INIT Phase Pricing Makes Cold Starts Expensive 🚀☁️ #78
And also a change in Lambda logging tiered pricing on CloudWatch
In the previous issue, MCP on Lambda has taken over 🚀☁️ #77 we did see how today Lambda function is one of the infra choice for MCP servers.
Lambda Functions did bring about a breaking change to the cost-effective Lambda function executions, with the INIT Phase being billed for the execution time and resource utilization, same as the Invoke phase. Previously, only if the INIT phase was over 1s, it was charged explicitly but now every time a new Lambda container has been spun up behind the scenes, the INIT phase is being charged. This means that your Lambda functions are going to get expensive, especially for the Cold Start invocations.
On the other hand, Lambda also introduced a tiered pricing with logs not just limited to CloudWatch but also can be sent to new destinations such as S3 or Firehose.
⭐ Pick of the month
This month’s Pick is “AWS AppSync“.
Build Serverless WebSockets with AWS AppSync Events and Powertools for AWS Lambda by Ran Isenberg talks about how AppSync Events could be used for Serverless WebSockets and also using the best of Lambda Powertools.
Zied Ben Tahar’s blog about Serverless RAG Chat with AppSync Events and Bedrock KBs explains how WS APIs with AppSync and a custom knowledge base with Bedrock, VectorDB and content can be built.
Jones Zachariah Noel (author) writes about AppSync 101, the DevX with JS resolvers for AppSync APIs and also a workaround for AppSync Subscription triggers via Lambda Functions.
🚀 AWSome content to learn from
Balamurugan writes about Automating Remediation of AWS Auto Scaling Group Settings with EventBridge and Lambda that walks through the complete architecture for enabling ASG for EC2, the EDA way.
Alan Blockley debunks scan v/s query in DynamoDB explaining how the RCU and choosing scan over query is indeed an anti-pattern and how query makes it cost-effective and performant.
Márcio Coelho in an 8 part series of NodeJS Serverless with SAM dives into Lambda Authorizer for JWT Validations for APIs with a step-by-step guide with HTTP API instead of REST API.
How to Think in Access Patterns First With DynamoDB by Uriel Bitton sheds light into being DDB mindset and thinking about the access patterns first with GSIs and complex pk/sk structure.
Alessandro Volpicella brings up a solid infographic about Lambda Cost Saving Tips.
Mario Bittencourt decodes DynamoDB when it shines and when to look elsewhere, from the pros of scalability, durability, to limitations with item size and (for someone from SQL) no Joins.
CDK Express Pipeline Tutorial by Rehan van der Merwe dives into the library that leverages CDK CLI for order of stack deployments based on dependencies, either locally or with a CI/CD pipeline.
Thomas Aribart brings in a guide to build multi-region Serverless API with Lambda, DynamoDB and CDK with an architectural rundown and to CDK code walkthrough.
Vishal Choubey breaks down the new Lambda billing for INIT phase with a Python example and what it means for developers using it with the INIT Phase billed the same as the Invoke phase.
Ran Isenberg writes about learnings from running an MCP server on AWS Lambda with FastAPI and FastMCP, the complexity of observability, and developer experience as of today!
⚒️ What's happening with Serverless tools, samples, and projects
Kenny Chamberlin shares a sample Momento Functions for DDB GetItem Accelerator.
Michael Walmsley releases a new version of Powertools MCP Server.
Evandro Pires has a POC for IoT Core and MQTT messages with persistence
🎙️ Podcasts, videos and live-streams
On Talking Serverless, Paul Chin Jr joins James Eastham talking about An Event to Remember.
James Eastham breaks down Idempotency: Protect Yourself Against Multiple Event Processing Mistakes
Manoj Fernando explains How to Create and Use Custom KMS Keys in AWS.
On Serverless Spring Hackathon Webinar - Alessandro Volpicella talks about EDA for the Real World, and Jones Zachariah Noel (author) talks about why observability matters in EDA Applications.
🗓️ Mark your calendars
Serverless Guru is verless EDA Hackathon from April 25th to May 18th, 2025.
ServerlessDays Belfast happening on May 15th, 2025.
AWS Community Days are happening -
ACD Switzerland on May 22nd, 2025.
ACD Bengaluru on May 23rd-24th, 2025.
ACD Midwest on June 5th, 2025.
ACD Singapore on August 2nd, 2025. (CFPs are open until June 1st, 2025)
ACD Oceanic Virtual Edition on August 10th, 2025. (CFPs are open until June 27th 2025)
ACD Australia on August 15th, 2025. (CFPs are open until May 31st, 2025)
ACD Adria on September 5th, 2025.
ACD Aotearoa on September 18th, 2025 (CFPs are open until July 27th, 2025).
ACD Poland on September 18th, 2025. (CFPs are open until July 6th, 2025)
ACD Portugal on September 27th, 2025.
ACD DACH on October 7th, 2025. (CFPs open until June 15th, 2025)
ACD CEE on October 16th, 2025. (CFPs open until June 20th, 2025)
AWS Community Summit is happening on September 25th, 2025. (CFPs open until July 1st, 2025).
AWS North Community Conference is happening on October 16th, 2025. (CFPs are open until July 31st, 2025)
Serverless Architecture Con is happening on October 20-22nd, 2025. (CFPs are open)
📢 What's new in Serverless
AWS Lambda standardizes billing for INIT Phase
Amazon CloudWatch launches tiered pricing and additional destinations for AWS Lambda logs
Amazon Redshift Serverless is now available in the AWS Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) Region
Amazon ECS introduces 1-click rollbacks for service deployments
AWS Lambda introduces tiered pricing for Amazon CloudWatch logs and additional logging destinations
👨💻 Word from the author
Thanks for the support and let’s share more about Serverless!!!
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Until next time, happy building on Serverless!