Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS), in support of Microsoft’s.NET Core initiative has this week opened up additional.NET Core options to work with AWS Lambda. AWS Lambda facilitates event-driven, serverless computing.
.NET Core is Microsoft’s modernization of the Windows-only.NET Framework. It is open-source and cross-platform, taking it modularized and making it more modular.
The company advised developers that.NET Core was the future and recommended it for all new development projects. It will be receiving new features and functionality going forward while.NET Framework will be relegated security and maintenance updates.
In announcing a new Amazon.Lambda.RuntimeSupport library, AWS made it possible for developers to create their own custom runtimes in order to use more versions of .NET Core beyond the version that’s currently built-in to the AWS Lambda service.
Developers could not use LTS versions of.NET Core in the past to manage AWS Lambda functions. Microsoft supports LTS versions for three years following an initial release, or for one year following the release of a subsequent LTS version.
Microsoft also offers Current release support, which provides support for three months following a LTS or Current release.
Finally, Microsoft supports Preview releases that have a “Go Live” designation. This means they can be used as production material.
Developers could only use LTS.NET Core versions before the new support library. The latest version is.NET Core 2.1. AWS Lambda will continue to only build-in LTS versions of.NET Core. Coders will be able to use the new support library for creating Lambda functions with Current and Preview versions. These versions are compatible with.NET Standard2.0, which is a specification that defines a set APIs that all.NET platforms must implement.
“If you’re looking to use new features from .NET Core 2.2 or 3.0 preview, Amazon.Lambda.RuntimeSupport gives you a path forward,” AWS said in a post.
This path can be a bit more difficult, however, because programmers who use other.NET Core versions will need to create custom runtimes in order to leverage non-supported runtimes or languages.
AWS will apply security updates and bug fixes to its.NET Core runtimes automatically, but the company stated that the customer can manage updates to custom runtimes but can also bring any version to the platform. This is important to remember when choosing between a custom or built-in runtime.
AWS has been steadily increasing its.NET Core Support. AWS introduced.NET Core 2.1 support to AWS Lambda last July and integrated AWS Lambda into PowerShell Core 6.0 a few months later.
The source code for the new library can be found on GitHub. It also comes in a NuGet package.
