This document provides an introduction to AWS Lambda and the Serverless Framework. It defines serverless computing and discusses key differences between Platform as a Service (PaaS) and serverless models. AWS Lambda is introduced as Amazon's serverless compute platform, and other serverless platform providers are listed. The Serverless Framework is described as a development toolkit for building, managing and deploying serverless applications. Sample code and a serverless.yml configuration file are shown.

1. An introduction to AWS Lambda and the Serverless Framework
© Rowell Belen 1

2. About Me
Rowell Belen / Senior Platform Engineer @ Algorithmia
» LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/rowellbelen
» Blog: https://www.rowellbelen.com
» GitHub: https://github.com/bytekast
» Twitter: @bytekast
» Email: rowell.belen@bytekast.com
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3. What is Serverless Computing?
Serverless Computing is a cloud computing model that allows
you to build and run applications and services without thinking
about servers. The platform takes care of everything required to
run and scale your code with high availability.
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4. The Sweet Spot
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5. But... but... aren't PaaS and Serverless the same?
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6. What is the key
difference between
PaaS and Serverless?
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7. ORCHESTRATION
&
MANAGEMENT
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8. and...
SCALING!!
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9. Unit of Scale
» Data Center: Hardware (Physical Hosting Env Abstraction)
» IaaS: Virtual Machines (Hardware Abstraction)
» Paas: Application (VM Abstraction)
» Serverless: Function (Runtime Abstraction)
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10. Wait.. wait... What about containers?
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11. What are the key
differences between
Containers and Serverless?
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12. ORCHESTRATION
&
MANAGEMENT
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13. and...
SCALING!!
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14. What is AWS Lambda?
Amazon's Serverless compute platform for stateless code
execution in response to events
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15. Other Serverless Platform Providers
» Microsoft Azure Functions
» Iron.io
» Google Cloud Functions
» IBM Open Whisk
» WebTask.io
» PubNub BLOCKS
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16. How Is AWS Lambda Used?
» Stream Data Processing
» REST Backend Services
» One-off Processes
» Background Workers
» Event Responders
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17. How are Lambda Functions Triggered?
» Event-driven (SNS, SQS, S3, API-Gateway, Amazon Echo
Skills, IoT, etc.)
» Direct Invocation (CLI, SDK, etc.)
» Scheduled Interval
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18. Supported Languages
» Node.js (Javascript)
» Python
» JVM ( Java, Scala, Groovy, Kotlin, Clojure, etc. )
» C#
» GoLang
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19. Pricing
Memory (MB) Free tier seconds per month Price per 100ms ($)
128 3,200,000 0.000000208
256 1,600,000 0.000000417
512 800,000 0.000000834
1024 400,000 0.000001667
1536 266,667 0.000002501
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20. Top Tier Pricing (1536 MB Memory)
1 Million Executions @ 1 sec/exec ≈ $18.34
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21. Benefits
» Cost and Utilization
» Fully Managed Infrastructure
» Rapid Development
» Streamlined AWS Integrations
» Pay Per Use
» Auto Scale
» Built-in Versioning
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22. Drawbacks
» Limited Language Support
» Not Suitable for Long-running Tasks
» Local Development and Debugging Challenges
» Limited Infrastructure Transparency / Less Control
» Potential Vendor Lock-in
» Cutting-edge quirks
» Concurrent Execution Limit is Shared across entire AWS
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23. Enough chit-chat,
let's see some code!
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24. Sample Function
def sendImage(Map httpEvent, Context context) {
try {
final request = new RequestContext().input(httpEvent).context(context)
final imageUrl = request.httpBody()
SqsUtil.instance.sendSQSMessage(inputQueueUrl, imageUrl)
new Response().statusCode(200).body("QUEUED: ${imageUrl}")
} catch (e) {
new Response().statusCode(500).body(e.message)
}
}
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25. What is the Serverless Framework?
Development toolkit for building, managing and deploying
Serverless applications and resources
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26. Serverless Framework CLI
npm install serverless -g
mkdir my-api && cd my-api
serverless create --template aws-groovy-gradle
serverless deploy --stage dev
serverless invoke --function my-function --log
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27. Available Templates
» aws-nodejs
» aws-python
» aws-groovy-gradle
» aws-java-maven
» aws-scala-sbt
» ...etc
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28. serverless.yml - Basic Function
service: serverless-demo
provider:
runtime: java8
timeout: 300
memorySize: 1536
package:
artifact: /build/dist/serverless-demo.zip
functions:
my-function:
handler: com.bytekast.serverless.MyLambdaFunction::handler
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29. serverless.yml - API Gateway
functions:
createUser:
handler: com.bytekast.serverless.UserService::createUser
events:
- http:
path: users/create
method: post
deleteUser:
handler: com.bytekast.serverless.UserService::deleteUser
events:
- http:
path: users/delete
method: delete
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30. serverless.yml - API Gateway (Custom Authorization)
...
events:
- http:
path: users/create
method: post
cors: true
authorizer:
arn: arn:aws:lambda:us-east-1:1234567890123:function:authorizer
identitySource: method.request.header.Authorization
identityValidationExpression: Bearer .*
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31. serverless.yml - SNS Topic Subscription
functions:
audit:
handler: com.bytekast.serverless.AuditService::audit
events:
- sns: dev-audit-topic
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32. serverless.yml - Scheduled Trigger
functions:
crawl:
handler: com.bytekast.serverless.SearchService::crawl
events:
- schedule: rate(2 hours)
- schedule: cron(0 12 * * ? *)
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33. serverless.yml - IAM Role Permissions
provider:
...
iamRoleStatements:
- Effect: "Allow"
Action:
- "sqs:*"
Resource: arn:aws:sqs:us-east-1:1234567890123:dev-serverless-demo
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34. serverless.yml - Create AWS Resources
resources:
Resources:
InboundQueue:
Type: "AWS::SQS::Queue"
Properties:
QueueName: ${self:provider.stage}-serverless-demo
MessageRetentionPeriod: 1209600
VisibilityTimeout: 60
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35. Sample Serverless ETL Pattern
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36. Sample Serverless Platform Architecture
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37. DEMO
Build Car Image Recognition Service using
Serverless Framework + API Gateway + AWS Lambda
Sample Project
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38. What about Cloud Scale
DevOps?
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39. Lambda Built-In Features
» Containers are ephemeral entities that are easily created and
destroyed
» Preserved history and ability to roll back a bad deployment
( revert to previous version )
» Auto-managed horizontal scaling (Scale out / Scale In)
» Automatic Load Balancing
» Zero/Minimal Downtime during deployment
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40. Environments should not be connected
or otherwise intercommunicate
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41. Solutions:
» AWS Lambda supports running functions in different VPCs
(dev, stage, prod)
» Use separate AWS accounts per Environment
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42. Promote immutable application
artifacts from the lowest environment
to the highest ( Deployment )
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43. Solutions:
» Publish Versioned Build Artifacts to Repository
» Continuous Integration
» Continuous Delivery
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44. Centralized Logging
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45. Metrics
» Better Dashboards
» Custom Metrics and Events
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46. Standardize Projects using
Templates
Custom Project Starter Kit
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47. Other Things to Consider
» AWS functions are recycled about every 5-8 hours
» Container instances idle for about 5 minutes are destroyed
» Cold starts can cause delay in response times
» 50 MB max deployment package size
» 5 minute running time limit / ~ 30 seconds if API Gateway
triggered
» 1000 default concurrent function executions across entire
AWS account
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48. Questions?
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