Amazon Lambda
If, like me, you’ve ever wondered what it would be like if running server-side code was as straightforward as running client-side code, you might be excited to learn about Amazon’s new Lambda service:
Lamda is shockingly simple. You upload Node.js scripts that run on-demand in response to various events. All infrastructure — hosting, scaling, maintenance, configuration, security, etc — is managed automatically. “Run no servers, no instances,” as the presenter claims in the video above.
Events that trigger your scripts include many of Amazon’s popular services, such as S3 uploads, DynamoDB updates, and Kinesis streams. You can also set up custom or scheduled events. They claim you can create complex applications by loosely-chaining together multiple functions through this event-driven system. The video above shows a hypothetical Instagram-style application built entirely on Lambda.
I’m fascinated by the idea of an infrastructure that is fully abstracted away from the stateful fussiness of server maintenance, leaving behind only stateless, functional code. It sounds perfect for some of the side projects I’ve had in mind.
This looks like the future to me.