2020 was a difficult year for all of us, and it was no different for engineering teams. Many software releases were postponed, and the industry slowed its development speed quite a bit.

But at least at AWS, some teams released updates out of the door at the end of the year. AWS Lambda received two significant improvements:

• AWS Lambda Extensions; and
• Support of Docker images for your functions.

With these two new features and Lambda Layers, we now have three ways to add code to Lambda that isn’t directly part of our Lambda function.

The question is now: when should we use what?

In this article, I try to shine some light on the Lambda Layers, Lambda Extensions, and Docker image for Lambda.

First things first. All these Lambda features can be used together. So if you think about where to put your code, at least your decisions aren’t mutually exclusive. You can upload a Docker image and attach a regular Lambda Layer and a Lambda Extension. The same is possible if your Lambda function is based on a ZIP archive.

What does this all mean? Keep reading and find out.

#aws #aws-lambda #serverless #devops #docker #lambda