Serverless vs. Containerized Workloads: Comparative Performance and Cost under Bursty Telecom Traffic
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15680/IJCTECE.2025.0801010Keywords:
Serverless, Containers, Kubernetes, AWS Lambda, Bursty Traffic, Telecom Signaling, Performance Benchmarking, Cost AnalysisAbstract
Telecom applications often experience sudden traffic spikes (e.g., call-setup surges, signaling bursts) that challenge infrastructure elasticity and cost controls. This paper compares serverless functions (AWS Lambda) and containerized microservices (Kubernetes on EC2) under bursty load, measuring end-to-end latency, request-processing throughput, and cost per 1 million requests. In a simulated telecom signaling workload with 100 to 1,000 requests/sec spikes, here are my observations
Serverless cold-start latency up to 300 ms vs. container steady latency 50 ms
• Throughput saturation at 800 req/sec for Kubernetes vs. 1,200 req/sec for Lambda (with concurrent executions)
• Cost per 1 M requests: $12.5 (Lambda) vs. $8.7 (container) under sustained bursts
We present architecture and sequence diagrams, detailed methodology, results analysis, and discuss trade-offs for telecom operators
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