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cgi-bin didn’t have any type of process isolation.

Also, it didn’t tie in to other none web based events.




>cgi-bin didn’t have any type of process isolation

"Lambdas" don't by nature either. I can run cgi-bin in a FirecrackerVM-like ecosystem with one script per VM.

>Also, it didn’t tie in to other none web based events.

Webhooks aren't new.

I'm not disputing the popularity and convenience of serverless. I'm just noting it's somewhat like Docker. Packaging existing tech in an easier-to-use bundle.


Lambdas by nature do exactly that. AWS’s runtime launches the “VMs” in response to an event.

And with webhooks I’m required to keep enough server capacity running all of the time to handle the events. Can a web hook automatically instantiate enough VMs on demand without reducing throughput?


"Can a web hook automatically instantiate enough VMs on demand without reducing throughput?"

Yes, there are various cgi-bin implementations with horizontal auto-scaling.


Across multiple servers or do you still have to provision your server to handle peak load?


Yes, you can do that the same way Amazon does it. Like I said, Amazon packaged existing tech in an easy to use way.


That still begs the question, why am I as a developer wasting time fiddling with infrastructure that I could just throw a little money and a yaml file at AWS and let them do it? How am I adding a business value that will make my company money doing grunt work?


I was explaining why I consider it to be "managed cgi-bin".


How much “easier” of a bundle is a Zip file? But there is also Serverless Docker - Fargate.

And you still have to provision and pay for the VM for peak load.

Lambdas do have process isolation.


cgi-bin had pretty strong process isolation for the day (Unix user account and process boundaries/limits/quotas). Enough to have remarkably robust multitenant setups on single servers.


Unless you were on the other side running Windows IIS as a multi tenant server....




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