AWS Lambda is a compute service that runs code without needing infrastructure for any underlying servers/services. It’s a serverless function that allows for you to only be responsible for your actual code.
Under the hood, AWS is provisioning containers that will spin up when your code is called or going to be called. From there, the code will execute within that container and then the container will spin-down if it is not being used.
Main Use-Cases for AWS Lambda Functions
- Cost-Saving Architecture: The main pro of the lambda functions are the fact that they are inherently cost-saving when you are working with an event-driven-architecture since the compute is only charged when actively running.
- Flexibility with Existing Event-Driven Infra: Lambdas are really easy to integrate with other AWS services that produce the events that you are working with.
- Scalability: With lambda functions, you don’t need to worry about scaling your server infrastructure since AWS does all of the scaling for you.
How Lambda is Actually Used
There are many ways to actually implement the Lambda functions within your working environment. If you use an existing server-based framework like Node.JS you might consider using a framework that bridges the two like serverless.
Linked Map of Contexts