DigitalOcean jumped into the churning serverless computing space by acquiring startup Nimbella in a move that allows the cloud provider to offer developers and customers a smoother path to deploying applications. It also allows DigitalOcean to add a managed function service to its platform to better compete against market heavyweights like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

Jake Levirne, senior director of product at DigitalOcean, told SDxCentral in an interview that Nimbella’s serverless computing platform will be added to DigitalOcean’s infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings targeted to developers of small- and medium-sized businesses.

“We see our responsibility as helping developers and startups grow into the technology that they need without having to spend an inordinate amount of time figuring out how to use it,” Levirne said. “That should be on us."

Nimbella's platform is based on the existing Apache Software Foundation OpenWhisk product and the ever-present Kubernetes container orchestrator. That Kubernetes layer allows for broader portability across other cloud platforms.

Nimbella’s “key existing product and technology” is one thing that prompted the acquisition, Levirne said. The serverless provider has also “embraced cloud native” and has been a “significant builder of the OpenWhisk open-source project,” he added.

This openness also means startups and teams of developers will be able to better manage time and resources, Levirne said. 

“We have no need to lock customers into [DigitalOcean] based on a proprietary approach. We want to lock customers into [DigitalOcean] because they love the experience and the value that they're getting from the platform,” Levirne explained.

That love will now be accessible as part of  DigitalOcean's managed App Platform service. That product was launched last year as a way to automate infrastructure management and allow developers to more quickly deploy code to production.

Nimbella’s team is something else that makes DigitalOcean “pretty excited,” Levirne said. The provider plans to keep Nimbella’s team together as it’s absorbed into DigitalOcean. 

“You don't want to take a team that's been working well together and spread them across the board,” Levirne said. DigitalOcean will, however, offer “full support” by integrating veteran DigitalOcean employees into Nimbella’s team. 

Although serverless computing is a growing trend, Levirne believes it’s not the final destination. “That's the bet that we're making with serverless. It's one more piece of the puzzle, not a replacement for everything that's come before it,” he said.

Forrester Research placed Nimbella in the "strong performers" category in its most recent ranking of function-as-a-service (FaaS) platforms. The vendor shared that wave with larger rivals GCP, Tencent, and IBM. AWS, Alibaba, and Microsoft were deemed market leaders. That ranking should now translate to DigitalOcean at a time when the serverless market is starting to see increased attention.

A recent survey from Cockroach Labs found 39% of survey participants are currently utilizing serverless computing. Another 28% of participants are in the process of adopting serverless, while only 10% of survey participants have no current or future plans to explore serverless computing.