What this book covers

Chapter 1, Introducing AWS Lambda, covers the introductory concepts and general benefits of serverless computing, along with an in-depth look at AWS Lambda. The chapter also walks you through your first steps with AWS Lambda, including deploying your first functions using the AWS Management Console and the AWS CLI.

Chapter 2, Writing Lambda Functions, covers the fundamentals of writing and composing your Lambda functions. The chapter introduces you to concepts such as versioning, aliases, and variables, along with an easy-to-follow code sample.

Chapter 3, Testing Lambda Functions, discusses the overall importance of testing your function for code defects and bugs. It also introduces you to some out-of-the-box testing frameworks in the form of Mocha and Chai, and summarizes it all by demonstrating how you can test your functions locally before actual deployments to Lambda.

Chapter 4, Event-Driven Model, introduces the concept of the event-based system and how it actually works. The chapter also provides a deep dive into how Lambda's event-based model works with the help of event mappings and a few easy-to-replicate, real-world use cases.

Chapter 5, Extending AWS Lambda with External Services, discusses the concept and importance of Webhooks and how they can be leveraged to connect your serverless functions with any third-party services. The chapter also provides a few real-world use cases, where Lambda functions are integrated with other services such as Teamwork, GitHub, and Slack.

Chapter 6, Build and Deploy Serverless Applications with AWS Lambda, provides you with a hands-on approach to building scalable serverless applications using AWS services such as SAM and Step Functions with a few handy deployment examples.

Chapter 7, Monitoring and Troubleshooting AWS Lambda, covers how you can leverage AWS CloudWatch and X-ray to monitor your serverless applications. The chapter also introduces other third-party tools, such as Datadog and Loggly, for effectively logging and monitoring your functions.

Chapter 8, Introducing the Serverless Application Framework, provides a brief introduction and outlines the benefits provided by the Serverless Framework, followed by some hands-on implementation and deployment of functions using it.

Chapter 9, AWS Lambda - Use Cases, provides a comprehensive set of real-world serverless use cases with some easy-to-follow code examples and snippets.

Chapter 10, Next Steps with AWS Lambda, summarizes the next phase in the evolution of serverless applications and discusses how new and improved enhancements in Lambda are expected to come about in the near future.