title: Scheduled AWS Lambda Task at less than 1 minute frequency
body: <p>We are trying to develop a true lambda-based application in which certain tasks need to be performed at schedules of variable frequencies. They are actually polling for data, and at certain times of the day, this polling can be as slow as once every hour, while at other times, it has to be once every second. I have looked at the options for scheduling (e.g. <a href="https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/services-cloudwatchevents.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Using AWS Lambda with Scheduled Events</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhJxTIq81AU" rel="nofollow noreferrer">AWS re:Invent 2015 | (CMP407) Lambda as Cron: Scheduling Invocations in AWS Lambda</a>), but it seems that short of spinning up an EC2 instance or a long-running lambda, there's no built-in way of firing up lambdas at a frequency of less than one minute. The lambda rate expression doesn't have a place for seconds. Is there a way to do this without an EC2 instance or long-running lambda? Ideally, something that can be done without incurring additional cost for scheduling.</p>