120. Lambda Best Practices

In this episode, we discuss best practices for working with AWS Lambda. We cover how Lambda functions work under the hood, including cold starts and warm starts. We then explore different invocation types - synchronous, asynchronous, and event-based. For each, we share tips on performance, cost optimization, and monitoring. Other topics include function structure, logging, instrumentation, and security. Throughout the episode, we aim to provide a solid mental model for serverless development and share our experiences to help you build efficient and robust Lambda applications.
💰 SPONSORS 💰
AWS Bites is brought to you by fourTheorem, an AWS Partner that specialises in modern application architecture and migration. We are big fans of serverless and we have worked on quite a few serverless projects even at a massive scale! If you are curious to find out more and to work with us, check us out at fourtheorem.com!
🔖 Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:04 Overview of how Lambda works - serverless, event-driven, cold starts
05:12 Types of Lambda invocation - synchronous, asynchronous, event-based
11:20 Lambda cost model and performance optimizations
16:08 Structuring Lambda functions for testability and separation of concerns
20:10 Lambda Power Tools - logs, metrics, traces, idempotency
22:38 Other quick tips about configuration, secrets, infrastructure as code, and security
25:27 Conclusion and additional resources for learning Lambda best practices
In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:
- Ep. 110 "Why should you use Lambda for Machine Learning?": awsbites.com/110-why-should-y...
- Ep. 108 "How to Solve Lambda Python Cold Starts": awsbites.com/108-how-to-solve...
- Ep. 104 "Explaining Lambda Runtimes": awsbites.com/104-explaining-l...
- Ep. 92 "Decomposing the Monolith Lambda": awsbites.com/92-decomposing-t...
- Ep. 64 "How do you write Lambda Functions in Rust?": awsbites.com/64-how-do-you-wr...
- Ep. 65 "Solving SQS and Lambda concurrency problems": awsbites.com/65-solving-sqs-a...
- Ep. 10 "Lambda or Fargate for containers?": awsbites.com/10-lambda-or-far...
- Ep. 4 "What language should you use for Lambda?": awsbites.com/4-what-language-...
- Ep. 6 "Is AWS Lambda cheap or expensive?": awsbites.com/6-is-aws-lambda-...
- Article: "What do you need to know about SNS?": fourtheorem.com/what-do-you-n...
- Article: "What can you do with EventBridge": fourtheorem.com/what-can-you-...
- Article: "What do you need to know about SQS?": fourtheorem.com/what-do-you-n...
- Yan Cui's video about using Lambda Destinations instead of DLQs: • AWS Lambda: Why you sh...
- Profiling functions with AWS Lambda Power Tuning: docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/la...
- Blog post by Luca Mezzalira about hexagonal architectures for Lambda: aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/...
- Ep. 41 "How can Middy make writing Lambda functions easier?": awsbites.com/41-how-can-middy...
- SLIC Watch for automated dashboards and alarms: github.com/fourTheorem/slic-w...
- Ep. 35 "How can you become a Logs Ninja with CloudWatch?": awsbites.com/35-how-can-you-b...
- Ep. 34 "How to get the most out of CloudWatch Alarms?": awsbites.com/34-how-to-get-th...
- Ep. 33 "What can you do with CloudWatch metrics?": awsbites.com/33-what-can-you-...
You can listen to AWS Bites wherever you get your podcasts:
- Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
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Do you have any AWS questions you would like us to address?
Leave a comment here or connect with us on X, formerly Twitter:
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#aws #lambda #serverless #bestpractice

[@devopmh]

the thing I appreciate a lot is the fact both of you always share the great resource that serves as a foundation of your speech, thanks for always sharing great content

[@My50c]

Thanks for the mention 👍

[@trishul_bawankar]

Good one! :)