
Node.js 8.10 runtime now available in AWS Lambda - mafro
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/node-js-8-10-runtime-now-available-in-aws-lambda/
======
tnolet
Was waiting for this update! Running Puppeteer related projects will now be a
ton easier for ad hoc project.

I'm pretty deep into this with [https://checklyhq.com](https://checklyhq.com)
so not really an "ad hoc" user. Some open concerns for "real" production use
are still:

\- cost: memory heavy (1,5Gb) lambda get costly quickly

\- stability: No reason to assume this is bad, but running a Chromium browser
in Docker is/was pretty tricky

\- startuptime: Booting Chrome might be a time suck

Coupling this with SQS triggers for Lambda might make spinning up VM's
obsolete for my business.

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Blackstone4
This is massive for AWS Lambda (and we've waited a long time for this). We can
now use async/await without transpiling our code. Thereby making it more
readable.

We should hopefully see improved performance and startup times.

~~~
niklasrde
async/await is still slower in 8.10 than promises though, isn't it?

Also, I'd be interested to find out why this is so massive? We've been waiting
a long time for this, and I get that Lambda is complex with lambda@edge and
all that, but how much tweaking does AWS do to the node runtime before they
can deploy this?

Node 8 has been out for 10 months, and it's been LTS for half a year - or did
they simply wait for it to be stable enough to run, or anything specific in
8.10?

~~~
bastawhiz
In a world where cold starts have a substantial impact on performance, the
runtime cost of async/await is negligible. If your function takes even a
second longer to execute because of await use, I'd be incredibly surprised.

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cordite
It was said back in a blog post for the introduction of aws batch, but when
will we be able to also use lambda functions in a batch environment? (The job
isn’t too complex, it just needs to run longer than 5 minutes (an hour or
two))

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Vinnl
Has anyone already managed to get this working? I currently get:

    
    
        expected runtime to be one of [nodejs4.3 nodejs6.10 java8 python2.7 python3.6 dotnetcore1.0 dotnetcore2.0 nodejs4.3-edge go1.x], got nodejs8.10
    

It might be due to my using TerraForm and that needing an update, but it's
also not yet listed in the docs:
[https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/API_CreateFunct...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/API_CreateFunction.html#SSS-
CreateFunction-request-Runtime)

Or perhaps it's not available in all regions yet?

~~~
ReidZB
The AWS provider for Terraform doesn't support the new runtime yet, yeah.

See:

[https://github.com/terraform-providers/terraform-provider-
aw...](https://github.com/terraform-providers/terraform-provider-
aws/issues/4019) (issue) [https://github.com/terraform-providers/terraform-
provider-aw...](https://github.com/terraform-providers/terraform-provider-
aws/pull/4020) (PR)

~~~
Vinnl
Ah, thanks - I didn't know where to look.

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taf2
Perhaps this will make headless chromium easier

[https://www.npmjs.com/package/@browserless/aws-lambda-
chrome](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@browserless/aws-lambda-chrome)

------
bnjmn
This update was a very long time coming, so I'm grateful that it finally
happened.

Still, it's disappointing that they couldn't change course (ever so slightly!)
to accommodate the 8.11.0 _security update_ from a week ago:
[https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v8.11.0/](https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v8.11.0/)

Really hope they'll be keeping up-to-date with incremental Node 8 releases,
now that they've (almost) caught up with the times.

~~~
bnjmn
Wow, I commented about this on the blog post, and they apparently deleted my
comment. Cool.

~~~
jeffbarr
We review and then approve all on-topic comments, but are working through a
bit of a backlog this morning from what I understand.

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kondro
Have been waiting on this for a very long time. Hopefully AWS will keep up-to-
date with LTS versions more quickly in the future. :-)

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BillinghamJ
Looks like this isn't available for use with Lambda@Edge/CloudFront. Very
disappointing :\

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giorgioz
New LTS versions of node have been released in September/October for the last
two years and AWS Lambda has added support for them around April/May for the
last two years.

I wonder if they purposefully wait for x.10 update (6.10 and 8.10) or it has
something to do with internal management of projects.

