Introduction to Distributed Systems and Serverless Systems

Distributed systems are no longer exotic. Every application you use daily, from banking to food delivery, is powered by services spread across machines, regions, and sometimes continents. As developers, this is the water we swim in. Even small projects today tend to involve APIs, queues, and cloud storage spread across boundaries. This first chapter is about building the right mindset. We'll look squarely at the challenges that come with distribution, trace how software architecture has evolved, and then introduce serverless as a practical way to handle complexity. By the end of the chapter, you’ll not only understand why serverless is important, but you'll also have a Function running on your own machine.