Do you want to build websites? If that's your answer, then this is an article you can't afford to miss! We'll find out why AWS Lambda is so great for website development by bringing in some real-life examples right at its best. Hopefully, at the end of this article, you’re ready to get started and use AWS Lambda to sharpen your web development skills as well as increase your knowledge about AWS.
Spoiler alert: no demo here. What this article aims to do is tell you why you should use AWS Lambda in your web development, rather than explaining how to do it. If you'd like some advanced project ideas, I've provided a few below. Let's get started with what AWS Lambda is and why you should care.
What is AWS Lambda?
Lambda’s freedom from server management is the reason behind its popular use in deploying servers through service. It runs your code on a high-availability compute infrastructure and performs all the administration of the compute resources, which includes server and operating system maintenance, capacity provisioning and automatic scaling, and logging. All you do is provide your code in a supported programming language, be it Python, JavaScript, or Go. (What Is AWS Lambda? - AWS Lambda, n.d.)
As the core logic behind serverless web applications, Lambda truly shines combined with other services of AWS. It helps create scalable web applications automatically adjusted based on demand and ensures high availability across multiple data centers. This is one of the most widely used Amazon Web Services, and for good reason, one reason being its recognizable logo and serverless power.
One of the best things about this is that AWS Lambda is included in the always free tier from AWS. You have up to 1 million requests per month; you can play around with your Lambda functions for web development without billing alerts. So if you're on the fence about trying AWS Lambda, now's the time to experiment with it.
5 Reasons AWS Lambda is Great for Web Development
1. Serverless and Scalable
In this case, you won’t have the hassle of managing servers since it allows you to run the code without worrying about server infrastructure. With it's focus on serverless architecture, that's what makes Lambda special, with nothing to bother about scaling or infrastructure, adjusting automatically to whatever traffic spikes come in.
For instance, if your web application were one day featured on a prominent blog or social media page, using Lambda means you don't need to think about the increased traffic it will bring because it will handle this on its own and AWS will take care of scaling it for you so that your app doesn't slow down or stall at the critical moment. This is very convenient for startups or new projects since traffic may be unascertained. Lambda has auto-scaling, so you just concentrate on developing features that really matter to your users.
2. Cost-Effective (Pay-per-use)
Unlike traditional web hosting that would charge you a flat fee or rent servers 24/7, AWS charges only for actual compute time your function uses, down to the millisecond. You're not paying for idle servers, which makes it an extremely cost-efficient solution for web apps that don't get constant traffic. That's where the pay-per-use pricing model truly shines.
For instance, if your web app is small, such as for a personal website, there probably isn't a constant flow of visitors 24/7. Lambda prevents you from paying for the time your server sits idle and pays only when users are engaging with your app. Additionally, with 1 million free requests per month, even the smaller developer can use Lambda fully free of charge, and that's good for side projects.
If you are still afraid of using AWS because of costs, then the low-risk approach into cloud development can be done through Lambda because it's free. You can deploy fully functional web applications, with minimal operating costs.
3. Integrated with Other AWS Services
One of the great strengths is how it fits into the AWS ecosystem. Powerful in its own right, it's often used with services like API Gateway, DynamoDB, S3, SNS, and hundreds more. In the best cases, that makes Lambda an integral part of modern web applications. The fast, straightforward construction of powerful web applications, without much troublesome infrastructure.
For instance, combine it with Amazon S3 to distribute static content (images or videos), and Lambda functions can handle more dynamic backend logic. You could expose Lambda functions as HTTP endpoints using API Gateway to build serverless APIs, which could handle everything from user authentication to database interaction.
This means integration at this level, streamlines your development process because there is no third party involved. Everything will remain in the AWS environment; it's easier to manage and scale.
4. Faster Development and Deployment
You can focus completely on your code with AWS Lambda while allowing server setup and management to be handled by AWS. This means saving time and resources, enabling you to start iterating and deploying your web apps much faster. Traditional development environments often take hours, or even days, in server configuration and patching and subsequent infrastructure management before you can even start writing real code. Lambda strips away this pain-staking process so you can deploy within minutes.
In addition, AWS also allows you to automate and manage the deployment with tools such as SAM (Serverless Application Model) and CloudFormation. Deployments using Lambda can be done in a matter of minutes with a couple of clicks, testing, and you've just deployed your web app. All of this is possible without the overhead of usual operations. This can speed up your development cycle, making it all the better in fast-paced environments where time-to-market is crucial.
It's also flexible to support multiple programming languages. You can write my web app logic in Python, Node.js, Go, or several other languages, making it easy to adapt to the skills present in your development team, which means less time trying to learn new frameworks and more time building features.
5. Highly Available and Reliable
Some of the main advantages when using AWS Lambda to create web applications are that it has high availability. As a matter of fact, your functions are distributed over multiple availability zones and your application is designed to withstand failures and disruptions. The role of AWS is to take care of the underlying infrastructure; therefore, if there happens to be a failure in one data center, your application will keep running intact in another.
This built-in resilience makes Lambda best suited for web applications that have high uptime and availability requirements. Whether you are operating a personal blog, an e-commerce platform, or business-critical web application, Lambda will ensure your application stays alive and accessible to the users. You do not have to worry about downtime or server crashes because AWS takes care of that infrastructure. Lambda functions are always up and ready to respond to incoming requests.
No more downtime in the digital world today; this translates to lost users and revenue during those hectic moments. With Lambda, you are assured that your web app will never go down, even in high traffic volumes or problems with infrastructure.
My Own Experience with Lambda
When I first heard about AWS, the terms "Lambda" and "serverless" were coming up frequently in events. Their popularity sparked my curiosity of why they were popular topics in the tech world. Having done a little research, I found the benefits of serverless computing. So, I decided to sign up for an AWS account to test it out.
Having passed 2 courses by AWS skill builder, I opened an account on AWS and tried Lambda by myself. All that can be said about Lambda is it is very intuitive. Lots of programming languages are supported, so you can easily pick the most comfortable one for you and start coding right away. As a computer science student, I struggled with managing back-end systems, and then came Lambda. My first lambda was the deployment of a static website: some basic HTML and an API gateway, really, just to create the URL. Upload your code, and let Lambda take care of the rest? Sure thing. I was impressed by how easy it was to use.
Admittedly, I was even a little fearful of using AWS at first because all I knew was that I might rack up some billing costs that I would not be able to afford. If you’re in the same boat, I encourage you to push past that fear. AWS offers so many free services for tech development, and you can experiment with their services without running through some costs.
Currently, I am a part of my AWS Learning Club's software and web development department. Starting with Lambda gave me the confidence to explore other AWS services and go ahead to develop and even deploy my personal web applications.
The Functions Are Endless
Although AWS Lambda comes with 1 million free requests every month, the opportunities this presents are still a long way from being limited. With such other resources like the Lambda repo, full of pre-built functions, the development of a web becomes even smoother. I hope this article managed to spark your interest to give AWS Lambda a try for your web projects, and in the process, discover other related AWS services as well.
AWS Lambda takes care of the backend and deployment processes, so you can focus on the code that matters. This article only scratches the surface, but the goal is to show why Lambda is such a powerful tool for web development.
For some inspiration here are some projects you can try out using AWS Lambda:
1. Image Resizing Website
Let users upload images and specify the dimensions they want, with Lambda resizing the images and returning the results.
2. Dynamic Landing Pages
Build a serverless platform that dynamically generates personalized landing pages based on user behavior or marketing campaign data.
3. Static Website With Dynamic Features
Use S3 to host static content while Lambda handles dynamic backend functionality.
Thank you for taking the time to read my article and I hope it inspired you to create an AWS account and use AWS Lambda in your website development. Keep learning and remember, it’s always day one!
References
What is AWS Lambda? - AWS Lambda. (n.d.).
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/welcome.html
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