serverless

Serverless - Cloud Functions & Event-Driven Architecture

Purpose: Build scalable, cost-effective applications using serverless architecture with AWS Lambda, API Gateway, and managed services

Agent: Amazon Cloud Architect Use When: Building APIs, event processing, scheduled tasks, or auto-scaling backend services without managing servers

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Overview

Serverless lets you run code without provisioning or managing servers. Pay only for compute time consumed.

Core Benefits:

• No server management
• Automatic scaling (0 to millions of requests)
• Pay-per-use (no idle costs)
• High availability built-in
• Focus on code, not infrastructure

AWS Serverless Stack:

• Lambda: Function as a Service
• API Gateway: HTTP APIs
• DynamoDB: NoSQL database
• S3: Object storage
• EventBridge: Event bus
• SQS/SNS: Messaging

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Quick Start: Lambda + API Gateway

Basic Lambda Handler

export const handler = async (event: any) => {
  return {
    statusCode: 200,
    headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
    body: JSON.stringify({ message: 'Hello from Lambda!' })
  }
}

API Gateway Handler

import { APIGatewayProxyEvent, APIGatewayProxyResult } from 'aws-lambda'

export const handler = async (event: APIGatewayProxyEvent): Promise<APIGatewayProxyResult> => {
  const { httpMethod, pathParameters, body } = event

  switch (httpMethod) {
    case 'GET':
      return respond(200, await getUsers())
    case 'POST':
      return respond(201, await createUser(JSON.parse(body || '{}')))
    default:
      return respond(405, { error: 'Method not allowed' })
  }
}

function respond(statusCode: number, data: any) {
  return {
    statusCode,
    headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json', 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*' },
    body: JSON.stringify(data)
  }
}

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Infrastructure as Code

AWS SAM (Quick Start)

# template.yaml
AWSTemplateFormatVersion: '2010-09-09'
Transform: AWS::Serverless-2016-10-31

Resources:
  ApiFunction:
    Type: AWS::Serverless::Function
    Properties:
      Runtime: nodejs20.x
      Handler: index.handler
      Events:
        Api:
          Type: Api
          Properties:
            Path: /users
            Method: GET

sam build && sam deploy --guided

AWS CDK (Production)

const table = new dynamodb.Table(this, 'Table', {
  partitionKey: { name: 'id', type: dynamodb.AttributeType.STRING },
  billingMode: dynamodb.BillingMode.PAY_PER_REQUEST
})

const handler = new lambda.Function(this, 'Handler', {
  runtime: lambda.Runtime.NODEJS_20_X,
  code: lambda.Code.fromAsset('dist'),
  handler: 'index.handler',
  environment: { TABLE_NAME: table.tableName }
})

table.grantReadWriteData(handler)

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Common Patterns

1. Event-Driven Processing

• S3 triggers: Process uploaded files (resize images, extract text)
• SQS triggers: Async job processing with retry/DLQ
• EventBridge: Event routing and filtering

2. Scheduled Tasks (Cron)

// CDK
new events.Rule(this, 'DailyReport', {
  schedule: events.Schedule.cron({ hour: '9', minute: '0' }),
  targets: [new targets.LambdaFunction(reportFunction)]
})

3. API with Authentication

• Cognito User Pools
• Custom Lambda Authorizer
• API Key for external clients

For detailed code examples: Read references/code-examples.md

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Best Practices

Cold Start Optimization

// ❌ Bad: Initialize inside handler
export const handler = async () => {
  const db = new DynamoDBClient({})  // Cold start every time!
}

// ✅ Good: Initialize outside handler
const db = new DynamoDBClient({})  // Reused across invocations

export const handler = async () => {
  // Use db
}

Error Handling

export const handler = async (event: any) => {
  try {
    const result = await processEvent(event)
    return { statusCode: 200, body: JSON.stringify(result) }
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Error:', error)
    if (error instanceof ValidationError) {
      return { statusCode: 400, body: JSON.stringify({ error: error.message }) }
    }
    return { statusCode: 500, body: JSON.stringify({ error: 'Internal error' }) }
  }
}

Logging

export const handler = async (event: any, context: any) => {
  console.log('Request ID:', context.requestId)
  console.log('Event:', JSON.stringify(event))
  // ...
}

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Cost Optimization

Strategy	Description
Right-size memory	Test 128MB-10GB, find cost/speed sweet spot
Minimize package	Use esbuild, tree-shaking, production deps only
Use Provisioned Concurrency	Only for critical, consistent-load functions
Avoid polling	Use EventBridge/SQS instead of scheduled polling

Package Optimization

# Bundle with esbuild
esbuild src/index.ts --bundle --platform=node --target=node20 --outfile=dist/index.js

# Production only
npm install --production

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DynamoDB Quick Reference

import { DynamoDBDocumentClient, GetCommand, PutCommand } from '@aws-sdk/lib-dynamodb'

const docClient = DynamoDBDocumentClient.from(new DynamoDBClient({}))

// Get
const { Item } = await docClient.send(new GetCommand({
  TableName: 'users',
  Key: { id: '123' }
}))

// Put
await docClient.send(new PutCommand({
  TableName: 'users',
  Item: { id: '123', name: 'John', createdAt: new Date().toISOString() }
}))

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Reference Files

For detailed code examples including:

• Lambda function patterns
• API Gateway integration
• DynamoDB operations
• AWS SAM templates
• AWS CDK stacks
• Event-driven patterns (S3, SQS, EventBridge)
• Authentication with Cognito
• Best practices and cost optimization

Read: references/code-examples.md

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Remember: Serverless is not "no ops" - it's "different ops". Monitor costs, optimize cold starts, and design for statelessness.

Created: 2026-02-04 Maintained By: Amazon Cloud Architect Version: AWS Lambda (Node.js 20)