Re:Invent 2020 And Lambda's New Features
Tags: aws, lambda, sqs, news
Published: 2020-11-29 13:51:49

---
title: Re:Invent 2020 And Lambda's New Features
published: true
date: 2020-11-29 12:30:00 UTC
tags: AWS,Lambda,SQS,News
canonical_url: https://www.theminimalistdeveloper.com/reinvet-2020-and-lambdas-new-features/
---

Originally posted on [The Minimalist Developer](https://www.theminimalistdeveloper.com/reinvet-2020-and-lambdas-new-features/)

[![Cute little robot](https://www.theminimalistdeveloper.com/static/72c18026489cf607f5ea267ff3765af8/59822/post-image.png "Cute little robot")](/static/72c18026489cf607f5ea267ff3765af8/7bf07/post-image.png)

[Re:Invent 2020](https://reinvent.awsevents.com/) is approaching, and with it, a wave of new releases from AWS to multiple services, including Lambda.

This year, of course, will be an online-only event which is free. Go [here](https://serverlessland.com/reinvent2020) to check out all the serverless sessions.

Now, let’s take a look at some of the coolest releases from the past few weeks for Lambda we will probably see covered in the upcoming events.

## New Lambda Features

### Lambda extensions

[![Lambda extensions](https://www.theminimalistdeveloper.com/static/aa951ce6695ea93bfb6d43d9a0380e92/59822/lambda-extensions.png "Lambda extensions")](/static/aa951ce6695ea93bfb6d43d9a0380e92/2bef9/lambda-extensions.png)

It is still in preview, but this is probably the most exciting release, in my opinion.

[Lambda extension](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/building-extensions-for-aws-lambda-in-preview/) allows us to have code running during the life cycle event, meaning that you could, for example, create an extension to collect information before, during, and after the lambda invocation.

Also, there is a Logs API, which translates to much easier integration with 3rd party services like Datadog, Lumigo, New Relic, etc.

This sounds **really** nice. I want to try it out to see how it works!

### AVX2 Support

[![AVX2](https://www.theminimalistdeveloper.com/static/d94ab35cb480fa909532437b5c132a5f/59822/avx21.png "AVX2")](/static/d94ab35cb480fa909532437b5c132a5f/82e86/avx21.png)This one is geared towards those who use lambdas for heavy computational load, like machine learning, scientific simulations, financial analysis, etc.

[AVX2 support](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/creating-faster-aws-lambda-functions-with-avx2) is availabel now to help reduce time with the computationally intensive task that way also helping to reduce costs.

AVX2 stands for Advanced Vector Extensions 2, and it is a specific instruction set available at certain processors. And to use it it is necessary to have in place certain libraries compiled with the proper flags.

### AWS PrivateLink access

Lambda now offers the support for [AWS PrivateLink](https://aws.amazon.com/privatelink). It allows calling functions from a VPC without going through public networks. Providing a private connection between your VPCs and AWS services.

I want to see how the performance is with this one. The last time I checked VPCs and Lambdas were not that great together. But it was a long time ago.

### SQS batch Limit up to 10k

[Amazon SQS](https://aws.amazon.com/sqs/) had previously, the batch size limit of 10 messages per batch. Now it is up to 10.000, matching its brother Amazon Kinesis.

### SQS Batch Window up to 5 minutes

The Batch window is a cool little feature. It tells the poller to wait until the queue has reached its batch limit or the batch window time to send to the lambda function. This is particularly useful to cut the number of invocations for non-time-sensitive computation.

### Amazon MQ as an event source

Launched support for [Amazon MQ](https://aws.amazon.com/amazon-mq) as an event source for Lambda. Amazon MQ is a managed message broker service. The integration operates in a similar way to Amazon SQS and Amazon Kinesis. The Lambda services keep an internal poller to invoke the target Lambda function whenever necessary.

## Conclusion

There are many more features from other services that AWS is launching. Make sure to keep an eye on the releases.

It might help you solve one of those pending problems from your backlog!