting serverless architectures in IT Service Management: Benefits and Limitations. CONECTIVIDAD, 7(1), 341–360. https://doi.org/10.37431/conectividad.v7i1.338

Issue

Section

Scientific Articles and Review Articles

Categories

Most read articles by the same author(s)