AWS Lambda Function Timeout implementing DynamoDB During High Load
I'm trying to configure I'm attempting to set up Can someone help me understand I'm trying to figure out I've searched everywhere and can't find a clear answer. I'm experiencing timeout issues with my AWS Lambda function when it's trying to read from DynamoDB under high load. My Lambda function is configured with a memory size of 512 MB and a timeout of 3 seconds, but it's often exceeding this limit, especially when processing large batches of records. The function is triggered by an SQS queue that receives messages containing user actions, and I process each message to read user preferences stored in DynamoDB. Here's a simplified version of my Lambda function: ```python import boto3 import json import os # Initialize DynamoDB client DYNAMODB_TABLE = os.environ['DYNAMODB_TABLE'] dynamodb = boto3.resource('dynamodb') table = dynamodb.Table(DYNAMODB_TABLE) def lambda_handler(event, context): for record in event['Records']: user_id = record['body'] try: response = table.get_item(Key={'user_id': user_id}) user_preferences = response['Item'] # Process user preferences except Exception as e: print(f'behavior retrieving preferences for user {user_id}: {e}') # Log the behavior return { 'statusCode': 200, 'body': json.dumps('Processed successfully') } ``` I’ve tried increasing the timeout to 5 seconds, but that doesn’t seem to help much during peak loads. I also reviewed the DynamoDB read capacity settings and set the table to on-demand mode to handle spikes, but I'm still hitting timeouts. My concern is that when the queue has many messages, the Lambda function instances might be overwhelmed and lead to throttling, but I want to see any metrics in CloudWatch indicative of that. I added logging to check the time taken for each `get_item` call, and it ranges around 1-2 seconds during peak loads. I also tried utilizing batching via `batch_get_item`, but I faced issues with handling the response correctly due to the structure of my data. What strategies can I implement to reduce the timeout occurrences and improve the performance of my Lambda function under heavy load? Is it worth exploring a different approach, like using AWS Step Functions to handle this processing asynchronously? For context: I'm using Python on Windows. How would you solve this? This issue appeared after updating to Python latest. Thanks for taking the time to read this! I recently upgraded to Python LTS. What would be the recommended way to handle this? My team is using Python for this microservice. I'd really appreciate any guidance on this. Am I approaching this the right way?