In the context of serverless architecture, what happens to hosts?

In serverless architecture, the concept of hosts is transformed significantly compared to traditional server management. In this context, the cloud vendor takes on the responsibility for managing the underlying infrastructure that hosts the application. This means that users do not need to worry about the physical or virtual servers where their code runs, as these elements are abstracted away.

The cloud provider dynamically provisions resources as needed for the application, ensuring that it can handle the varying levels of load without manual intervention. Users can focus on writing and deploying their code without needing to configure or maintain servers. This management by the cloud vendor includes aspects such as scaling, load balancing, and applying security patches, which simplifies operations for developers.

While there are scenarios where hosts may scale down to zero or be configured manually, these do not capture the primary relationship in serverless architecture between the user and the infrastructure, which is predominantly managed by the cloud provider. Therefore, understanding that the management of hosts is outside the user's direct control is critical in grasping how serverless functions operate.