AWS Lambda vs IronWorker

Example - A Lamda Function vs a Worker in IronWorker

We'll start using the first example from the AWS Lambda documentation, Walkthrough 1:  Handling User Application Events

Here are a few things we need to do first to get things set up for the test:

1. Install Node.js if you don’t have it already
2. Create a project directory called 'lambda-vs-ironworker'
3. You must have an AWS account and an Iron.io account setup
4. Install the AWS cli tool and the IronWorker cli tool

Lambda Hello World

1. Create a file called 'helloworld.js' and paste this code into it:

   console.log('Loading event');
   exports.handler = function(event, context) {
     console.log("value1 = " + event.key1);
     console.log("value2 = " + event.key2);
     console.log("value3 = " + event.key3);
     context.done(null, "Hello World");  // SUCCESS with message
   }
   

2. Zip up the files in the folder (just the helloworld.js for this example). From the cli, this would look like:

   zip -r helloworld.zip *
   

3. Create an IAM role for Lambda
4. Upload the Lambda function:

   aws lambda upload-function 
      --region us-east-1 
      --function-name helloworld 
      --function-zip helloworld.zip 
      --role arn:aws:iam::356671443308:role/executionrole 
      --mode event 
      --handler helloworld.handler 
      --runtime nodejs 
      --profile adminuser
      --debug
   

5. Create a test input file called 'helloworld-input.txt' with:

   {
      "key1":"value1",
      "key2":"value2",
      "key3":"value3"
   }
   

6. Invoke the function:

   aws lambda  invoke-async 
    --function-name helloworld 
    --region us-east-1 
    --invoke-args helloworld-input.txt 
    --debug
   

7. Check the AWS console to ensure it ran and see the output.

IronWorker Hello World

Now let's try the same thing on IronWorker.

1. IronWorker will use almost the exact same code, but removing some Lambda specific stuff. Create a file called 'helloworld-iron.js' and paste this code into it:

   console.log('Loading event');
   var worker = require('node_helper'); // IronWorker helper that loads the input for you
   var event = worker.params;
   console.log("value1 = " + event.key1);
   console.log("value2 = " + event.key2);
   console.log("value3 = " + event.key3);
   console.log("Hello World!");
   

2. Create a file 'helloworld.worker' and paste this into it:

   runtime "node"
   exec "helloworld-iron.js"
   

3. Upload the worker:

   iron_worker upload helloworld
   

4. Invoke/run the worker:

   iron_worker queue --payload-file helloworld-input.txt
   

5. Check HUD (Iron.io's console) to ensure it ran and see the output. The queue command will return a link on the command line that will take you directly to the task too.