Did you know that AWS lambda runtime environment version plays an important role in maintaining the health and security of your cloud infrastructure?
AWS Lambda supports the use of multiple programming languages through the runtime. Users can choose the runtime when they create a function. The runtime can also be updated in the function’s configuration. When a lambda function is invoked, lambda looks to re-use the execution environment from a previous function invocation (if available). This helps in saving the time spent on preparing the execution environment and allows users to save database connection and other resources.
How do you know your AWS Lambda runtime environment is updated?
As a recommended security practice, users should update their Lambda runtime environment to the latest version. When Lambda functions are executed using the latest version of the implemented runtime environment, users get the benefits of new features, enhancements, better performance, reliability and bug fixes. All these benefits facilitate effective development of applications through Lambda functions.
Centilytics has a dedicated insight for lambda runtime environment version and specifies whether your lambda runtime environment has been updated to the latest version or not.
Insight Descriptions:
There can be two possible scenarios:
| Severity | Description |
 WARNING |
This indication will be displayed when the lambda execution environment is not updated to the latest version. |
 OK |
This indication will be displayed when the lambda execution environment is updated to the latest version. |
Description of further columns are as follows:
- Account Id: This column shows the respective account ID of the user’s account.
- Account Name: This column shows the corresponding account name to the user’s account.
- Region: This column shows the region in which the corresponding resource exists.
- Function Name: This column shows the name of your lambda function
- Runtime Environment: This column shows the environment in which your function is running. The environment can be Java 8, NodeJS 8.10, Python 3.6 etc.
- Identifier: This column shows the ARN or Amazon Resource Number of your lambda function for unique identification of different resources.
Filters Applicable:
| Filter Name | Description |
| Account Id | Applying the account Id filter will display data for the selected account Id. |
| Region | Applying the region filter will display data corresponding to the selected region |
| Severity | Applying severity filter will display public snapshots according to the selected severity type i.e. selecting critical will display all resources with critical severity. Same will be the case for Warning and Ok severity types. |
| Resource Tags | Applying resource tags filter will display those resources which have been assigned the selected resource tag. For e.g., A user has tagged some public snapshots by a resource tag named environment. Then selecting an environment from the resource tags filter will display all those resources tagged by the tag name environment. |
| Resource Tags Value | Applying resource tags value filter will display data which will have the selected resource tag value. For e.g. – Let’s say a user has tagged some resource by a tag named environment and has a value say production (environment: production). Hence, the user can view data of all the resources which have “environment:production” tag assigned. The user can use the tag value filter only when a tag name has been provided. |
Read more about AWS Lambda run-times here.