What it is
Lambda is serverless compute. You upload a function. AWS runs it when an event happens. You do not patch a server. You do pay for duration, memory, and how often it wakes up.
Cold starts are the pause after idle. Fine for a nightly job. Rude for a login path. Provisioned concurrency is how you buy warmth.
Azure Functions is the twin. Same promise. Same timeout surprises. Same need for an owner.
Why it matters in the meeting
Serverless sounds like "nobody's problem." It is everyone's problem with a smaller invoice until a function loops, a trigger misfires, or a cold start hits the customer.
JJ loves the cost story. Bart loves the question: who owns this function, what can it touch, and why is it still running from a proof of concept?
Real world
Unreviewed functions with broad IAM roles are access keys that wake up on a schedule. Logs go to CloudWatch. Alarms go nowhere if nobody subscribed.
A tiny function that pulls a huge dataset every hour can create a quiet egress bill. Serverless does not mean consequence-free.
Lambda is code that runs when poked. No server to hug. Still needs an owner, a permission boundary, and a reason to exist after the demo.
What to ask
- Which Lambda functions have no owner tag and no recent code change?
- What IAM role does each customer-facing function use, and is it least privilege?
- Where do we accept cold starts, and where do we keep functions warm?
- If we disabled every function not touched in 90 days, what would break?
You just knew a little more Jack than you did five minutes ago.
All concepts