What is AWS Lambda primarily designed to do?

AWS Lambda is primarily designed to run code in response to events. This serverless compute service allows developers to execute their code without the need to provision or manage servers. Instead of worrying about the underlying infrastructure, users can focus solely on writing their applications. AWS Lambda automatically scales the application by running code in response to triggers such as changes in data, system state, or user actions.

The event-driven architecture of AWS Lambda enables it to seamlessly integrate with other AWS services, allowing it to be triggered by events from services such as Amazon S3, DynamoDB, Kinesis, and API Gateway, among others. This capability makes it highly suitable for building microservices, processing streams of data in real-time, and automating workflows.

Other options listed have distinct purposes within the AWS ecosystem. Hosting static websites refers to services like Amazon S3 and CloudFront, while creating virtual private clouds is associated with Amazon VPC. Storing large databases typically involves services like Amazon RDS or DynamoDB. These options cater to specific use cases, while AWS Lambda's strength lies in its ability to execute code based solely on events, highlighting its role in modern application development.