AWS Lambda - A Practical Guide - Learn from an Expert

We explore what is AWS Lambda, its advantages, disadvantages, and industry users of the technology.

We explore the AWS Lambda console.

We use the AWS console to create a simple Demo Lambda Function.

We learn how to invoke our function by using test events and observing the output.

Learn how to look at historic logs of past function executions.

A primer to how AWS Lambda works under the hood and what "serverless" really means.

Learn about how triggers help integrate with other AWS services to achieve powerful functionality.

Learn about the difference between Synchronous and Asynchronous invocation and the implications of using both methods.

Learn about a key limitation of using AWS lambda.

Learn how to detect timeouts and how to address them.

Learn about Memory allocation - the key lever to control the performance of your function.

Learn about the pricing model of AWS Lambda and why it is such an attractive compute option.

Learn about the key stages of a function execution and the dreaded cold start phenomenon.

One of the key scaling factors to consider is Lambda concurrency. Learn what it means and how to manage concurrency for your production applications.

See throttling in action and learn how to detect it.

Learn two of the three types of concurrency at your disposal: unreserved and reserved.

Learn about a new concurrency type meant to increase the consistency of your function's performance.

Learn about how versions can be used to deploy multiple instances of your function's code at once.

Learn how to leverage alias to control pointers to your function code.

Learn how to create a version and map an alias to it.

Learn about environment variables and best practices for injecting them into your Lambda function execution.

Learn how to define and use environment variables in our function.

Learn about the nuances of deploying a lambda function in a VPC.

Learn about the most important metrics to monitor as part of operational excellence.

Learn about best practices when it comes to logging, and how to utilize metric filters to drastically reduce your metric collection cost.

Learn how to create and observe metrics created through metric filters.

Learn how to use Lambda Insights to understand the performance profile of your function, and how to leverage Lambda Power Tuning to optimize your function's performance and cost.

Learn how to use Lambda Power Tuning to optimize your function in this hands on demonstration.

Learn how to gain additional serviceability into your function's execution and dependencies using X Ray Tracing and Service Lens.

Learn how to setup X Ray tracing, how to define sub segments, and how to visualize your function's execution using Service Lens.

Learn about how to leverage DLQs to protect your application from intermittent failures.

Learn how to re-use common dependencies for multiple functions using Layers.

See layers in action as we import a dependency and apply it to our function using a Layer.

Learn about how Lambda has evolved to support Docker Containers as runtime options.

Learn about CI / CD Setup options with SAM (Severless Application Model) and CDK (Cloud Development Kit).

Learn about the issues of using lambda with traditional RDS databases and how to leverage RDS Proxy to circumvent these issues.

(added 09/30/2022)

A new Lambda feature was announced that I think you should know about - Function URLs. Learn how to set them up in this hands on session.

Build a Lambda function that integrates with Cloudwatch Events such that it is invoked once every minute. Hands on in the console.

Learn how to create a REST / HTTP API by integrating Lambda with API Gateway.