Durable functions debut 🚀☁️ #94
Code over ASLs
In the previous issue, AWS Lambda Managed Instances 🚀☁️ #93, a look into Managed Instances and how they bring the flexibility of EC2.
In this issue, we are taking a closer look at durable functions with the shift away from ASLs.
Orchestration = Step Functions until the launch of durable functions, where the state machine was purely Amazon States Language (ASL), making it IaC friendly but not programming language-friendly for the developers. Durable functions bring in a workflow as code approach, reducing cognitive overhead without the hassles of defining heavy ASL based state machines; it’s all code defined with the SDK.
I asked Gemini to give me a one-liner analogy with ASL v/s Durable functions -
ASL is like building a model with LEGO bricks: you have specific pieces that fit together in specific ways. Durable Functions is like 3D printing: you have the raw material (code) and can create any shape or logic you can imagine.
⭐ Pick of the month
This month’s Pick is “Messaging queues“.
Shrey Batra gets into how using queues is not just for scale but they are for sanity where it talks of how the message queue as an architectural component is crucial.
Marcin Sodkiewicz debunks AWS Kinesis 10MB Records vs Lambda: The Throughput Reality No One Tells You with a reality check and how limiting to the optimal size on Kinesis records.
Jones Zachariah Noel N (author) takes on Buses and queues: Head-on comparing how Buses and Queues differ architecturally and the patterns of each service with bringing the best of them and also complimenting it together.
🚀 AWSome content to learn from
Luciano Mammino’s blog on Debugging AWS API Gateway HTTP with OIDC-JWT authorizers reflects on debugging an error from API Gateway and also how an IaC configuration saves the day.
Brian McNamara, in the part series, gets into AWS Lambda Managed Instances (cost) in terms of calculating the on-demand cost, and how it gets complex with different instance types.
AppSync vs API Gateway for GraphQL: The Decision Framework by Anna Pastushko gives you certain trade-offs and decision pointers about choosing the right GraphQL API.
Bhathiya Ranasinghe explains about Don’t Make Lambda Call Lambda: Better AWS Patterns and how to use other AWS Services to achieve better performance for EDA, fan-out, buffering, and orchestration.
Pubudu Jayawardana gets head-on with Simple Leave Management with AWS Lambda Durable Functions, bringing in orchestration with multiple Lambdas and callbacks.
Manoj Fernando explains the Durable Functions features, such as checkpoint, replay, and wait, all of it as part of the Lambda functions’ execution, bringing in stateful processing.
Srinu Madhav Vysyaraju talks about why faster Lambdas mean fewer connections with the database and how Lambda’s execution time affects the connection lock-in for the complete transaction.
Allen Helton shares about how his blog and newsletter have been powered with S3 and the introduction of CDN (CloudFront) helped in improved performance with the blog when serving images from S3 stopped being good enough
⚒️ What's happening with Serverless tools, samples, and projects
Serkan Özal has built Browser DevTools MCP.
Damon P. Cortesi has built s3sh.
Hüseyin BABAL has built taws.
Michael Walmsley has published run-mcp.
Sebastian Sauerer has published aws-serverless-webhooks.
Shawn ZHANG has published samples for AWS re:Invent 2025 updates.
Ran Isenberg has published AWS Lambda Handler Cookbook v9.
Middy v7.0.0 is now released.
🎙️ Podcasts, videos and live-streams
Nadtakan Futhoem and Darya Petrashka get into Serverless Cloud Journey.
Tobias Schmidt’s How I 10x My Lambda@Edge Development Speed.
Ran Isenberg’s talk from DevOpsTVL 2025 is live - 5 Serverless Patterns You Should Stop Using (And What to Do Instead).
Manoj Fernando explains Lambda async v/s sync invocation (in Sinhala).
Uri Segev re:Caps Serverless announcements from re:Invent (in Hebrew).
Some of the reInvent sessions -
Build, deploy, and operate agentic architectures on AWS Serverless by Heeki Park and Dhiraj Mahapatro.
Building Intelligent Workflows with Event Driven AI by Marin Frankovic and Jeff Escott.
800GB of AI data: Lessons from a failed project by Sandeep Kumar Prakash.
🗓️ Mark your calendars
AWS re:Incent re:Cap by AWS UG Cloud Del Norte virtually on Jan 15th, 2025.
Get Hands-On with Serverless workshop happening on multiple days in January and February.
AWS Community Days are happening -
ACD Israel on January 15th, 2026.
ACD Rajasthan on February 28th, 2026. CFP is currently open until January 12th, 2026.
ACD Ahmedabad on February 28th, 2026.
ACD Pune on March 21st, 2026. CFP is currently open until February 8th, 2026.
ACD Virtual Oceania on April 11th, 2026. CFP is currently open until January 31st, 2026.
ACD Romania on April 23rd-24th, 2026. CFP is currently open until February 15th, 2026.
ACD Türkiye on May 9th, 2026. CFP is currently open until February 28th, 2026.
📢 What's new in Serverless
Announcing larger managed database bundles for Amazon Lightsail.
Amazon ECS now supports tmpfs mounts on AWS Fargate and ECS Managed Instances.
👨💻 Word from the author
Thanks for the support and let’s share more about Serverless!!!
I’m open to feedback, so feel free to DM me on LinkedIn for any queries about AWS or Serverless.
If you are looking for any guidance or assistance with learning Serverless, my LinkedIn DMs are open for a chat!
Stay tuned and share with Serverless enthusiasts. Follow The Serverless Terminal on X (formerly Twitter) and Blog.
Until next time, happy building on Serverless!
Thank you for sharing about AWS Oceania Virtual Community Day 2026