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AWS Lambda — Serverless Computing

What is Serverless?

  • Serverless is a new paradigm in which the developers don't have to manage servers anymore
  • They just deploy code / functions
  • Initially, Serverless == FaaS (Function as a Service)
  • Serverless was pioneered by AWS Lambda but now also includes anything that's managed: databases, messaging, storage, etc.
  • Serverless does NOT mean there are no servers — it means you just don't manage/provision/see them

Serverless Services in AWS

  • AWS Lambda
  • DynamoDB
  • AWS Cognito
  • AWS API Gateway
  • Amazon S3
  • AWS SNS & SQS
  • AWS Kinesis Data Firehose
  • Aurora Serverless
  • Step Functions
  • Fargate

Why AWS Lambda?

Traditional EC2 Approach:

  • Virtual Servers in the Cloud
  • Limited by RAM and CPU
  • Continuously running
  • Scaling means intervention to add/remove servers

AWS Lambda Approach:

  • Virtual functions — no servers to manage
  • Limited by time — short executions
  • Run on-demand
  • Scaling is automated

Benefits of AWS Lambda

Easy Pricing:

  • Pay per request and compute time
  • Free tier: 1,000,000 AWS Lambda requests and 400,000 GBs of compute time per month

Other Benefits:

  • Integrated with the whole AWS suite of services
  • Integrated with many programming languages
  • Easy monitoring through AWS CloudWatch
  • Easy to get more resources per function (up to 10GB of RAM)
  • Increasing RAM will also improve CPU and network

Lambda Language Support

Language Support
Node.js ✅
Python ✅
Java ✅
C# / .NET ✅
Golang ✅
C# / Powershell ✅
Ruby ✅
Custom Runtime API ✅ (community supported, e.g., Rust)
Lambda Container Image ✅ (must implement Lambda Runtime API; ECS/Fargate preferred for arbitrary Docker images)

Lambda Limits (Per Region)

Execution:

  • Memory allocation: 128 MB – 10 GB (1 MB increments)
  • Maximum execution time: 900 seconds (15 minutes)
  • Environment variables: 4 KB
  • Disk capacity in the "function container" (/tmp): 512 MB to 10 GB
  • Concurrency executions: 1,000 (can be increased)

Deployment:

  • Compressed deployment size (zip): 50 MB
  • Uncompressed deployment size (code + dependencies): 250 MB
  • Can use the /tmp directory to load other files at startup
  • Environment variables: 4 KB

Lambda Use Cases

Serverless Thumbnail Creation

  1. New image in S3
  2. S3 triggers Lambda function
  3. Lambda creates a thumbnail
  4. Lambda pushes thumbnail back to S3 and metadata to DynamoDB

Serverless CRON Job

  1. CloudWatch Events EventBridge Rule triggers Lambda function every hour
  2. Lambda performs a task

Lambda@Edge & CloudFront Functions

Used to run code closer to the user at edge locations.

Feature CloudFront Functions Lambda@Edge
Runtime JavaScript Node.js, Python
# of Requests Millions per second Thousands per second
CloudFront Triggers Viewer Request/Response Viewer/Origin Request/Response
Max Execution Time < 1 ms 5–10 seconds
Memory 2 MB 128 MB – 10 GB
Use Case Simple request manipulation More complex logic