AWS Lambda

AWS Lambda
Developer(s)Amazon.com
Initial releaseNovember 13, 2014; 9 years ago (2014-11-13)
Operating systemCross-platform
Available inEnglish
Websiteaws.amazon.com/lambda Edit this on Wikidata

AWS Lambda is an event-driven, serverless Function as a Service (FaaS) provided by Amazon as a part of Amazon Web Services. It is designed to enable developers to run code without provisioning or managing servers. It executes code in response to events and automatically manages the computing resources required by that code. It was introduced on November 13, 2014. [1]

Specification

Each AWS Lambda instance is a container created from Amazon Linux AMIs (a Linux distribution related to RHEL) and a configurable execution time. Node.js, Python, Java, Go,[2] Ruby,[3] and C# (through .NET) are all officially supported as of 2018. In late 2018, custom runtime support[4] was added to AWS Lambda.

In 2019, at the AWS annual cloud computing conference (AWS re:Invent), the AWS Lambda team announced "Provisioned Concurrency", a feature that "keeps functions initialized and hyper-ready to respond in double-digit milliseconds."[5] The Lambda team described Provisioned Concurrency as "ideal for implementing interactive services, such as web and mobile backends, latency-sensitive microservices, or synchronous APIs."[6]

The Lambda Function URL gives Lambda a unique and permanent URL which can be accessed by authenticated and non-authenticated users alike.[7]

AWS Lambda Layers allow developers to easily manage and share common components across multiple Lambda functions. It's designed to promote code reusability and simplify the deployment of libraries, custom runtimes, and other dependencies that Lambda functions might need. Lambda Layers can be particularly useful in microservices architectures, where multiple functions might share the same dependencies.[8] By using layers, one can ensure that all functions are using the same version of a library, making the application more consistent and easier to manage.

Best practices

Following DevSecOps practices can help end-users to use and secure Lambda-based applications more effectively. [9] In Lambda-based applications, the line between the infrastructure and business logic is blurred and the apps are usually spread across various services. According to Yan Cui, to get the most value from testing efforts, Lambda-based applications should be tested mainly for their integrations, and unit tests should be used only if there is a complex business logic. Also, to make debugging and implementation of Lambda-based easier, developers should use orchestration within the bounded context of a microservice, and should use choreography between the bounded-contexts.[10]

Helper Tools

Lambda Live Debugger is an open-source tools that helps you debug your AWS Lambda functions from your computer, while they are deployed in the cloud. It supports AWS CDK v2, Serverless Framework v3, AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM) and Terraform. [11]

Security

In April 2022, researchers found cryptomining malware targeting AWS Lambda named "Denonia".[12][13][14]

See also

References

  1. ^ Serverless Development on AWS Building Enterprise-Scale Serverless Solutions. O'Reilly Media. ISBN 9781098141899.
  2. ^ Munns, Chris (January 15, 2018). "Announcing Go Support for AWS Lambda". Amazon Web Services. Retrieved December 10, 2019.
  3. ^ Munns, Chris (November 29, 2018). "Announcing Ruby Support for AWS Lambda". Amazon Web Services. Retrieved December 10, 2019.
  4. ^ "AWS Lambda Now Supports Custom Runtimes and Enables Sharing Common Code Between Functions". Amazon Web Services. November 29, 2018. Retrieved December 10, 2019.
  5. ^ "New – Provisioned Concurrency for Lambda Functions". aws.amazon.com. 3 December 2019. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
  6. ^ "New – Provisioned Concurrency for Lambda Functions". Amazon Web Services. 2019-12-03. Retrieved 2020-02-03.
  7. ^ "Lambda function URLs - AWS Lambda". docs.aws.amazon.com. Retrieved 2024-03-01.
  8. ^ "Building Serverless SaaS Microservices with AWS Lambda Layers | AWS Partner Network (APN) Blog". aws.amazon.com. 2022-08-11. Retrieved 2024-02-02.
  9. ^ Katzer, Jason (2020). Learning Serverless: Design, Develop, and Deploy with Confidence. O'Reilly Media. ISBN 978-1492057017.
  10. ^ Cui, Yan (2020). Serverless Architectures on AWS (2nd ed.). Manning. ISBN 978-1617295423.
  11. ^ "Lambda Live Debugger". GitHub.
  12. ^ https://www.cadosecurity.com/blog/cado-discovers-denonia-the-first-malware-specifically-targeting-lambda
  13. ^ https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/crypto/cryptocurrency-mining-malware-used-to-target-aws-lambda-research-7859739/
  14. ^ https://therecord.media/researcher-finds-cryptomining-malware-targeting-aws-lambda