Cloud infrastructure freed businesses from on-premises servers, a concept further simplified with containers’ virtualized method for packaging and distributing software applications. Now serverless computing is the logical next step to total infrastructure freedom — and breaking the information technology-business barrier, according to Mark Nunnikhoven (pictured), vice president of cloud research at Trend Micro Inc.

“Serverless is that last step on the current line of going ‘I don’t have to run any of this stuff — I can just write code that’s directly tied to my business,'” Nunnikhoven said.

Applications built with serverless functions — the single blocks of code that lay beneath microservices — not only abstract away server configuration and other tedious IT “plumbing,” Nunnikhoven explained. They also tie a company’s IT operations closer to its business department.

Nunnikhoven spoke with Stu Miniman (@stu), co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during an during an interview at the ServerlessConf event in New York City.

Serverless computing enables transparency into the performance, as well as the cost, of running particular apps. “You can actually say, ‘That application costs me a $1.10 per transaction, and I normally make $9.00 on each transaction. So this is good, let’s continue to invest there.'”

Revision of labor

Obviously, this insight into cost by itself should be of interest to business heads. But the serverless business advantage doesn’t end there, Nunnikhoven added. Serverless computing is so stripped down and simplified, even non-techies can manage the basics.

“Because there’s far less infrastructure and plumbing to worry about, you have people who aren’t traditionally viewed as developers — more the business analysts — starting to actually write solutions that are far more directly in line with what you want to do as a business.”

Nunnikhoven is a fan of cross-sectionality — not just in serverless computing, but in security. “Security’s everybody’s responsibility,” he said.

Serverless designs so far are doing well in terms of security, but there is always room for improvement, especially in terms of prevention and spreading knowledge across departments, he stated. To that end, security pros need to come out of isolation.

“We need to be educators within our organizations to help people understand what they can do,” Nunnikhoven concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the ServerlessConf event.

Photo: SiliconANGLE