Opportunities of AWS Lambda and Bref Framework

Being the certified serverless computing service, Amazon Lambda uses program code that responses to certain events and are responsible for automatically allocating the necessary computing resources. It already has certified developers who demonstrate professional skills for developing, deploying and debugging cloud applications with AWS. AWS Lambda can be used to empower the wast AWS services using special logic or to create your server services using AWS scalability, performance and security. It allows storing functions on to the cloud and launches them with API calls. Lambda software development service operates code in a special computing environment that allows providing technical support for servers, and maintenance to operating systems, as well as performance sharing and programmed scaling. The system also provides software installation, bugs fixes, code checks, and logs. All that is required is to provide the code.

What is Bref Development & Serverless?

In French, Bref means “Brief”. Bref is a composer package that allows launching PHP applications on AWS and runs them on Lambda. There are some valuable reasons to use the Bref framework. It is convenient as it offers PHP runtimes for Lambda, significant documentation, deployment tooling, and finally PHP framework integration. Being an open-source tools collection, the Bref allows using layers to run PHP on AWS Lambda. It provides precompiled executables and also defines how the lambda function copes with the trigger events. Bref framework works using the serverless approach. When starting to create PHP code with Lambda, users have to find out how to deploy serverless to AWS. This means that users don’t have to maintain servers as they are scaled up & down automatically. Customers pay for only what they use. On contrary to previous data storage, serverless storage means rather a virtual store that has no capacity limits. Such AWS serverless storage is managed for customers so that the only thing that remains payable is the disk space filled with the data.

AWS Lambda Introduction

The Lambda function (also called Lambda Expression) is the code that runs in AWS Lambda. To understand better what is a Lambda function one should understand that it is a block of code assigned to variables, passed as an argument and returned from a function call. It has to be written in the language that supports the high-order functions. After the Lambda function is created, it is in a state of constant readiness for launch, similar to spreadsheet formulas. Each function contains user code and some configuration data, as the name of function and requirements to the resource. Lambda stateless functions are in no way dependent on the underlying infrastructure, so Lambda can quickly load all the copies of the function that must be scaled according to the number of incoming events.

Cases for AWS Lambda Use

There are plenty of cases when Lambda may be a convenient tool to use. A programmer doesn’t have to allocate instances by himself. Consequently, AWS Lambda developer instance environment should be used in those cases when all operational and administrative actions must be performed on behalf of the user but without his direct intervention, including resource allocation, monitoring the health of instances, applying security updates to basic computing resources, code deployment, launching the web service interface, and monitoring the code as well as maintaining relevant logs. AWS Lambda gives effective scalability and high code availability without any additional client effort.

AWS Lambda Positive And Negative Sides

Reasons to Use Lambda

• The best thing about AWS Lambda language is that its users don’t have to learn new programming languages, tools or infrastructure. The service works with any libraries, even with built-in ones. Also, users can pack any code be it an SDK, platform or library, as a Lambda level to use it with different functions and manage it. Lambda has built-in support for the following programming languages: Node.js, Go, C#, PowerShell, Python, Java, and Ruby. Lambda also provides a runtime API for functions creation with code written in other programming languages.
• Serverless architecture – another valuable reason to use AWS Lambda for applications and services creation without the need for infrastructure management. The application here run on servers, however, AWS takes full control of these servers. This eliminates the need to allocate resources, scale and care about servers maintenance to run applications, storage systems & databases.
• Allocation Model of Flexible Resources – Customers can set the required amount of memory for their functions. AWS Lambda allocates the required CPU resources, net bitrate and the disk read/write operations.
• Transparent Payment and Pricelist – Using AWS Lambda, customers only pay for completed queries and the time spent on actual computation that is required to run the code. AWS Lambda is billed to the nearest 100 milliseconds, making automatic scaling from a few requests per day to thousands of requests per second easy and economical.
• Integrated Security Model – AWS Lambda provides secure code interaction with other AWS services through the integrated software development kit of AWS and integration with IAM. By default, AWS Lambda launches code in the VPC cloud. Customers can configure their AWS Lambda service so that it has access to resources within another VPC. In this case, special security groups and network access logs are used to provide Lambdas features the access to resources in the VPC cloud.
• Orchestration of many functions – the execution of many AWS Lambda functions can be coordinated to solve complex and lengthy tasks by creating workflows with AWS Step Functions. This allows users to define workflows that can activate Lambda functions wi the help of parallel, sequential, forked lists of operations, including error handling capabilities. With Lambda Step Functions, users can create lengthy structured processes for applications and servers.

Reasons Not to Use Lambda

• Mal observability – the AWS Lambda’s negative side is that it makes observability to be a mission impossible. By transporting a lot of useful data to the remote servers a company loses some amount of critical insight that frequently is a key to success;
• Serverless means that the company will always have to deal with a cold start when major functions remain unheated to be ready from the very project beginning. With relatively complicated workflow a company may experience difficulties at early project stages.
• Putting all eggs in one basket – using serverless data storage like that in the case of AWS Lambda means the full loss of control over the hardware, runtimes, and runtimes updates. Moreover, providers often like to impose unwanted limits that force users to use more services that demand more money.
• Price for hight load – API or service used by a small count of users serverless will save money for maintainer because Lambda charges money only when it was invoked. Also when You build your API on Lambda don`t forget about traffic and API call prices because Lambda is services just to invoke your code and if you want to use it for API you must also use API Gateway service that also charges money. For the low count of requests, Lambda is cheaper but for a lot of requests, it will more expensive than classic server when you paid just for server resources.

Bref and AWS Lambda

The Bref for AWS Lambda is an open-source project used to run and scale PHP applications using remote servers. Serverless technologies allow making modern PHP applications not worrying about server maintenance. The Bref application provides the full support of PHP and its Lambda frameworks. It allows running different kinds of PHP AWS Lambda applications like workers, APIs, batch processes & scripts.

How to Get Started with AWS Lambda and Bref Framework

The first step required to start using AWS Lambda and find out what is AWS Lambda and what it means to create the Lambda PHP code is the creation of the AWS account. It will allow deploying the first test application for free. Also, customers will need to install Bref with the help of Composer .

To quickly learn how to design and deploy AWS Lambda features, check out the developer guide. Customers will learn how to use AWS Lambda in specific use cases, for example, for developing mobile and Internet applications, for processing files or streaming data. The guide also provides guidelines for Lambda functions developing using familiar programming languages such as C#, Java, Node.js, Python and Go.

AWS Lambda Step Function allows its customers to add robust workflow automation to their applications almost instantly without time-consuming code writing. The Step Functions is the built-in tool for mistakes solving, recommended security settings, parameter passing, and state management, that reduce the code amount needed. With AWS Step Functions, programmers can combine individual tasks into a visual workflow to make and release updates of applications rapidly. The work can be done by coordinating another AWS service or application that can be hosted anywhere.

Finding the perfect serverless computing service that would satisfy all company demands may be hard. Here is where services of solution-offering company Binariks may come in handy. Being the company that works with clients all around the world and provides advanced consulting services, as well as software development assistance, Binariks is a good choice for companies of all sizes. The significant experience in the sphere of outsourcing allows this company, that sticks to flat organizational structure, bringing any project to success. The experts who work for Binariks know well not only how to fulfill customers’ expectations but also how to deal with rapidly changing global market and customers’ needs. Don’t hesitate to contact the Binariks team. The answers to the most important questions relating to your company are already waiting for your move.

Start using AWS Lambda and Bref framework already now and feel all its advantages! The Lambda provides safe code interaction with other services. AWS Lambda allows users to customize the execution of program code in response to variables such as a change in data or system status, as well as certain user actions. Lambda functions can be directly launched from other AWS services, like Kinesis, DynamoDB, SNS, S3, and CloudWatch, or built into workflows with AWS Step Functions. Moreover, learning how do AWS Lambda works doesn’t possess great difficulty. That is why this platform is fairly appreciated around the world by various companies and numerous programmers.