Operating Lambda: Application design – Part 3

September 8, 2021: Amazon Elasticsearch Service has been renamed to Amazon OpenSearch Service. See details.

In the Operating Lambda series, I cover important topics for developers, architects, and systems administrators who are managing AWS Lambda-based applications. This three-part series discusses application design for Lambda-based applications.

Part 1 shows how to work with Service Quotas, when to request increases, and architecting with quotas in mind. Part 2 covers scaling and concurrency and the different behaviors of on-demand and Provisioned Concurrency. This post discusses choosing and managing runtimes, networking and VPC configurations, and different invocation modes.

Choosing and managing runtimes in Lambda functions

Lambda natively supports a variety of common runtimes, including Python, Node.js, Java, .NET, and others. If you prefer to use any other runtime, such as PHP or Perl, you can use a custom runtime. There are lists of community-maintained runtimes for a wide range of programming languages or you can build your own. As a result, Lambda customers can run Erlang, COBOL, Haskell, and almost any other runtime needed to support their workloads.

Regardless of compute platform, developers must take action if their preferred runtime version is no longer supported by the maintaining organization. Lambda has a documented runtime support policy for languages and frameworks that explains the process for runtime deprecation. Deprecation dates are driven by each runtime’s maintaining organization. Generally, AWS allows you to continue running functions on runtime versions for a period of time after the official runtime deprecation. You will receive emails from AWS if you have functions affected by an upcoming deprecation.

Runtimes and performance

Your choice of runtime is likely determined by a variety of factors. These include the skills available in your development team and the runtimes used in existing projects, especially in migrations. This choice may also be influenced by IT policy in your organization and other external factors. Lambda is agnostic to the choice of runtime, so you are free to choose without sacrificing capabilities within the service.

Different runtimes have different performance profiles in on-demand compute services like Lambda. For example, both Python and Node.js are fast to initialize and offer reasonable overall performance. Java is much slower to initialize but can be fast once running. The programming language Go can be extremely performant for both start-up and runtime. If performance is critical to your application, then profiling and comparing runtime performance is an important step before coding applications.

Multiple runtimes in single applications

Serverless applications usually consist of multiple Lambda functions. Each Lambda function can use only one runtime but you can use multiple runtimes across multiple functions. This enables you to choose the most appropriate runtime for the task performed by the function. Unlike traditional applications that tend to use a single language runtime, serverless applications allow you to mix-and-match runtimes as needed.

For example, in a Lambda function that transforms JSON between services, you could choose Node.js for your business logic. In another function handling data processing, you may choose Python. Both can co-exist in a single serverless application.

Managing AWS SDKs in Lambda functions

The Lambda service also provides AWS SDKs for your chosen runtime. These enable you to interact with AWS services using familiar code constructs. SDK versions change frequently as AWS adds new features and services, and the Lambda service periodically updates the bundled SDKs. Consequently, if you are using the bundled SDK version, you will notice the version changes in your function even if your function code has not changed.

The bundled SDK is provided as a convenience for developers building simpler functions or using the Lambda console for development. In these cases, SDK version changes typically do not impact the functionality or performance. To lock an SDK version and make it immutable, it’s recommended that you create a Lambda layer with a specific version of an SDK and include this in your deployment package.

To learn more, see the “Creating a layer containing the AWS SDK” section at https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/using-lambda-layers-to-simplify-your-development-process.

Networking and VPC configurations

Lambda functions always run inside VPCs owned by the Lambda service. As with customer-owned VPCs, this allows the service to apply network access and security rules to everything within the VPC. These VPCs are not visible to customers, the configurations are maintained automatically, and monitoring is managed by the service.

When you use some AWS services, they create resources that are only accessible from within your customer VPC. To access these resources with Lambda, your Lambda function must also be configured for access to the same VPC. Importantly, unless you are accessing services with resources in a customer VPC, there is no additional benefit to add a VPC configuration.

By default, Lambda functions have access to the public internet. This is not the case after they have been configured with access to one of your VPCs. If you continue to need access to resources on the internet, set up a NAT instance or Amazon NAT Gateway. Alternatively, you can also use VPC endpoints to enable private communications between your VPC and supported AWS services.

The high availability of the Lambda service depends upon access to multiple Availability Zones within the Region where your code runs. When you create a Lambda function without a VPC configuration, it’s automatically available in all Availability Zones within the Region. When you set up VPC access, you choose which Availability Zones the Lambda function can use. As a result, to provide continued high availability, ensure that the function has access to at least two Availability Zones.

The Lambda service uses a Network Function Virtualization platform to provide NAT capabilities from the Lambda VPC to customer VPCs. This configures the required elastic network interfaces (ENIs) at the point where Lambda functions are created or updated. It also enables ENIs from your account to be shared across multiple execution environments, which allows Lambda to make more efficient use of a limited network resource when functions scale.

Since ENIs are an exhaustible resource and there is a soft limit of 350 ENIs per Region, you should monitor elastic network interface usage if you are configuring Lambda functions for VPC access. Generally, if you increase concurrency limits in Lambda, you should evaluate if you need an elastic network interface increase. If the limit is reached, this causes invocations of VPC-enabled Lambda functions to be throttled.

Most serverless services can be used without further VPC configuration, while most instance-based services require VPC configuration:

To learn more, read about how VPC networking works with Lambda functions.

Comparing Lambda invocation modes

Lambda functions can be invoked either synchronously or asynchronously, depending upon the trigger. In synchronous invocations, the caller waits for the function to complete execution and the function can return a value. In asynchronous operation, the caller places the event on an internal queue, which is then processed by the Lambda function.

Synchronous invocations are well suited for short-lived Lambda functions. Although Lambda functions can run for up to 15 minutes, synchronous callers may have shorter timeouts. For example, API Gateway has a 29-second integration timeout, so a Lambda function running for more than 29 seconds will not return a value successfully. In synchronous invocations, if the Lambda function fails, retries are the responsibility of the trigger.

In asynchronous invocations, the caller continues with other work and cannot receive a return value from the Lambda function. The function can send the result to a destination, configurable based on success or failure. The internal queue between the caller and the function ensures that messages are stored durably. The Lambda service scales up the concurrency of the processing function as this internal queue grows. If an error occurs in the Lambda function, the retry behavior is determined by the Lambda service.

To learn more, read “Invoking AWS Lambda functions” and “Introducing AWS Lambda Destinations”.

Conclusion

This post discusses choosing and managing runtimes, the effect on performance, and how you can use multiple runtimes within a single serverless application. It explains the networking model and whether a Lambda function must have access to a customer VPC or can run with the default VPC configuration. It also compares the different invocation modes for Lambda functions.

For more serverless learning resources, visit Serverless Land.