Amazon recently launched S3 Object Lambda enabling users to add code to data retrieved from S3 storage. This allows the data to be processed before it reaches the application that called it, enabling use cases such as personally identifiable information (PII) masking, and compressing or decompressing files as they are downloaded. AWS users can now provide multiple views of the same data set without generating another copy of the data.
Amazon S3 Object Lambda saves users from needing to generate these extra copies, which take up storage space. The Lambda function is performed along a standard S3 GET request, so there is no coding change necessary at the application level. Other ways Amazon S3 Object Lambda can modify data as it is being called include resizing images, converting data formats, and implementing custom access rules.
Amazon S3 Object Lambda is available now in all AWS regions except for Asia Pacific (Osaka), AWS GovCloud (US-East), AWS GovCloud (US-West), China (Beijing) and China (Ningxia). Customers are charged for the compute required to execute Lambda changes and for the data called by applications.
The release of S3 Object Lambda represents an industry trend toward moving compute closer to APIs and to the data.
