3 posts tagged with "serverless"

Running feature flags in AWS Lambda requires a slightly different approach from using them in a traditional long-running application. Lambda execution environments can be created and discarded as demand changes, so caching and feature configuration need to account for cold starts and short-lived instances.

In this tutorial, we'll build a .NET AWS Lambda function that uses ConfigCat to control application behavior at runtime. We'll also add Redis as a shared cache, configure the ConfigCat SDK for Lazy Loading, and change the Lambda's behavior without redeploying it.

This pattern is particularly useful in microservices and other distributed systems, where deployment and release often need to happen independently. A service can be deployed with new code already in place while a feature flag keeps the new behavior disabled until you're ready to release it.

One of the most important technological breakthroughs of the century has been the internet — a digital network that makes the rest of the world feel like our next-door neighbor. Within the realm of the Internet, a recent technology known as cloud computing has paved the way for software developers to rent and manage remote servers in the cloud for hosting their applications. A smaller component of this technology is called Function as a Service, abbreviated as FaaS. FaaS removes the complexity of managing a full-blown backend server, enabling developers to focus solely on writing and executing the necessary functions required to run their applications.

When FaaS and feature flags are combined, you can toggle individual functions or code blocks in those functions on or off without touching its code. Let's take a closer look.

With the rise of cloud computing, Function as a Service (FaaS) services are becoming quite popular in the software industry. This is in part due to them not requiring the setup and implementation of a backend server to process and respond to data requests. This allows developers to focus on doing what they do best, writing better code.

By integrating such a service with feature flags, you can expand the way your functions work by toggling functionalities on or off and even rolling them back if anything goes wrong. Added to that, there is no limit on the number of feature flags you can implement, and they can be integrated into just about any language and framework out there.