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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Serverless
  4. Serverless Task Processing
  5. AWS Lambda vs Amazon RDS for Aurora

AWS Lambda vs Amazon RDS for Aurora

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda
Stacks26.0K
Followers18.8K
Votes432
Amazon Aurora
Amazon Aurora
Stacks807
Followers745
Votes55

AWS Lambda vs Amazon RDS for Aurora: What are the differences?

AWS Lambda vs Amazon RDS for Aurora

AWS Lambda and Amazon RDS for Aurora are both services provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that offer different functionalities and are designed for specific use cases. Here are the key differences between the two:

  1. Deployment Model: AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service, which means it allows you to run your code without provisioning or managing servers. It automatically scales your applications in response to incoming requests. On the other hand, Amazon RDS for Aurora is a relational database service that provides managed and highly available database instances. It requires the provisioning and management of database instances.

  2. Computing Power: AWS Lambda automatically scales the computing power based on the incoming requests. It allows you to execute your code in response to events, such as changes in data, user actions, or the occurrence of scheduled events. In contrast, Amazon RDS for Aurora provides dedicated compute instances that you can configure based on your application's specific requirements. It gives you more control over the computing resources allocated to your database.

  3. Database Functionality: AWS Lambda is primarily used for executing code, and while you can integrate it with data storage services, it does not provide built-in database functionality. On the other hand, Amazon RDS for Aurora is designed specifically for database management and offers features like automatic backups, replication, and scaling capabilities.

  4. Support for Multiple Database Engines: AWS Lambda is language-agnostic and allows you to execute code written in different programming languages, such as Python, Java, and Node.js. It can be integrated with various data storage services, including Amazon RDS for Aurora. In comparison, Amazon RDS for Aurora supports specific database engines, such as MySQL and PostgreSQL. It provides a fully managed environment for these engines, optimizing performance and reliability.

  5. Pricing Model: AWS Lambda follows a pay-as-you-go pricing model, where you are only charged for the actual compute time consumed by your code. There is no charge when your code is not running. In contrast, Amazon RDS for Aurora follows a different pricing model based on the size of the database instance, storage usage, and data transfer. It also offers different pricing options, such as on-demand and reserved instances.

  6. Use Case: AWS Lambda is suitable for scenarios where you need to run short-lived code in response to specific events or triggers. It is commonly used for building serverless applications, event-driven architectures, and performing small tasks. On the other hand, Amazon RDS for Aurora is a good choice when you need a managed relational database with high availability, durability, and scalability. It is suitable for applications that require consistent and reliable database performance.

In summary, AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that allows you to run your code without managing servers, while Amazon RDS for Aurora is a managed relational database service. Lambda provides scalability and flexibility for executing code in response to events, while RDS for Aurora offers a managed environment for reliable database management.

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Advice on AWS Lambda, Amazon Aurora

Tim
Tim

CTO at Checkly Inc.

Sep 18, 2019

Needs adviceonHerokuHerokuAWS LambdaAWS Lambda

When adding a new feature to Checkly rearchitecting some older piece, I tend to pick Heroku for rolling it out. But not always, because sometimes I pick AWS Lambda . The short story:

  • Developer Experience trumps everything.
  • AWS Lambda is cheap. Up to a limit though. This impact not only your wallet.
  • If you need geographic spread, AWS is lonely at the top.

The setup

Recently, I was doing a brainstorm at a startup here in Berlin on the future of their infrastructure. They were ready to move on from their initial, almost 100% Ec2 + Chef based setup. Everything was on the table. But we crossed out a lot quite quickly:

  • Pure, uncut, self hosted Kubernetes — way too much complexity
  • Managed Kubernetes in various flavors — still too much complexity
  • Zeit — Maybe, but no Docker support
  • Elastic Beanstalk — Maybe, bit old but does the job
  • Heroku
  • Lambda

It became clear a mix of PaaS and FaaS was the way to go. What a surprise! That is exactly what I use for Checkly! But when do you pick which model?

I chopped that question up into the following categories:

  • Developer Experience / DX 🤓
  • Ops Experience / OX 🐂 (?)
  • Cost 💵
  • Lock in 🔐

Read the full post linked below for all details

357k views357k
Comments
Mark
Mark

Nov 2, 2020

Needs adviceonMicrosoft AzureMicrosoft Azure

Need advice on what platform, systems and tools to use.

Evaluating whether to start a new digital business for which we will need to build a website that handles all traffic. Website only right now. May add smartphone apps later. No desktop app will ever be added. Website to serve various countries and languages. B2B and B2C type customers. Need to handle heavy traffic, be low cost, and scale well.

We are open to either build it on AWS or on Microsoft Azure.

Apologies if I'm leaving out some info. My first post. :) Thanks in advance!

133k views133k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda
Amazon Aurora
Amazon Aurora

AWS Lambda is a compute service that runs your code in response to events and automatically manages the underlying compute resources for you. You can use AWS Lambda to extend other AWS services with custom logic, or create your own back-end services that operate at AWS scale, performance, and security.

Amazon Aurora is a MySQL-compatible, relational database engine that combines the speed and availability of high-end commercial databases with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of open source databases. Amazon Aurora provides up to five times better performance than MySQL at a price point one tenth that of a commercial database while delivering similar performance and availability.

Extend other AWS services with custom logic;Build custom back-end services;Completely Automated Administration;Built-in Fault Tolerance;Automatic Scaling;Integrated Security Model;Bring Your Own Code;Pay Per Use;Flexible Resource Model
High Throughput with Low Jitter;Push-button Compute Scaling;Storage Auto-scaling;Amazon Aurora Replicas;Instance Monitoring and Repair;Fault-tolerant and Self-healing Storage;Automatic, Continuous, Incremental Backups and Point-in-time Restore;Database Snapshots;Resource-level Permissions;Easy Migration;Monitoring and Metrics
Statistics
Stacks
26.0K
Stacks
807
Followers
18.8K
Followers
745
Votes
432
Votes
55
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 129
    No infrastructure
  • 83
    Cheap
  • 70
    Quick
  • 59
    Stateless
  • 47
    No deploy, no server, great sleep
Cons
  • 7
    Cant execute ruby or go
  • 3
    Compute time limited
  • 1
    Can't execute PHP w/o significant effort
Pros
  • 14
    MySQL compatibility
  • 12
    Better performance
  • 10
    Easy read scalability
  • 9
    Speed
  • 7
    Low latency read replica
Cons
  • 2
    Vendor locking
  • 1
    Rigid schema
Integrations
No integrations available
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL
MySQL
MySQL

What are some alternatives to AWS Lambda, Amazon Aurora?

Amazon RDS

Amazon RDS

Amazon RDS gives you access to the capabilities of a familiar MySQL, Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server database engine. This means that the code, applications, and tools you already use today with your existing databases can be used with Amazon RDS. Amazon RDS automatically patches the database software and backs up your database, storing the backups for a user-defined retention period and enabling point-in-time recovery. You benefit from the flexibility of being able to scale the compute resources or storage capacity associated with your Database Instance (DB Instance) via a single API call.

Azure Functions

Azure Functions

Azure Functions is an event driven, compute-on-demand experience that extends the existing Azure application platform with capabilities to implement code triggered by events occurring in virtually any Azure or 3rd party service as well as on-premises systems.

Google Cloud Run

Google Cloud Run

A managed compute platform that enables you to run stateless containers that are invocable via HTTP requests. It's serverless by abstracting away all infrastructure management.

Google Cloud SQL

Google Cloud SQL

Run the same relational databases you know with their rich extension collections, configuration flags and developer ecosystem, but without the hassle of self management.

Serverless

Serverless

Build applications comprised of microservices that run in response to events, auto-scale for you, and only charge you when they run. This lowers the total cost of maintaining your apps, enabling you to build more logic, faster. The Framework uses new event-driven compute services, like AWS Lambda, Google CloudFunctions, and more.

ClearDB

ClearDB

ClearDB uses a combination of advanced replication techniques, advanced cluster technology, and layered web services to provide you with a MySQL database that is "smarter" than usual.

Google Cloud Functions

Google Cloud Functions

Construct applications from bite-sized business logic billed to the nearest 100 milliseconds, only while your code is running

Knative

Knative

Knative provides a set of middleware components that are essential to build modern, source-centric, and container-based applications that can run anywhere: on premises, in the cloud, or even in a third-party data center

OpenFaaS

OpenFaaS

Serverless Functions Made Simple for Docker and Kubernetes

Azure SQL Database

Azure SQL Database

It is the intelligent, scalable, cloud database service that provides the broadest SQL Server engine compatibility and up to a 212% return on investment. It is a database service that can quickly and efficiently scale to meet demand, is automatically highly available, and supports a variety of third party software.

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