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Chalice: Python Serverless Microframework for AWS

aws.amazon.com

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Re: Chalice: Python Serverless Microframework for AWS

#31

Post by nostrademons »

brianwawok wrote: post #23
nostrademons wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the appeal of Lambda is that most services get zero-to-low usage, and so something which is "pay only for usage" may be a net win over dedicated computing resources if you use it for the right parts. I've had a number of startup ideas that went nowhere, and it would've been handy to test & demo them without springing for the full $17/month for an EC2 t2.micro instance. Usually they have some key aspect that's…

Really $17 for a micro? Baby gce machine is $4.

Yup. AWS prices suck, in general. If it weren't for the large (multi-terabyte) dataset I need for my current project that they're hosting for free on aws-publicdatasets, I'd probably switch to Google Cloud. I may yet switch, which illustrates the danger of relying on proprietary APIs like Lambda.

Re: Chalice: Python Serverless Microframework for AWS

#33

Post by tie_ »

collyw wrote: post #2

Ok, I have seen the phrase "serverless" a few times recently. Can someone explain to me what it is (as I am pretty sure it involves a server - it runs on AWS ffs) and why I should want to use it? And most importantly, is it web scale?

It means that you no longer have to deal with the server configuration - the servers are completely hidden from you. You just give your functions to AWS, and they run them in a black-magic-box of theirs. I've tested it at least to the extent of 100-200 rq/sec, and it holds up nice.

Ultimately, there is a server somewhere, as you might expect. It's just not yours to manage/worry about.

Re: Chalice: Python Serverless Microframework for AWS

#35

Post by rckclmbr »

scrollaway wrote: post #8
SwellJoe wrote: post #6

AWS Lambda is cool and all, but aren't people doing the math on this? Lambda seems like a really expensive way to deliver almost anything. Likewise, the AWS API Gateway is expensive, but at least provides some additional capabilities. Lambda seems like its profitable niche would be very small; limited computing environment, very high cost (relative to almost every other way to host an API), and having to learn a whol…

What makes you say Lambda is more expensive than things like EC2? Obviously lambda is a hammer, not a swiss army knife - you shouldn't shoehorn it into your app just because it's the new tech on the block. But the use case isn't niche at all. We're using lambda for our service to ingest and process Hearthstone replays. An HTTP POST is sent to the API gateway, this triggers a lambda which parses a 0.5-2MB file, scrape…

Do you leave your database server publicly open (but password protected obviously), or can you use IAM policies for this as well?

Re: Chalice: Python Serverless Microframework for AWS

#37

Post by cdnsteve »

I think I would have preferred this to be some type of plugin/add-on to Flask rather than a full replacement that now locks me to AWS and is a brand new project without any docs :(

If it was a cli with decorators or something that uses Flask I would feel more comfortable and give it a shot.

Re: Chalice: Python Serverless Microframework for AWS

#38

Post by nameless912 »

joobus wrote: post #18
emjr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Let it be known that Lambda only supports python 2.7, not python 3, and that really frickin sucks. Get your shit together, Amazon." Node 4 support came, what, a month ago? It's pretty ridiculous.

There is no significant benefit to python 3 over python 2.

Unicode....?

I mean, that's reason enough. Python 2's string processing suuuuuuucks.

Re: Chalice: Python Serverless Microframework for AWS

#39

Post by scrollaway »

rckclmbr wrote: post #35
scrollaway wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you say Lambda is more expensive than things like EC2? Obviously lambda is a hammer, not a swiss army knife - you shouldn't shoehorn it into your app just because it's the new tech on the block. But the use case isn't niche at all. We're using lambda for our service to ingest and process Hearthstone replays. An HTTP POST is sent to the API gateway, this triggers a lambda which parses a 0.5-2MB file, scrape…

Do you leave your database server publicly open (but password protected obviously), or can you use IAM policies for this as well?

A quick google search of more 3-letter-acronyms than there are in the US government yields this:

- https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/vpc-rds.html

- https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/access-control-...

Re: Chalice: Python Serverless Microframework for AWS

#40

Post by ganduG »

cdnsteve wrote: post #37

I think I would have preferred this to be some type of plugin/add-on to Flask rather than a full replacement that now locks me to AWS and is a brand new project without any docs :( If it was a cli with decorators or something that uses Flask I would feel more comfortable and give it a shot.

https://github.com/Miserlou/Zappa might be more useful to you.
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