{"id":27785,"date":"2018-12-19T15:12:59","date_gmt":"2018-12-19T11:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.msp360.com\/resources\/?p=27785"},"modified":"2025-11-21T13:02:40","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T09:02:40","slug":"aws-free-tier-ec2-lambda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.msp360.com\/resources\/blog\/aws-free-tier-ec2-lambda\/","title":{"rendered":"How You Can Use AWS Free Tier \u2014 Cloud Compute"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cloud computing has triggered a sea change in how application development is done. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Amazon Web Services<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, or AWS, is the leader in the cloud computing space and provides computing infrastructure for many of the largest companies in the world.<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The best way to learn a new technology is to use it. Luckily, AWS has a <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">free tier<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that allows you to try out its services without forking over any money upfront. <\/span><b>In this post, we will discuss the free tier option for some of the AWS compute services<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. We will discuss Elastic Compute Cloud (\u201cEC2\u201d) and AWS Lambda. For each service, we will cover what it is and what the free tier covers. We\u2019ll also review a sample project you could use to get started.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"table-of-content \">\n\t\t\t\t<p>Table of Contents<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<ul><\/ul>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What Is Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Amazon EC2<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a general-purpose compute service from AWS. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msp360.com\/resources\/blog\/ec2-instance-types\/\">EC2 allows you to spin up <\/a><\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msp360.com\/resources\/blog\/ec2-instance-types\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">instances<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msp360.com\/resources\/blog\/ec2-instance-types\/\">, which are virtual machines configured with different amounts of CPUs, memory, disk storage, and network capacity<\/a>. You have full-access to these virtual machines, whether by using SSH for a Linux-based instance or RDP for a Windows-based instance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">EC2 is the core building block for many cloud-native operations due to its flexibility. If you\u2019re building .NET applications, you can run your application with IIS on Windows-based EC2 instances. If you\u2019re building applications with Python &amp; Django or NodeJS and Express, you can run them on Linux-based EC2 instances. You can use EC2 to host your databases, such as SQL Server, MySQL, or Postgres, or you can host your own email infrastructure with Postfix.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Amazon EC2\u2019s power is in its flexibility and simplicity. You have the power to spin up virtually any amount of compute in seconds. Over time, AWS has increased the flexibility of EC2. For example, you are able to create an EC2 instance from an <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.aws.amazon.com\/AWSEC2\/latest\/UserGuide\/AMIs.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Amazon Machine Image<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, or \u201cAMI\u201d for short. AWS provides a number of standard AMIs for you to use, such as various versions of Ubuntu, CentOS, RHEL, Windows, and more. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Further, AWS has an AMI marketplace where you can purchase pre-configured images for a variety of use cases. Finally, AWS allows you to create your own AMIs, leading to the popularity of the \u201cimmutable infrastructure\u201d pattern. With immutable infrastructure, you create a new AMI whenever you have a new version of your application. If you need to create additional EC2 instances, you use the latest AMI that is ready to go, rather than creating a new instance and running complex configuration steps to get the latest software on it. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When creating an Amazon EC2 instance, you will choose an <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msp360.com\/resources\/blog\/ec2-instance-types\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">instance type<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and an <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">instance size<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. An instance type is a family of instances with CPU, memory, networking, and disk capacity that satisfy certain use cases. For example, certain instance types, like the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/aws.amazon.com\/ec2\/instance-types\/r5\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">R5 instances<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, are memory-optimized and are perfect for online databases. Other instance types, like the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/aws.amazon.com\/ec2\/instance-types\/c5\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">C5 instances<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, are compute-optimized and work well for video processing workflows. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once you\u2019ve chosen an instance type, you then choose an instance size within the type. For example, the aforementioned C5 family ranges from the c5.large with 2 CPUs and 4 GB of RAM up to the c5d.18xlarge with a whopping 72 CPUs and 144 GB of RAM.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For more information on EC2 instance types, check out our previous article on <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msp360.com\/resources\/blog\/ec2-instance-types\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Choosing the EC2 instance type that is right for you<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a name=\"billing\"><\/a>Amazon EC2 Billing and Free Tier<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Amazon EC2 has a flexible billing system. The default method of payment is On-Demand -- you are charged an hourly rate for your EC2 instance based on the operating system and the instance type and size that you choose. For most operating systems, instance use is billed by the hour and rounded up. If you create a new instance and terminate it one minute later, you will be billed for the whole hour. In 2017, AWS announced <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/aws.amazon.com\/blogs\/aws\/new-per-second-billing-for-ec2-instances-and-ebs-volumes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">per-second billing for EC2 instances<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> if they are running Ubuntu or Amazon Linux (a CentOS-flavored distro maintained by AWS directly).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-27790 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.msp360.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/EC2-Instance-Pricing-Models-624x386.png\" alt=\"EC2 pricing models\" width=\"624\" height=\"386\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.msp360.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/EC2-Instance-Pricing-Models-624x386.png 624w, https:\/\/www.msp360.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/EC2-Instance-Pricing-Models-624x386-300x186.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 624px) 100vw, 624px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Free Tier for Amazon EC2 allows you to run two EC2 instances -- one Linux, one Windows -- each month for a full month. For each operating system, you <strong>get 750 hours of a t2.micro instance<\/strong>. <strong>A 31-day month has 744 hours<\/strong>, so you\u2019ll be safe to keep each instance running constantly the entire month. A t2.micro instance has 1 GB of RAM and 1 virtual CPU, so it can\u2019t handle a ton of traffic. It\u2019s great for low-usage services and internal tools.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Note that the EC2 Free Tier is only available for the first 12 months after your account is created.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you want to run web applications, the Amazon EC2 Free Tier also includes 750 hours per month of the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/aws.amazon.com\/elasticloadbalancing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">AWS Elastic Load Balancing<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> service. This is a great service for balancing your web traffic across multiple EC2 instances without having to run your own Nginx, Apache, HAProxy, or another tool. Like the EC2 Free Tier, the Elastic Load Balancing Free Tier is only valid for the first 12 months after your account is created.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When provisioning your EC2 instance in the AWS console, it shows that the t2.micro instance is free tier eligible:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-27786\" src=\"https:\/\/www.msp360.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/image1-1-1024x278.png\" alt=\"AWS Console Free Tier EC2\" width=\"625\" height=\"170\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.msp360.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/image1-1-1024x278.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.msp360.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/image1-1-300x81.png 300w, https:\/\/www.msp360.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/image1-1-768x209.png 768w, https:\/\/www.msp360.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/image1-1-624x170.png 624w, https:\/\/www.msp360.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/image1-1.png 1999w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 625px) 100vw, 625px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Example Projects with Amazon EC2 Free Tier<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Amazon EC2 is a flexible service that can be used for nearly any use case. The most common use cases are serving web applications, running worker pools for queue processing, or hosting internal tooling. Check out the examples below for some ways to get started.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Web Servers on EC2<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you\u2019re making a web application, you\u2019ll need a place to serve web requests. EC2 is a common choice for hosting your web applications.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here are a few guides:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hackernoon.com\/tutorial-creating-and-managing-a-node-js-server-on-aws-part-1-d67367ac5171\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Creating and Managing a Node.js Server on AWS<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@manishyadavv\/how-to-deploy-ruby-on-rails-apps-on-aws-ec2-7ce55bb955fa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How to Deploy Ruby on Rails Apps on EC2<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Queue Processing<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Using a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.revsys.com\/12days\/async-workers-celery\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">queue and processing it with workers<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a common pattern in software development. Due to EC2\u2019s flexible scaling capabilities, it is a common tool for managing your worker pools.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here are some resources on using worker pools with EC2:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/kronosapiens.github.io\/blog\/2015\/04\/28\/rabbitmq-aws.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Setting up a Queue Service on AWS<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Internal Tools<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Business often needs to run internal software, such as a mail server or <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/jenkins.io\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jenkins<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for building applications. EC2 is a great choice for this.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Check out these walkthroughs:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/aws.amazon.com\/getting-started\/projects\/setup-jenkins-build-server\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Set up a Jenkins Build Server on EC2<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cloudinsidr.com\/content\/a-web-server-in-the-aws-cloud-how-to-set-up-a-website-from-scratch-on-a-domain-of-your-choice\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How to set up a mail server on EC2<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What Is AWS Lambda?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">AWS Lambda<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a Functions-as-a-Service (FaaS) offering from AWS. It was announced at re:Invent, the AWS developer conference, in 2014. Lambda ignited the \u201cserverless\u201d computing movement. With Lambda, you don\u2019t have a long-running server instance that\u2019s always on, waiting to respond to requests. Rather, you upload small bits of code that AWS will manage for you entirely.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are four unique aspects of AWS Lambda as compared to traditional, server-based compute:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Event-driven:<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Your code is not constantly running, like on an EC2 instance. Rather, your code is only running when a specified event happens. When your code is done responding to the event, it will stop running.<\/span><\/b><\/li>\n<li><strong>Zero administration:<\/strong> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You are not responsible for managing your server hardware or upgrading the underlying software packages on your machine, such as upgrading the kernel in the event of a severe bug. AWS handles all of this for you.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><strong>Auto-scaling:<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> AWS will run as many or as few instances of your function code as it is necessary to handle the events coming in. You don\u2019t need to pre-provision instances in anticipation of huge traffic.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Pay-per-use:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> You pay based on the amount of time your code runs. You will only pay when your code is responding to events, which means you don\u2019t pay for idle like you would with EC2.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The event-driven aspect is particularly novel and worth discussing further. With Lambda, you upload a zip file containing your function code and tell AWS the entry point file and function in your zip file. AWS will manage running your function code in response to a specific <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">event<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> trigger, such as an HTTP request or the creation of a new object on Amazon S3, object storage by AWS.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">AWS Lambda has <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.aws.amazon.com\/lambda\/latest\/dg\/invoking-lambda-function.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">19 supported event triggers<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and they\u2019re adding more all the time. This event-driven compute allows you to build powerful workflows that respond dynamically within your application.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">AWS Lambda Billing and Free Tier<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lambda has a pay-per-use billing system. You do not pay for your code sitting idle, waiting to respond to a request. You only pay when your code is live and performing work to respond to an event trigger.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lambda is billed on two axes:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Requests:<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> $0.20 per 1 million invocations. Thus, each time your function runs, you pay $0.0000002<\/span><\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>Duration:<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> $0.00001667 per GB-second of computing<\/span><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The duration calculation can be confusing, so let\u2019s walk through that. When configuring your Lambda function, you will specify the amount of memory you want to allocate to the function. This can be as low as 128 MB for very simple functions up to 3 GB for data-intensive functions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Duration is calculated as a function of the configured memory and the length of time your function runs. The calculation is as follows:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">GB-seconds = Total seconds X (Configured Memory \/ 1024)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First, sum up the total amount your function ran across all invocations. Then, turn your configured memory into a fraction of one gigabyte. If you run at the lowest memory setting, your GB-seconds would be one-eighth of your actual seconds (128 \/ 1024). If you run at the highest memory setting, your GB-seconds would be nearly three times your actual seconds (3008 \/ 1024). <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once you have determined your GB-seconds, multiply it by $0.00001667 to find your actual duration cost for your function.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">AWS has a generous free tier for Lambda, and the Lambda free tier never goes away. Unlike the EC2 free tier, which expires 12 months after account signup, you can use the benefits of the Lambda free tier in perpetuity.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The free tier for Lambda includes <\/span><b>1 million requests per month and 400,000 GB-seconds of compute per month<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. This would cost you just under $7 a month without the free tier.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This free tier can cover a wide variety of use cases. Check out the example projects to see how you can get started with AWS Lambda.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Example Projects with Lambda Free Tier<\/span><\/h3>\n<p id=\"last\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">AWS Lambda is used for a variety of tasks, from web APIs to image processing to DevOps automation and more. Below are a few example projects to get you going.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"slidebox\"><a class=\"close\">\u00a0<\/a><!--HubSpot Call-to-Action Code --><span class=\"hs-cta-wrapper hs-cta-deferred\" id=\"hs-cta-wrapper-74694cb9-1404-4d5e-a689-410146c2fd37\" data-portal=\"5442029\" data-id=\"74694cb9-1404-4d5e-a689-410146c2fd37\"><span class=\"hs-cta-node hs-cta-74694cb9-1404-4d5e-a689-410146c2fd37\" id=\"hs-cta-74694cb9-1404-4d5e-a689-410146c2fd37\"><!--[if lte IE 8]><div id=\"hs-cta-ie-element\"><\/div><![endif]--><a href=\"https:\/\/cta-redirect.hubspot.com\/cta\/redirect\/5442029\/74694cb9-1404-4d5e-a689-410146c2fd37\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"hs-cta-img\" id=\"hs-cta-img-74694cb9-1404-4d5e-a689-410146c2fd37\" style=\"border-width:0px;\" src=\"https:\/\/no-cache.hubspot.com\/cta\/default\/5442029\/74694cb9-1404-4d5e-a689-410146c2fd37.png\" alt=\"CTA\"><\/a><\/span><\/span><!-- end HubSpot Call-to-Action Code --><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">AWS Lambda is used for a variety of tasks, from web APIs to image processing to DevOps automation and more. Below are a few example projects to get you going.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Configuring Lambda can be difficult, so it\u2019s best to use <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/winterwindsoftware.com\/serverless-newbies-should-use-framework\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">some type of deployment framework<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> when orchestrating your Lambda functions.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Web APIs with AWS Lambda<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can use <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/aws.amazon.com\/api-gateway\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">AWS API Gateway<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to connect your Lambda functions to HTTP requests. This is a very popular use case for setting up REST APIs, GraphQL APIs or responding to webhook events from SaaS providers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Like Lambda, API Gateway has a free tier. Your first million requests per month are free. After that, requests are charged at $3.5 per million requests.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here are some links to get you started:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/serverless.com\/blog\/flask-python-rest-api-serverless-lambda-dynamodb\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Build a Python REST API with Serverless, Lambda, and Flask<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kalinchernev.github.io\/serverless-github-bot-aws-lambda-api-gateway-nodejs\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Building a Serverless GitHub bot<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">DevOps Automation Tasks<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you\u2019re already an AWS user, Lambda is a great way to extend the functionality of AWS to accomplish some automation tasks. Lambda allows you to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.aws.amazon.com\/lambda\/latest\/dg\/with-scheduled-events.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">schedule the invocation of your Lambda functions<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. This is a great replacement for regular tasks that you used to schedule with cron on a server. For example, you may want to take daily backups of your EBS volumes or check your S3 buckets to make sure they\u2019re not publicly available.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Additionally, you can <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.aws.amazon.com\/lambda\/latest\/dg\/with-cloudtrail.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">use Lambda to react to CloudTrail events<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/aws.amazon.com\/cloudtrail\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">AWS CloudTrail<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a service that tracks the API actions that happen in your AWS account. You can use this as an audit log of actions to see who created what resources and when. By tying into Lambda, you can send proactive notifications when undesirable behavior happens.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here are a few examples to look at:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/serverless.com\/blog\/serverless-cloudtrail-cloudwatch-events\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How to Monitor AWS Actions with CloudTrail and Lambda<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/serverless.com\/blog\/automatic-dynamodb-backups-serverless\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Automate your DynamoDB Backups with Lambda<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Conclusion<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this post, we discussed two of the main compute options on AWS: the traditional server option with Amazon EC2 and the newer, serverless model with Lambda. You learned the billing model of both services as well as what is covered by AWS\u2019s free tier. Finally, we provided some example projects to get started with EC2 and Lambda.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cloud computing has triggered a sea change in how application development is done. 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