Getting Started with AWS Lambda: Building Serverless Functions

AWS Lambda is a convenient compute service offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that allows you to execute your code without the hassle of provisioning or managing servers.

In this tutorial, we will guide you through the process of creating your initial serverless function using AWS Lambda.

Prerequisites-

1. If you don't have an AWS account yet, you can easily create a free account at: https://aws.amazon.com/free/.

2. Once you've created your account, simply log in to the AWS Management Console at: https://console.aws.amazon.com/.

Creating your first Lambda function

• Open the AWS Management Console and navigate to the Lambda service.

• Click on Create Function to initiate the creation of a new Lambda function.

• Choose a blueprint that suits your specific use case. For instance, let's select the "hello world python" blueprint.

Configure function details:

• Give your function a name, for example- MyFirstLambdaFunction.
• Choose the runtime as Python 3.8 (or any other runtime)

Leave the permissions settings as the default values for now.

• In the Function code section, you'll see the default code and you need to replace the code with the following snippet:

def lambda_handler(event, context):
    name = event['name']
    message = f"Hello, {name}!"
    return {
        'statusCode': 200,
        'body': message
    }

• Configure the test event: Under the Configure test events dropdown, select Hello-World as the sample event template.

• Click on Create to create your Lambda function.

Testing the Lambda function

• Once your function is created, you can test it by clicking on the Test button in the Lambda function console.

• Select the HelloWorld test event from the dropdown and click on Test again.

• You should see the output of your Lambda function in the console, which should be a JSON object containing the greeting message.

What do you think about AWS Lambda?