Five Reasons Your Organization Should Consider AWS Lambda

July 7, 2022

Lambda is a serverless computer service, used within AWS to orchestrate pipelines and workflows.

It can be triggered to run by set events from over 200 other AWS Services (e.g., Amazon S3 bucket, Amazon DynamoDB table or Amazon Kinesis stream), or can be used to create your own new backend applications and services.

Below are five reasons your organization should consider AWS Lambda.

1) Ease of Use with Serverless Computing

Users don’t need to worry about managing infrastructure, maintenance, or hosting. All a developer needs to do is upload their code (called a “Lambda function”) as a .zip file or container image or write their code within Lambda, and it’s ready to run as soon as it is triggered. Lambda supports the following languages:
•    Node.js
•    Python
•    Ruby
•    Java
•    Go
•    .NET

2) Save Time by Automating Repeatable Tasks

It is designed for generic tasks that are repeatable in nature and commonly requested. For example, moving a file from one location to another. A lambda function can be created where the user specifies the parameters of the source location and the target location, and Lambda will take care of the rest. Each time a file needs to be moved between the two specified locations, your Lambda will automatically be triggered, without having to create new functions.

If you have a job that is too complex or large for Lambda to handle, AWS Glue is a great alternative.

3) It Scales to Your Workload

Lambda codes are stateless, so you never have to worry about adding new infrastructure if usage increases. Scaling is done automatically, based on the size of the workload. Lambda can handle anywhere from a few requests a day to thousands of requests per second, depending on your needs.

Lambda can launch up to a thousand functions simultaneously, meaning you don’t need to create multiple functions when the number of triggers increases. If more than a thousand triggers happen at once, Lambda will simply queue the rest of the functions to run after the first batch are complete.

If you have multiple Lambdas that exceed one thousand combined triggers at once, you can use reserved concurrency to ensure that the functions you need to run, run first.

4) You Pay Only for What You Use

Unlike other Cloud providers, you only need to pay for the amount of time Lambda is actually running – there are no charges for the times the server remains idle.

Lambda rounds use time to the nearest millisecond, meaning if you only use a millisecond of time on Lambda, you only pay for a millisecond of time – not for the whole minute or hour. Organizations save considerable amounts of money when using Lambda, compared to most other Cloud providers.

Lambda functions can also be set up to run during specified periods – for example, every Monday to Friday from 9:00am-5:00pm, so you are only paying for exactly when you need it to run.

5) It Works Well in a Variety of Use Cases

Lambda works well in a variety of use cases. For example:

Chatbots and virtual assistants – a Lambda function can be triggered when a user types in the chat box or speaks to the virtual assistant

Thumbnail generation – when images are stored in S3 buckets, Lambda functions can be used to automatically create thumbnails for them, or resize/reformat the images

Mobile applications – Lambda can be used to process events created by mobile applications

Learn about Zelusit’s solutions for clients using AWS Lambda.

How Zelusit Can Help

Zelusit is an Advanced Consultant Partner for AWS, which is a testament to our deep expertise on the platform. We specialize in delivering fast analytics on the Cloud and provide a range of services around Data Estate Modernization, AI (Artificial Intelligence) & Analytics, Governance, and Managed Services. Through best-in-class methodologies, we have helped customers accelerate their migration to the cloud and realize the value of their data through innovative analytics use cases powered by AWS.

Our extensive experience with Cloud solutions and AWS Lambda makes us the ideal partner to help automate your organization’s workload, saving you time and money.