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Improved VPC Networking for AWS Lambda

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Re: Improved VPC Networking for AWS Lambda

#3
This is huge for Lambda. It allows devs to create “serverless” apps [1], with relational databases, without 10+ second cold-start times. In the article, they measure it as 988ms.

I have tried building an API using API Gateway Lambda, but had to choose between using DynamoDB to store data (no-SQL, so challenging to query) or suffering unacceptably long response times whenever a request happens to cause a cold-start. Theoretically, this problem is now going away!

[1] https://serverless-stack.com

Re: Improved VPC Networking for AWS Lambda

#6
post #3

This is huge for Lambda. It allows devs to create “serverless” apps [1], with relational databases, without 10+ second cold-start times. In the article, they measure it as 988ms. I have tried building an API using API Gateway Lambda, but had to choose between using DynamoDB to store data (no-SQL, so challenging to query) or suffering unacceptably long response times whenever a request happens to cause a cold-start. T…

*It allows devs to create those apps _within a VPC_.

You could always have fast startup with Lambda + database outside the VPC.

Re: Improved VPC Networking for AWS Lambda

#7
post #3

This is huge for Lambda. It allows devs to create “serverless” apps [1], with relational databases, without 10+ second cold-start times. In the article, they measure it as 988ms. I have tried building an API using API Gateway Lambda, but had to choose between using DynamoDB to store data (no-SQL, so challenging to query) or suffering unacceptably long response times whenever a request happens to cause a cold-start. T…

*It allows devs to create those apps _within a VPC_. You could always have fast startup with Lambda + database outside the VPC.

[deleted]

Re: Improved VPC Networking for AWS Lambda

#8
Iconoclast view ahead (change my mind please):

AWS does tons of stuff around VPCs....I feel like they really want me to use them (or their customers really want to use them), but I just don't see why.

I just run RDS on the internet. I don't have to muck with the complexity or cost of NATs or peering or Lambda slow start or any other weird networking issues.

I know it's "public", but that seems irrelevant in the era of cloud services. This isn't any different than, say, how Firebase or a million other services run. Should I be concerned that my Firebase apps are insecure because someone isn't overlaying a 10.* network on them?

EDIT: I should clarify that I understand the legitimacy of security groups, especially for technologies that weren't meant to operate outside a firewall. But that's mostly a different subject; AWS had security groups years before VPCs and subnets and NATs.

Re: Improved VPC Networking for AWS Lambda

#10

Iconoclast view ahead (change my mind please): AWS does tons of stuff around VPCs....I feel like they really want me to use them (or their customers really want to use them), but I just don't see why. I just run RDS on the internet. I don't have to muck with the complexity or cost of NATs or peering or Lambda slow start or any other weird networking issues. I know it's "public", but that seems irrelevant in the era o…

VPCs are very useful when running things like elasticache though( memcache and redis), because AFAIK those don't have an authentication ecosystem so making them public would be a terrible idea.
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