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Amazon SQS Event Source for AWS Lambda

5 minutes 5 Questions

Amazon SQS can be used as an event source for AWS Lambda, enabling serverless processing of messages in a queue. Lambda will automatically read messages in the queue, trigger a specified Lambda function, and send an acknowledgement to delete the successfully processed message from the queue. This integration simplifies creating scalable and fault-tolerant applications that automatically scale with the number of messages coming in. By combining Amazon SQS and AWS Lambda, developers can build distributed systems and asynchronous workflows more easily, leveraging serverless processing capabilities along with message queuing and management features.

Guide: Amazon SQS Event Source for AWS Lambda

What is Amazon SQS Event Source for AWS Lambda?
Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) is a fully managed message queuing service that integrates with AWS Lambda to allow developers to decouple and scale microservices, distributed systems, and serverless applications. The AWS Lambda service can be set up to automatically read batches of messages from Amazon SQS and then process them.

Why is it Important?
Using Amazon SQS with Lambda allows developers to build applications that can handle bursts of traffic and route it to Lambda to process it efficiently. The combination of AWS Lambda with Amazon SQS ensures high availability, scalability, and fault tolerance. This is particularly crucial for building reliable, robust, distributed applications and microservices.

How does it work?
You can configure an AWS Lambda function to automatically poll an Amazon SQS queue for messages. When a message arrives, the lambda function retrieves it, processes it and then automatically deletes it from the queue. If the function is unable to process the message, it can be returned to the queue or moved to a Dead Letter Queue after a configurable number of attempts.

Exam Tips: Answering Questions on Amazon SQS Event Source for AWS Lambda
In an exam, it is key to remember the following points:

  1. Amazon SQS is a fully managed message queuing service.
  2. Integration of AWS Lambda with SQS allows processing of messages in batches, which can be efficiently processed.
  3. AWS Lambda can be set up to automatically poll Amazon SQS, thus enabling to scale and de-couple microservices and distributed systems.
  4. If a Lambda function fails to process a message, the message can be returned to the SQS queue or moved to another queue(known as Dead Letter Queue) after a certain number of attempts.
It is also important to familiarize yourself with AWS's best practices for using SQS with Lambda; such as managing the visibility timeout, batch size, and concurrency limits.

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AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Amazon SQS Example Questions

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Question 1

A gaming company is using SQS for storing game events generated from their mobile app. They want their Lambda functions to consume these events and update content in their database. How can they configure the event source mapping on Lambda?

Correct Answer: Use the SQS trigger in Lambda to link the SQS queue

Use the SQS trigger in Lambda to link the SQS queue, which enables automatic processing of messages from the SQS queue. Manually polling the queue and other methods are not efficient or recommended.

Question 2

A company's high traffic e-commerce website generates a large number of orders. They store incoming orders in an Amazon SQS queue and process them using AWS Lambda. What is the best strategy for this scenario?

Correct Answer: SQS as an event source for Lambda

SQS as an event source for Lambda allows automatic message processing from the SQS queue and helps scale up the processing capabilities in real-time. The other event sources are not suitable for this scenario and neither are custom SWF workflows nor step-functions.

Question 3

A web application receives image files from users and stores them in an SQS queue for image transformation using Lambda. How should we handle an image in the SQS message that continuously fails processing due to a corrupted file?

Correct Answer: Configure the Dead Letter Queue (DLQ) for the SQS queue

Configuring the Dead Letter Queue (DLQ) for the SQS queue allows messages that continuously fail processing to be moved to another queue for further examination or handling. The other methods would not effectively handle the corrupted file issue.

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