AWS debuts Lambda MicroVMs with up to 8 hours runtime

AWS has introduced Lambda MicroVMs, built on its Firecracker virtual machine monitor, which can run isolated Linux containers with runtimes of up to eight hours, in contrast to the 15-minute limit on containers in Lambda functions. MicroVMs form a new core feature of Lambda, the AWS serverless platform. Developers provide a Dockerfile defining a container along with application artifacts, and upload it to Amazon S3.