What type of service is AWS Lambda?

AWS Lambda is recognized as an event-driven compute service, which allows users to run code in response to specific events without the need to provision or manage servers. This model is often referred to as serverless computing, where the underlying infrastructure is abstracted away. Instead of worrying about the servers themselves, developers can focus solely on their code, which is triggered by events such as changes in data within an S3 bucket, updates to a DynamoDB table, or an HTTP request via API Gateway.

The event-driven architecture is central to Lambda's functionality, as it enables seamless scaling based on the number of events that occur. By utilizing this model, developers can implement various use cases, such as real-time file processing, data transformation, or backend services responding to web requests, without prior knowledge of how many instances need to run to handle the load at any given moment.

Overall, AWS Lambda's design as an event-driven compute service makes it a powerful tool for building scalable and efficient applications in the cloud.