AWS Gives Developers More Control over Lambda Function Runtime with Runtime Management Controls

Published on feb 1, 2023

Lambda recently introduced runtime management controls that provide more visibility and control.

Runtime management controls provide developers with three new capabilities:

A view of which patch version a runtime function is using and when it is updated

Ensure that runtime updates are synchronized with function deployments

Revert to an earlier runtime version by rolling back functions

AWS CLI and Lambda AWS Management Console provide these capabilities by choosing one of the update modes for the lambda runtime. Furthermore, developers can opt for the Infrastructure as Code (IaC) route and use tools such as AWS CloudFormation and AWS Serverless Application Model (AWS SAM).

In auto mode, Lambda handles the update, where functions receive runtime updates in two phases. In the first instance, Lambda will apply the new runtime version to newly created or updated functions, followed by the remaining functions.

Lambda’s second mode, function update, updates functions to the latest available runtime version whenever a developer changes their code or configuration, similar to auto mode, yet leaves other functions untouched.

Finally, the manual mode allows developers to control the runtime version of their functions. It allows them to revert to a previous version if necessary. AWS recommends using manual mode only for short-term remediation of code incompatibilities.