AWS Lambda

AWS Lambda
Developer(s)	Amazon.com
Initial release	November 13, 2014; 10 years ago
Operating system	Cross-platform
Available in	English
Website	aws.amazon.com/lambda

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 runs within a lightweight, isolated environment powered by Firecracker microVMs. These microVMs are initialized with a runtime environment based on Amazon Linux (Amazon Linux AMI or Amazon Linux 2), a custom Linux distribution developed by AWS. Firecracker provides hardware-virtualization-based isolation, aiming to achieve near-bare-metal performance with minimal overhead. AWS claims that, unlike traditional virtual machines, these microVMs launch in milliseconds, enabling rapid and secure function execution with a minimal memory footprint. The Amazon Linux AMI is specifically optimized for cloud-native and serverless workloads, aiming to provide a lightweight, secure, and performant runtime environment. ^[2]^[3]^[4]

As of 2025^[update], AWS Lambda supports Node.js, Python, Java, Go, .NET, Ruby and custom runtimes.^[5]

Features

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."^[6] The Lambda team described Provisioned Concurrency as "ideal for implementing interactive services, such as web and mobile backends, latency-sensitive microservices, or synchronous APIs."^[7]

The Lambda Function URL gives Lambda a unique and permanent URL which can be accessed by authenticated and non-authenticated users alike.^[8]

Lambda layer

AWS Lambda layer is a ZIP archive containing libraries, frameworks or custom code that can be added to AWS Lambda functions. ^[9] As of December 2024, AWS Lambda layers have significant limitations: ^[10]^[11]

No semantic versioning support.
Incompatibility with major security scanning tools.
Contribution to Lambda's 250MB size limit.
Impeded local testing.
No tree-shaking optimizations.

Portability

Migration from AWS Lambda to other AWS compute services, such as Amazon ECS, presents challenges due to tight integration with AWS Lambda's APIs, often referred to as service lock-in.^{[according to whom?]} Tools like AWS Lambda Web Adapter offer a pathway for portability by enabling developers to build web applications using familiar frameworks under a monolithic Lambda design pattern.^[12]^[13] However, this approach introduces limitations, including coarser-grained alerting and access controls, potential cold start delays with large dependencies, and limited suitability for non-HTTP APIs.^{[according to whom?]}

Security

In April 2022, researchers found cryptomining malware targeting AWS Lambda named "Denonia".^[14]^[15]^[16]

References

^ Serverless Development on AWS Building Enterprise-Scale Serverless Solutions. O'Reilly Media. 23 January 2024. ISBN 9781098141899.
^ Spigolon, Manuel; Sinik, Maksim; Collina, Matteo (9 June 2023). Accelerating Server-Side Development with Fastify: A comprehensive guide to API development for building a scalable backend for your web apps. Packt Publishing. ISBN 9781800568747.
^ "Firecracker – Lightweight Virtualization for Serverless Computing".
^ "Secure and fast microVMs for serverless computing".
^ "Lambda runtimes".
^ "New – Provisioned Concurrency for Lambda Functions". aws.amazon.com. 3 December 2019. Archived from the original on 2020-10-18. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
^ "New – Provisioned Concurrency for Lambda Functions". Amazon Web Services. 2019-12-03. Archived from the original on 2020-02-03. Retrieved 2020-02-03.
^ "Lambda function URLs - AWS Lambda". docs.aws.amazon.com. Archived from the original on 2024-03-01. Retrieved 2024-03-01.
^ "Managing Lambda dependencies with layers". Archived from the original on 2024-02-04. Retrieved 2024-02-02.
^ Sbarski, Peter (17 April 2017). Serverless Architectures on AWS: With examples using AWS Lambda. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9781638351146.
^ Eagar, Gareth (29 December 2021). Data Engineering with AWS: Learn how to design and build cloud-based data transformation pipelines using AWS. Packt Publishing. ISBN 9781800569041.
^ "AWS Lambda Web Adapter". GitHub. Archived from the original on 2024-11-28. Retrieved 2024-11-29.
^ "The Lambda monolith". Archived from the original on 2024-11-26. Retrieved 2024-11-29.
^ "Cado Discovers Denonia: The First Malware Specifically Targeting Lambda". Archived from the original on 2024-11-15. Retrieved 2024-11-04.
^ "New cryptocurrency mining malware used to target AWS Lambda: Researchers | Technology News - the Indian Express". Archived from the original on 2024-03-15. Retrieved 2024-11-04.
^ "Researcher finds cryptomining malware targeting AWS Lambda". Archived from the original on 2024-04-05. Retrieved 2024-11-04.

External links

Official website

[1] Serverless Development on AWS Building Enterprise-Scale Serverless Solutions. O'Reilly Media. 23 January 2024. ISBN 9781098141899.

[2] Spigolon, Manuel; Sinik, Maksim; Collina, Matteo (9 June 2023). Accelerating Server-Side Development with Fastify: A comprehensive guide to API development for building a scalable backend for your web apps. Packt Publishing. ISBN 9781800568747.

[3] "Firecracker – Lightweight Virtualization for Serverless Computing".

[4] "Secure and fast microVMs for serverless computing".

[5] "Lambda runtimes".

[6] "New – Provisioned Concurrency for Lambda Functions". aws.amazon.com. 3 December 2019. Archived from the original on 2020-10-18. Retrieved 2020-10-12.

[7] "New – Provisioned Concurrency for Lambda Functions". Amazon Web Services. 2019-12-03. Archived from the original on 2020-02-03. Retrieved 2020-02-03.

[:0-8] "Lambda function URLs - AWS Lambda". docs.aws.amazon.com. Archived from the original on 2024-03-01. Retrieved 2024-03-01.

[9] "Managing Lambda dependencies with layers". Archived from the original on 2024-02-04. Retrieved 2024-02-02.

[10] Sbarski, Peter (17 April 2017). Serverless Architectures on AWS: With examples using AWS Lambda. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9781638351146.

[11] Eagar, Gareth (29 December 2021). Data Engineering with AWS: Learn how to design and build cloud-based data transformation pipelines using AWS. Packt Publishing. ISBN 9781800569041.

[12] "AWS Lambda Web Adapter". GitHub. Archived from the original on 2024-11-28. Retrieved 2024-11-29.

[13] "The Lambda monolith". Archived from the original on 2024-11-26. Retrieved 2024-11-29.

[14] "Cado Discovers Denonia: The First Malware Specifically Targeting Lambda". Archived from the original on 2024-11-15. Retrieved 2024-11-04.

[15] "New cryptocurrency mining malware used to target AWS Lambda: Researchers | Technology News - the Indian Express". Archived from the original on 2024-03-15. Retrieved 2024-11-04.

[16] "Researcher finds cryptomining malware targeting AWS Lambda". Archived from the original on 2024-04-05. Retrieved 2024-11-04.

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