AWS Lambda has introduced MicroVMs, a new serverless compute primitive that enables running code in isolated, stateful execution environments. This feature is powered by Firecracker, a lightweight virtualization technology that has been used to power over 15 trillion monthly Lambda function invocations. MicroVMs provide virtual machine-level isolation, near-instant launch and resume, and direct control over environment lifecycle and state, without requiring infrastructure management or complex virtualization expertise. This is particularly useful for multi-tenant applications that need to execute user- or AI-generated code in isolated environments, such as AI coding assistants, interactive code environments, and data analytics platforms. By using MicroVMs, developers can avoid tradeoffs between performance and isolation, and instead focus on building their applications. To get started, users can create a MicroVM Image by packaging their code and Dockerfile into a zip file, and then uploading it to Amazon S3. The image can be created using the AWS Lambda console or the CLI, and once created, it can be used to launch a MicroVM with a dedicated endpoint URL. MicroVMs support up to 8 hours of total runtime and can be suspended automatically after a configurable idle window, making it suitable for a variety of use cases. The service is now available in several regions, including US East, US West, Europe, and Asia Pacific, with support for up to 16 vCPUs, 32 GB of memory, and 32 GB of disk per MicroVM.

Source: AWS