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Serverless compute service for event-driven applications

Core Idea: AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that runs code in response to events, automatically managing the underlying infrastructure, scaling from a few requests per day to thousands per second.

Key Elements

• Key Features

  • Zero server management
  • Automatic scaling based on workload
  • Pay-per-invocation model (including free tier)
  • Millisecond metering for billing
  • Native integration with AWS services
  • Supports multiple programming languages (Node.js, Python, Java, Go, Ruby, .NET, etc.)
  • Event-driven execution model
  • Cold start behavior affects latency

• Technical Specifications

  • Memory allocation: 128MB to 10GB
  • Maximum execution time: 15 minutes
  • Ephemeral disk capacity (/tmp): 512MB to 10GB
  • Package deployment size: up to 50MB (compressed)
  • Concurrency limits: 1,000 per region (soft limit)
  • CPU allocation scales with memory
  • Container reuse ("warm starts") helps performance
  • VPC integration available

• Use Cases

  • Data processing
  • Real-time file processing
  • Stream processing
  • Web application backends
  • Mobile backends
  • IoT backends
  • Scheduled tasks
  • Webhook handling

• Implementation Steps

  1. Write function code in supported language
  2. Configure trigger (API Gateway, S3, CloudWatch Events, etc.)
  3. Set memory allocation and timeout
  4. Define IAM roles and permissions
  5. Deploy function via AWS Console, CLI, or infrastructure as code
  6. Configure environment variables and/or layers
  7. Set up monitoring with CloudWatch

• Code Example

// Simple Node.js Lambda function
exports.handler = async (event, context) => {
  console.log('Event:', JSON.stringify(event, null, 2));
  
  // Process event data
  const result = {
    message: 'Hello from Lambda!',
    timestamp: new Date().toISOString(),
    requestId: context.awsRequestId
  };
  
  return result;
};

Connections

• Related Concepts: Serverless Computing (architectural paradigm), Serverless Deployment (implementation approach), Google Cloud Functions (GCP equivalent)
• Broader Context: AWS Cloud Services (parent platform), FaaS (Function as a Service)
• Applications: Serverless REST API (implementation pattern), Event-Driven Architecture (design pattern)
• Components: API Gateway (common trigger), CloudWatch (monitoring), Step Functions (orchestration)

References

1. AWS Lambda Documentation (https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/welcome.html)
2. "Serverless Applications with AWS Lambda" by AWS

#aws #serverless #lambda #faas #cloud-computing

Connections:

Sources:

• From: Serverless Deployment