AWS Lambda offers ephemeral storage at /tmp, which we can use as data staging area. Ephemeral storage means it co-exists with lambda function instance. If lambda function is recycled due to inactivity, the attached ephemeral storage is recycled as well. AWS Lambda used to support only 512MB, and now supports up to 10GB ephemeral storage [1]. We can use this storage for ETL and data-intensive operations. Just make sure the operation must finish within 15 minutes.

Please also check the pricing information [3]. It’s inexpensive.

References:

  1. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-lambda-now-supports-up-to-10-gb-ephemeral-storage/
  2. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/choosing-between-aws-lambda-data-storage-options-in-web-apps/
  3. https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/pricing/