This document discusses how to wield the Infinity Stones of serverless computing on AWS Lambda to optimize performance and costs. It provides tips for reducing code size and duplication using Lambda layers to wield the Space Stone. It recommends building "nano-services" instead of "monoliths" and using code orchestration like Step Functions to wield the Mind Stone. Metrics are given on how memory size and amount of code affects cold start times and costs to wield the Time and Power Stones. Design principles are outlined for concurrency, failures, and cloud-native design to wield the Soul and Reality Stones.

1. Become Thanos of
the LambdaLand:
Wield all the Infinity Stones
Srushith Repakula
Head of Engineering
KonfHub
@SrushithR

2. Lets SNAP a few
servers out and tilt the
world back to balance!

3. Physical Virtualisation Cloud Containers Serverless
Evolution of Serverless

4. Time
Time
Stone
Memory
Power
Stone
Code
Size
Space
Stone
Code
Mind
Stone
Pragmatics
Reality
Stone
Design
Principles
Sole
Stone

5. Space Stone - Code Size
● Cold starts are directly proportional to the
deployment package size
● Never have unnecessary code/dependencies

6. Space Stone - Lambda Layers
● a ZIP archive that contains
libraries/dependencies
● Pull in additional code and content
● A function can use up to 5 layers at a time
● Helpful in reducing the code duplications

7. Mind Stone - Code

8. Mind Stone - Instead of Lambda based “Monoliths”..

9. Mind Stone - Lambda based “nano-services”

10. Mind Stone - Code Orchestration
Step
Functions
Message
Queues

11. Mind Stone - Code
https://theburningmonk.com/2019/03/just-how-expensive-is-the-full-aws-sdk/

12. Time Stone - Time

13. Time Stone - Time
Stats for lambda function that calculates 1000 times all prime numbers less than 1000000
128 mb 11.722965 sec $0.024628
256 mb 6.678945 sec $0.028035
512 mb 3.194954 sec $0.026830
1024 mb 1.456984 sec $0.024638
Stats courtesy: https://www.slideshare.net/AmazonWebServices/the-best-practices-and-hard-lessons-learned-of-
serverless-applications-aws-startup-day-boston-2018pdf-106324321

14. Time Stone - Understanding Cold Starts

15. Power Stone -
Memory

16. Power Stone - Memory
https://github.com/alexcasalboni/aws-lambda-power-tuning

17. Soul Stone - Design
Principles

18. Soul Stone - Design Principles
Scaling considerations - Concurrency

19. Soul Stone - Design Principles
Cloud Native Design - Always think in terms of Serverless

20. Soul Stone - Design for failures and duplicates

21. Soul Stone - Design for failures and duplicates

22. Reality Stone -
Pragmatics

24. Reality Stone - Pragmatics
Serverless is easy to code, but harder to
design!
● Concurrency
● Latency caused by VPC
● Database constraints

25. Reality Stone - Pragmatics
You Can always over power cold
starts! 😉

26. Reality Stone - Pragmatics
● Violate SRP, if needed
● State management is against the design, but you
might eventually have to maintain states
● Design your application with Serverless in mind

27. @SrushithR Srushith
Repakula
@SrushithR