node.js - Conecting AWS Lambda to Redshift - Times out after 60 seconds

Question

I created an AWS Lambda function that:

• logs onto Redshift via JDBC URL
• runs a query

Locally, using Node, I can successfully connect to the Redshift instance via JDBC, and execute a query.

var conString = "postgresql://USER_NAME:PASSWORD@JDBC_URL”;
var client = new pg.Client(conString);
client.connect(function(err) {   
  if(err) {?            
      console.log('could not connect to redshift', err);?          
  }  ?          
// omitted due to above error

However, when I execute the function on AWS Lambda (where it's wrapped in a async#waterfall block), AWS Cloudwatch logs tells me that the AWS Lambda function timed out after 60 seconds.

Any ideas on why my function is not able to connect?

Answer 1

I find it's either you open your Redshift security group public to all sources, or none. Because a Lambda function isn't running on a fixed address or even a fixed range of IP addresses, which is completely transparent to users (AKA server-less).

I just saw Amazon announced the new Lambda feature to support VPC yesterday. I guess if we can run a Redshift cluster in a VPC, this could solve the problem.