AWS Trusted Advisor is a tool designed to help optimize AWS resources by providing real-time guidance about your AWS environment. It utilizes a wealth of AWS best practices and scrutinizes your account, looking out for vulnerabilities, and highlighting opportunities to improve systems, optimize costs, and increase performance.
Now, AWS Trusted Advisor has taken a step further to include a new fault tolerance check for AWS Lambda. This guide will discuss the new check in detail, including what it means for your business, how to use it effectively, and the overall impact on your AWS computing environment.
The AWS Lambda Function¶
Before delving into the workings of the new fault tolerance check, it is essential to understand the AWS Lambda function.
AWS Lambda is a serverless computing service that runs your code without provisioning or managing servers. This capability allows you to respond rapidly to changes, reduces operational overhead, and simplifies infrastructure management. With Lambda, AWS handles all the admin tasks, enabling developers to focus solely on writing codes.
Among the many features of AWS Lambda is the asynchronous invocation of a Lambda function. Asynchronously executed functions allow you to hand off work to Lambda and not wait for the function to finish execution.
The Asynchronous Invocation & Its Importance in AWS Lambda¶
Asynchronous invocation is a method that permits AWS Lambda to start a Lambda function and then move on to the next task without waiting for the function to finish. It increases the efficiency of your application by allowing it to carry out multiple tasks simultaneously, thus saving resources and operational costs.
When a function invocation fails asynchronously, AWS Lambda attempts to retry the execution twice, for a total of three invocations. However, if all three attempts fail, the function is discarded. This error can disrupt the functionality of your system or even lead to data loss.
AWS Lambda Check: A New Fault Tolerance Check¶
To minimize and control asynchronous invocation failures, AWS Lambda introduced two solutions; the On-Failure event destination and the Dead Letter Queue (DLQ).
The On Failure event destination allows developers to route asynchronous function results to an AWS service in case of a failure during the execution. It offers centralized control of event routing and ensures that the function execution results are captured for further analysis.
Alternatively, you can use the Dead Letter Queue to store a message sent by AWS Lambda when it discards an event that failed during execution. It gives flexibility and control over monitoring function activity, as well as investigation and management of system issues.
To ensure that Lambda functions in your account have On Failure event destination or Dead Letter Queue configured for asynchronous invocations, AWS Trusted Advisor introduces a new fault tolerance check. It reviews your AWS Lambda functions and alerts you if these function-level safeguards are not in place. This new fault tolerance check is available in all commercial regions, making it widely accessible for all AWS users.
How to Use the AWS Lambda Check Effectively¶
To make the most out of the new AWS Lambda Check, follow these steps:
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Access the AWS Management Console: Navigate to the Trusted Advisor dashboard, and under the “Performance” category, select the “Configure AWS Lambda Function for On Failure Event Destination or Dead Letter Queue” check.
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Inspect the Lambda Functions: This check inspects all Lambda functions in your account. If there are functions without the event destination or DLQ configured, they will be listed in the check results.
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Configure Event Destination or DLQ: Once these functions are identified, enable an On Failure event destination or Dead Letter Queue for each of them. This can be done within the Lambda function configuration in the AWS Management Console.
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Re-run the Check: After configuring the safeguards, re-run the Trusted Advisor check to ensure all Lambda functions have the correct configurations.
Utilizing the new AWS Lambda check will significantly enhance your ability to respond more effectively to asynchronous invocation failures. It also aids in minimizing service disruptions and data loss, ensuring the reliability of your cloud environments.
Conclusion¶
AWS continues to revolutionize the way businesses operate in the cloud computing space through innovations such as the AWS Trusted Advisor and AWS Lambda. The introduction of the Lambda check—offering a more efficient way of handling invocation failures—is a testament to this commitment. By ensuring that all Lambda functions have On Failure event destination or Dead Letter Queue configurations, you can operate in confidence, knowing that the risk of service dislocations and data loss is significantly reduced.
Stay ahead of the curve with AWS initiatives, and be sure to leverage these tools and services to their full potential for a more optimal and secure cloud environment.