We are a startup, and we are doing faster and cheaper storage for IT. We are going to offer our storage services in about two months, and we are starting with AWS. We do lossless compression using microservices. We do the compute in a lossless compression way similar to gzip, WinZip, or PKZIP, except that we are giving a discount to customers.
The product that we are developing is not yet in the market. We are doing alpha testing for select customers who are using AWS. The biggest advantage is that you get faster storage without doing a forklift upgrade, and you get 35% cheaper storage. So, you get 2X faster storage with a 35% to 50% lower monthly bill.
We use AWS Lambda to encode and decode data. I work on the encode and decode software. I am working with a cloud developer. He works on the Lambda deliverable and wraps my C code with his C++ wrappers. They get bundled together with no JS stuff.
The cool thing about AWS Lambda is that AWS does all the management. For compression, it is all about making the data small and then making it regular size again. We have an encode function and a decode function. AWS Lambda schedules each of those for us. It has a load balancer and all the fancy stuff, depending on the demand.
The most valuable part of AWS Lambda is that I only need to write the software. I need to write two functions, and my cloud developer turns them into two AWS Lambda instances. That's it.
One area of improvement is to include support for more programming languages. AWS Lambda does not support a lot of programming languages. You have to write the Lambda functions in a certain programming language. We are using C++. My developer knows a couple of other languages. Python is his favorite language, but Python is not supported in AWS Lambda.
I have been using AWS Lambda since it came out in 2016.
Its scalability is great. We write an encode function, and my cloud developer turns that into an AWS Lambda instance. We then write a decode function, and he turns it into another AWS Lambda instance. We just hook it up and use an API gateway for doing the security check, encryption, and other things.
We did not require any support. Most of the stuff in the cloud is anyways self-serve.
The initial setup was straightforward.
They have a program for AWS customers called Activate. With the Activate program, you can get compute and storage credits. They gave us like $10,000 worth of credit over 18 months.
I would recommend using this solution. It was the first microservice. It doesn't have much overhead, and it does what it claims to do.
I would rate AWS Lambda an eight out of ten. It is a good solution.