Serverless computing is rapidly emerging as a viable option for enterprises looking to run cloud-native workloads, according to a new whitepaper published by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation this week.

The CNCF defines serverless computing as a framework for building and running applications that do not require server management. With serverless computing, the cloud hosting provider allocates resources as they’re needed, instead of charging upfront for dedicated capacity.

It’s also worth pointing out that the term “serverless” is a bit misleading, as servers are still required. However, the cloud providers themselves manage the virtual machines and application containers along with servers, freeing up developers to focus on what they do best.

“Serverless is the natural evolution of cloud-native computing,” said Chris Aniszczyk, chief operating officer at the CNCF. However, he warned that a lack of interoperability and standards around serverless computing could lead to the old bugbear of “vendor lock-in.”

It should be noted that representatives from cloud vendors including Amazon Web Services Inc., Google LLC and IBM Corp. all sat on the CNCF’s working group to compile the whitepaper. Other companies, including Docker Inc., Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., Red Hat Inc. and VMware Inc., were also represented.

The CNCF said in its paper that the shift to cloud-native applications and serverless computing has evolved infrastructure virtualization to a point where most management tasks are “completely abstracted away from the developers and IT operations teams.”

However, the foundation, which hosts cloud-native open-source projects such as Kubernetes and others, said it’s not going to recommend a standard for serverless architecture at this point. What it does aim to do is promote an open ecosystem by creating interoperable application programming interfaces, and by obtaining “commitments” from cloud providers to implement interoperable serverless frameworks.

The CNCF said it expects to launch initiatives around serverless interoperability and portability that are similar to its container networking and storage efforts. It hopes to enlist serverless platform providers and third-party library developers in these efforts.

“There are certain use cases where serverless technology provides major benefits over other cloud hosting technologies,” the whitepaper stated. These use cases include cloud-native workloads that can be diced up into independent units, short-lived or stateless workloads, workloads with variable scaling needs, and dynamic applications that need to be modified quickly to cope with evolving business needs.

The whitepaper comes after the CNCF reported growing adoption of serverless frameworks such as Amazon’s Lambda service in a December survey. More than two-thirds of survey respondents said they’re using Lambda for some tasks, while alternatives such as Apache OpenWhisk, Google Cloud Functions and Microsoft Azure Functions are also growing.

The CNCF isn’t the only one that’s bullish on serverless computing. A report last year by Ireland-based analysis firm Market and Research said the rise of serverless technologies could lead to a new market segment called “functions-as-a-service” that could generate $7.7 billion in revenue by 2021. FaaS was also cited as a popular use case by hybrid cloud infrastructure management company Platform9 Inc. in a recent survey.

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