New compute service runs developers’ code in response to events, and
makes it even faster and easier for developers to build dynamic
applications on the AWS Cloud
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SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 13, 2014--
Today at AWS re:Invent, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com
company (NASDAQ: AMZN), announced AWS Lambda, a compute service that
runs developers’ code in response to events and automatically manages
the compute resources for them, making it easy to build and manage
applications that respond quickly to new information. AWS Lambda starts
running code within milliseconds of an event such as an image upload,
in-app activity, website click, or output from a connected device.
Developers can also use AWS Lambda to create new back-end services where
compute resources are automatically triggered based on custom requests.
Developers pay only for the requests served and compute time required to
run their code. AWS Lambda charges for compute time in increments of 100
milliseconds, making it cost-effective and easy to scale apps to
whatever number of requests are required. To learn more about AWS
Lambda, visit http://aws.amazon.com/lambda.
Today, customers have many use cases where applications need compute
cycles in order to take action on a change in the application’s data,
such as a new image upload into Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3),
updated data in Amazon DynamoDB, or a real-time stream from Amazon
Kinesis. Responding to these changes requires customers to manage
significant compute fleets – usually across Availability Zones – and
manage, configure, and scale these resources. AWS Lambda provides a
high-performance computational platform which runs functions in code in
response to changes in data, without the need to provision or manage a
single virtual server. Customers write simple JavaScript code to take
action on an event and upload it to AWS Lambda. Within milliseconds of a
change in data, AWS Lambda responds by spinning up the appropriate
compute resources to perform the action. It automatically scales to
millions of requests, spreading across multiple Availability Zones if
needed.
“AWS Lambda changes the way developers design and scale their dynamic
applications in the cloud,” said Marco Argenti, Vice President, Mobile,
Amazon Web Services. “With AWS Lambda, developers can quickly, easily,
and cost-effectively write applications that respond to changes in data
or the environment, creating new opportunities to deliver dynamic
customer experiences.”
AWS Lambda works with any third-party library, including native ones, so
developers don’t have to learn any new languages, tools, or frameworks.
Developers can edit functions directly within AWS Lambda, which means
they can instantly update an application without having to compile
edits, build changes, and then redeploy the application. With AWS
Lambda, developers can create their own backend that operates at AWS
scale, performance, and security. AWS Lambda runs code within
milliseconds of an event, and since each event is processed as an
individual function, the performance remains consistently high as the
frequency of events increases.
Netflix is the world's leading Internet television network with over 50
million members in nearly 50 countries enjoying more than one billion
hours of TV shows and movies per month. “From years of managing a
sophisticated and dynamic infrastructure, we’re excited by AWS Lambda
and the prospect of an evolution in the way we build and manage our
applications,” said Neil Hunt, Chief Product Officer, Netflix. “From
easier media transcoding and faster monitoring, from disaster recovery
to improved security and compliance, AWS Lambda promises to help us
develop dynamic event-driven computing patterns.”
SPS Commerce is the largest retail business network and a driving force
in the omni-channel transformation of retailing. The SPS cloud services
process more than $1 trillion in orders annually, while managing more
than 35 million items, and sell through performance data at 300,000+
retail locations. “AWS Lambda promises to substantially transform how we
do business as we use AWS to build the future of B2B exchanges,” said
Jamie Thingelstad, CTO, SPS Commerce. “With this new AWS service, SPS
Commerce’s system architecture can use AWS Lambda functions triggered
off of Amazon S3 event notifications to perform multiple transformations
when a new document is received from one of its 55,000 customers. With
AWS Lambda as a component of its architecture, the SPS system can create
smarter, dynamic workflows to shorten trading partner information
processing across the SPS network and can scale to tens of millions of
transactions per month automatically, without requiring any other
infrastructure configurations.”
Earth Networks manages and operates a global sensor network that
collects and processes real-time weather and lightning data delivered to
customers such as the National Weather Service, U.S. Air Force, NASA,
major utilities, and numerous state and local governments across the
U.S. “We’ve been looking for an easy way to attach code to data, and AWS
Lambda is an ideal solution,” said Eddie Dingels, Lead Architect, Earth
Networks, the parent company of WeatherBug. “We already use Amazon
DynamoDB for weather data aggregation and have built complex prediction
and monitoring systems on top of this data. We have long-running
background tasks for monitoring the incoming data, processing the
changes, and triggering complex ETL processes. Now we can use the new
Amazon DynamoDB Streams feature to easily detect new data and run our
monitoring and prediction code on the incoming data in AWS Lambda, which
reduces our compute costs and eliminates operational overhead. We are
very excited to put AWS Lambda to work to deliver timely weather
information to our customers.”
About Amazon Web Services
Launched in 2006, Amazon Web Services offers a robust, fully featured
technology infrastructure platform in the cloud comprised of a broad set
of compute, storage, database, analytics, application, and deployment
services from data center locations in the U.S., Australia, Brazil,
China, Germany, Ireland, Japan, and Singapore. More than a million
customers, including fast-growing startups, large enterprises, and
government agencies across 190 countries, rely on AWS services to
innovate quickly, lower IT costs and scale applications globally. To
learn more about AWS, visit http://aws.amazon.com.
About Amazon
Amazon.com opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995. The company is
guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor
focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and
long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized
recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct
Publishing, Kindle, Fire phone, Fire tablets, and Fire TV are some of
the products and services pioneered by Amazon.

Source: Amazon Web Services, Inc.
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