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Monitoring AWS Lambda functions

 

You are exploring opportunities to incorporate serverless architecture, specifically AWS Lambda, to drive efficiency and cost reductions. You plan to continue with your microservice Kubernetes-hosted architecture for your large-scale, customer-facing applications, but you have internal application requirements that would be a good fit to develop in the cloud using serverless AWS Lambda functions.

As part of this serverless IT modernization strategy, you have a number of questions, such as:

  • How can we make sure the Lambda functions developed and deployed are available and performing appropriately?
  • How can we instrument the Lambda functions to provide APM visualizations (service maps), tagging, custom business metrics and detector notifications similar to what we see in Splunk APM for microservice-based architectures?
  • This article is part of the Splunk Use Case Explorer for Observability, which is designed to help you identify and implement prescriptive use cases that drive incremental business value. It explains the solution using a fictitious example company, called CSCorp, that hosts a cloud native application called Online Boutique. In the AIOps lifecycle described in the Use Case Explorer, this article is part of Application monitoring.
  • Read the article Monitoring AWS Lambda infrastructure to learn how to monitor Lambda from an infrastructure perspective.

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Amazon AWS Lambda

How to use Splunk software for this use case

You can use Splunk APM to instrument, monitor and observe both serverless AWS Lambda functions alongside your microservice-based architectures.

To see an example of this in action, you can follow this scenario with CSCorp, our fictitious company. CSCorp has started development of a library of AWS Lambda functions for human resources to share across their internal departments. The serverless AWS Lambda architecture parallels their microservices architecture, whereas the functions are decoupled and participate in cross-service-to-service application workflows.

As part of this new serverless strategy and to ensure resiliency against business disruption, CSCorp's leadership wants to make sure the AWS Lambda functions are monitored, observed and integrated into Splunk Observability Cloud, including Splunk APM service maps and infrastructure dashboards for Lambda. 

 

Learn how to design, build and implement an effective solution in this video. You can also view the slide deck presented in the video.

Next steps

These resources might help you understand and implement this guidance:

Still having trouble? Splunk has many resources available to help get you back on track. We recommend the following:

  • Splunk OnDemand Services: Credit-based services that allow direct access to Splunk technical consultants for a variety of technical services from a pre-defined catalog. Many Splunk customers already have OnDemand credits included as part of their software license. To request OnDemand Services, file a ticket through the Support Portal.
  • Splunk AnswersAsk your question to the Splunk Community, which has provided over 50,000 user solutions to date.
  • Splunk Customer Support: Contact Splunk to discuss your environment and receive customer support.

To fully unlock the power of Splunk, we strongly recommend our comprehensive Splunk training. At this stage in your journey, we recommend you explore Splunk Observability training courses.