Getting started with AWS Lambda and Node JS

Hey AWS Newbies!

Every fancied getting started with AWS Lambda? It's the glue that holds everything together really, once you get over the learning hump it becomes a very valuable skill. Here's a bit of a guide I put together so you can take it for a test drive.

AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that runs your code in response to events and automatically manages the underlying compute resources for you. It is a great platform for building event-driven, scalable applications, and it supports many different programming languages, including Node.js.

If you are new to AWS Lambda and want to get started with using it to run Node.js code, here are the steps you can follow:

1. Sign up for an AWS account: If you don't already have an AWS account, you can sign up for one at https://aws.amazon.com. You will need to provide your contact and payment information, but you can use the free tier of many AWS services, including AWS Lambda, for a certain period of time.

2. Install the AWS CLI: The AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) is a tool that you can use to manage your AWS services from the command line. To install the AWS CLI, follow the instructions at https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/install-cliv2.html.

3. Create an IAM user: IAM (Identity and Access Management) is a service that you can use to manage users and their permissions in AWS. You should create an IAM user with permissions to access AWS Lambda and other services that you will be using. To create an IAM user, follow the instructions at https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_users_create.html.

4. Create a new Node.js function: To create a new Node.js function with AWS Lambda, you can use the AWS CLI or the AWS Management Console. To use the AWS CLI, you can use the "create-function" command and specify the runtime as "nodejs". For example:
   

aws lambda create-function --function-name MyFunction --runtime nodejs --handler index.handler --zip-file fileb://function.zip

To use the AWS Management Console, you can go to the AWS Lambda page, click on the "Create function" button, and then select "Author from scratch". In the "Runtime" dropdown, select "Node.js" and specify a name for your function.

1. Write your Node.js code: Next, you will need to write the Node.js code that will be executed by your function. The code should be placed in a file called "index.js" and should export a function with the following signature:

exports.handler = async (event, context) => {
  // Your code goes here
}

The "event" parameter contains information about the trigger that caused the function to be invoked, and the "context" parameter provides information about the execution environment.

1. Test your function: Once you have written your code, you can test your function by using the AWS CLI or the AWS Management Console. To test your function using the AWS CLI, you can use the "invoke" command and specify the name of your function and the event data as a JSON file. For example:

aws lambda invoke --function-name MyFunction --payload fileb://event.json output.json

To test your function using the AWS Management Console, you can go to the AWS Lambda page, select your function, and click on the "Test" button. You can then specify the event data and click on the "Save and test" button.

That's it! You are now ready to start using AWS Lambda

Enjoy 🎉