AWS Bites

In this episode of AWS Bites, we explore the future of Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs) in the context of the zero-trust security trend.

We'll dive into the pros and cons of using VPCs, including their usefulness when dealing with sensitive data or when you need fine-grained control over your network environment. But let's be real, sometimes VPCs can be a bit of a headache. We'll discuss why you might want to avoid them, including the added complexity they can bring to your network environment.

Fear not, we'll also provide a summary of when to use and when not to use VPCs, as well as alternatives to using VPCs, such as services that don't require them.

So, are ready to talk VPCs!?

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In this episode of the AWS Bites podcast, we explore the best practices for creating and configuring S3 Buckets, Amazon Web Services' popular object storage service. We will learn how to set up buckets correctly from the start, avoiding common pitfalls and ensuring efficient management.

We provide a quick recap of Amazon S3, covering buckets, objects, and various use cases. Discover the importance of globally unique bucket names, versioning, and observability through logging and metrics. We will tell you how to ensure the security of your buckets with encryption options and proper access controls.

Finally, we discuss S3 integrations and additional settings you might consider for your workload.

Don't miss this insightful episode packed with practical tips and expert advice. Tune in now and optimize your S3 Bucket setup for success!

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Who is the king of all databases when it comes to performance? Yes, Redis! Of course!

In this episode of AWS Bites, we talk about Redis on ElastiCache, one of the most essential instruments in the cloud architect's toolbox.

We explore the joys and woes of Redis on AWS and share some exciting alternatives regarding in-memory databases and caching systems.

We discuss the use cases of Redis, including session storage, web page caching, database cache, cost optimization, queues and pub/sub messaging, and distributed applications state.

We extensively talk about ElastiCache, the managed cache solution on AWS based on either Redis or Memcache, and its features such as replication groups, auto-scaling, and monitoring.

Finally, we discuss potential alternatives, such as DynamoDB (with DAX), Upstash, or Momento, a serverless cache built on Pelikan.

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Are you tired of being stuck in your local development environment? Do you dream of coding from a beach in Sicily? Well, get ready to make those dreams a reality with this episode of AWS Bites!

Today we are here to show you how to use VSCode to develop against a remote Cloud9 instance on AWS.

You'll learn how to edit in VSCode instead of using the Cloud9 editor, so you can take advantage of the power of the cloud and code from anywhere while staying in the comfort of your favourite code editor.

We'll cover two ways to edit in VSCode: with SSM and with VSCode Tunnels. With these setups, you can code from home, a coffee shop, or even a beach in Sicily (if you like granitas and sunshine). Plus, you'll get to use that fancy iPad you spent all that money on (also) for coding!

Get comfortable and let’s learn how to set up our next remote coding environment!

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In this episode of the AWS Bites podcast, we discuss the challenges of hosting private static websites on AWS. We explore why it's important to host internal corporate applications and line of business applications only for internal consumption, and the requirements for doing so. We also evaluate different options for hosting private static websites, including S3 with CloudFront, containers on ECS/Fargate with ALB, API Gateway, and AppRunner. Finally, we summarize the pros and cons of each option and provide a rating for each. If you're looking to host a private static website on AWS, this episode is a must-listen!

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In this exciting episode of the AWS Bites podcast, we're diving into the fascinating world of functionless applications. Yes, you heard it right! We'll be exploring how reducing the number of lambda functions can simplify your applications, resulting in lower latency, no cold starts, and cheaper costs.

But don't worry, we still love lambda! We'll be explaining the pros and cons of this approach, taking you through a step-by-step guide on how to use service proxies and manipulate the input for the target service using VTL.

And that's not all! We also share some helpful resources for those interested in learning more about this approach, including blog posts from some of the brightest minds in the field like Alex DeBrie, Sheen Brisals, and Paul Swail.

So, tune in and learn how to simplify your applications, reduce costs, and take your AWS game to the next level with functionless applications!

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Harken, good sir! Art thou aware of the arcane art of safeguarding thy AWS instances from malevolent threats whilst keeping them accessible for thy travels? There exists a mighty tool for such purpose, and it is hight the "bastion host." In this pamphlet, we shalt unravel the mysteries of the bastion host and showeth thee how to useth it to safeguard thy web space. We shall commence by presenting a shadowy example architecture and introducing thee to the definition of a bastion host. We shalt then delve into the question of whether bastion hosts could be a security liability and explore the enigmatic concept of port-knocking. We shalt also take thee on a valiant journey of how to provision a bastion host on AWS, and explaineth the cryptic basics of SSH and tunnels. Thou shalt discover the dark side of managing SSH keys and auditing SSH connections, and we shall reveal the secrets of AWS EC2 Instance Connect and AWS Session Manager (SSM) as solutions. Thou shalt learn how to accept connections without exposing a port on the public internet, and we shall introduce thee to a mysterious tool called "basti" that can make it easier to provision SSM-based bastion hosts and connect to thy databases. We shalt wrap up by revealing alternative security measures to the mysterious bastion host and provide thee with cryptic closing notes to summarize the key takeaways from this video. Heed our call to this intriguing guide to securing thy web space, and may the forces of the internet be in thy favor! 🛡️ SPONSORS 🛡️ Harken, good folk! We would like to offer our deepest gratitude to our noble sponsor, fourTheorem (https://fourtheorem.com), an AWS Consulting Partner that doth offer training, cloud migration, and modern application architecture. Thanks to their generosity, we are able to continue on our journey of imparting wisdom and knowledge regarding AWS.

Verily, in this episode, we hath made mention of the following resources:

Are you tired of waiting for your Lambda functions to finish before getting a response? Well, now you don't have to! In this episode of the AWS Bites podcast, we will talk about Lambda Response Streaming, a new feature recently added by AWS that lets you stream responses from your Lambda functions in real time. We'll start by explaining what Lambda Response Streaming is and how it differs from buffering. We'll also discuss HTTP Chunking and other benefits of streaming. If you're a Node.js developer, you'll be happy to know that we'll cover how to work with streams in Node.js and how the new Lambda Response Streaming API works with the Node.js runtime. But that's not all! We'll also discuss how to consume Lambda Response Streaming responses and compare that with S3 Object Response. And if you're wondering about pricing and quotas, we'll cover that too. Finally, we'll answer the question on everyone's mind: will we get streaming requests as well? You'll have to watch the video to find out! So if you're interested in learning more about Lambda Response Streaming and how it can improve the performance of your serverless applications, make sure to tune in. We promise it'll be worth your time.

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In this episode, we're doing something different! Join us for a special screen-sharing edition of our podcast series, as we take a deep dive into AWS Copilot, a service designed to simplify container application deployment on AWS. During this video, we'll be sharing our screens as we walk through the AWS Copilot landing page and documentation, and demonstrate how to use the service to deploy a container application. We highly recommend watching the video version of this episode, as we'll be providing a lot of visual guidance and examples. Starting with the basics, we'll learn about the differences between copilot init and copilot app init, and how to prepare our environment using a custom domain. We'll then walk through the deployment process step-by-step, examining the generated configuration file, manifest.yml, and testing our deployed application. Next, we'll explore the networking resources created by AWS Copilot, including a VPC, subnets, and a load balancer, and review the automation capabilities of CodePipeline. We'll also discuss the options available for rolling out new changes, and demonstrate how to make changes and re-deploy through the pipeline. Throughout the video, we will share their thoughts and opinions on AWS Copilot, including a failed attempt with AppRunner and a review of the pipeline execution and timing.

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In this special episode of AWS Bites, we drop all our opinions about the sudden growth of AI and how it is going to change the future as we know it! We begin by taking a trip down memory lane and discovering the types of AI tools that have been used in the past and how they have helped us. Then, we'll dive into ChatGPT, a language model that can assist us in writing and even creating code. We're especially excited to discuss how ChatGPT can be used to create slide decks or even write a book or a blog post. But wait, there's more! We'll also explore the utility of other AI tools such as Grammarly and OpenAI Whisper for improving our writing and transcribing spoken words into text. Moving forward, we'll examine how we tried to use AI to develop cloud applications on platforms like AWS. We'll also consider the impact of AI on the education system and how it can be used to modernize complex systems, or for learning, including programming languages that are new to developers. Now, we know there might be some concerns about using AI, such as whether it takes away the fun of software engineering or reduces creativity. But fear not! We'll address these concerns head-on and explore how AI can actually make us more productive and lead to exciting new discoveries. Finally, we'll discuss the exciting possibilities for AI and its potential to democratize access to the job market and society in general.

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How can you use a Lambda to respond to an HTTP request? There are more ways than ever to do it. We have API Gateway REST APIs, Lambda support for Application Load Balancer, and now Function URLs. But which one should you use, and when? In this episode of AWS Bites podcast, we will give you a quick and simple guide to picking the best way to build APIs with Lambda. In this video, we're going to pitch Function URLs against API Gateway in a battle for the ages! Function URLs offer a simple and quick way to get a public URL to invoke a Lambda function, with fewer configuration options and cheaper pricing. They are suitable for private webhooks, simple backend functions, and machine learning inference backend. However, they lack authorization and DDoS protection, making them unsuitable for public webhooks. On the other hand, API Gateway offers more features and control, making it suitable for public APIs. API Gateway comes in two flavors: REST and HTTP with some subtle differences. Finally, we will also cover Application Load balancer and explore when and why it can be a convenient alternative to both Function URLs and API Gateway.

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In this episode, we're going to be talking about AWS Application Composer - a FREE service that promises to help you build serverless applications with ease. With its simple drag-and-drop interface, it's supposed to make Infrastructure as Code a breeze. But the real question is - does it live up to the hype? We know a lot of you are probably struggling with building applications using CloudFormation. It's a real pain, right? So, we decided to take Application Composer for a spin and see if it's worth adding to your toolkit or giving it a hard pass. After covering a generic overview of the service, how it works, and the main concepts, we discuss our experience in creating a new simple serverless application from scratch only using API Gateway, Lambda, and S3. Then we cover what it looks like to import an existing project (a slightly more complicated one) into Application Composer and find out what works and what doesn't. We conclude by discussing some other things that didn't work as expected and by providing our general recommendation on whether you should be using this service today.

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AWS ECS is a powerful service that allows you to run containerized applications at scale. It's suitable for a variety of use cases, including web applications, microservices, and background processing.

In this episode, we'll provide an introduction to the main concepts of ECS and then dive into cost-optimization strategies. We'll explore the different options for running containers on ECS, including EC2, Fargate, and ECS Anywhere.

We'll discuss various opportunities for saving money, such as using Arm (Graviton) instances, Spot instances, Compute Savings Plans, and RIs or EC2 Saving Plans.

Finally, we'll cover how to set up ECS to use Spot instances, including how to create capacity providers and specify a capacity provider strategy. We'll also discuss whether it's always best to use EC2 instead of Fargate for cost optimization and recommend some tools that can help you find other opportunities to save on container costs.

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Join us as we explore the controversy surrounding serverless computing in this week's video! We'll be discussing David Heinemeier Hansson's recent blog post where he argues that serverless is a trap that only benefits cloud providers.

While we respect DHH's opinion, we'll be providing an alternative perspective by analyzing his major points and discussing the benefits of using serverless computing, including Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and increased agility. We'll also be highlighting how serverless can help teams focus on business logic instead of infrastructure management and enable easier integration with other cloud services, making it more efficient to build and deploy applications.

Don't miss out on this informative and thought-provoking discussion!

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Are you ready to level up your software architecture skills? In this episode, we deep-dive into the world of diagrams and show you why they are essential for creating robust and scalable cloud architectures!

Starting with the basics, we explain why diagrams are so important and why you should be using them in your work. We'll discuss different approaches to creating diagrams mentioning the popular C4 method and some alternative approaches.

In the context of AWS we will share some insider tips about using AWS icon sets to enhance your architecture diagrams and make them look as professional as possible.

Next, we'll take you for a tour of the various tools you can use to create diagrams, from manual drag-n-drop tools like Visio, DrawIo, Excalidraw, and LucidCharts, to programmatic tools like Mermaid, Python diagrams library, and Kroki. We will also share some exciting insights into generating diagrams from infrastructure using tools like CfnDiagrams and the Terraform graph command.

Finally, we'll close this episode by showing you how to share your diagrams and collaborate effectively with others.

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Do you know what horrors lurk in your AWS account? Aren't you afraid of the murky waters of an old and cluttered AWS account, which might be rife with security risks and other unexpected dark forces?

Fear no more!

In this episode, we share our best tips to discover every resource in your neglected AWS account and, whether you decide to clean things up, delete what's needed, or just put some order into the mess, we give you some practical suggestions on what kind of tools or services you could you to achieve your task. 

Throughout the episode, we reveal some of the secrets and hidden potential of AWS Config, Resource Explorer, Resource Groups, and CloudTrail.

Finally, We talk about third-party services and open-source projects such as Resmo, Steampipe, and CloudQuery, which can even span the realms of AWS and help you with other clouds and services.

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If you've been using AWS for a while, you might have heard the term "well-architected". But what does it really mean? Don't worry if you're not quite sure, because we are here to help!

In this episode of AWS Bites, we will be diving into the world of well-architected and explaining what it means, both in general and in the specific context of AWS. We will be covering the well-architected framework, the different tools, and facets that come with it, and answering some practical questions like "should you care about building well-architected workloads?" and "how do you know if your workloads are well-architected?".

Whether you're a startup or a mature organization, learn why building well-architected systems is crucial for the long-term success of your business.

By the end of this episode, you'll have a solid understanding of the world of well-architected and why it's so important. Let's dive in!

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Are you tired of feeling overwhelmed by the vast AWS landscape? Do you find yourself constantly struggling to keep up with all the tasks at hand? Look no further! In this episode of AWS Bites podcast, Eoin and Luciano share their top six time-saving tools to help you reclaim your productivity and make the most of your AWS experience. These tools are designed to make your life easier and allow you to achieve more in less time.

But don't worry, this won't be a boring lecture. Get ready to have some fun as they reveal their top tricks and tips, from profiles and SSO to terminal gems and CLI magic. These tools will have you feeling like a kid in a candy store, soaring through your AWS work with ease. And if that wasn't enough, they've got a few extra special surprises in store to take your AWS skills to new heights.

So buckle up and get ready for a wild ride, it's time to have some fun with AWS!

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Discover the Ultimate Battle: Serverless Framework vs AWS SAM!

Are you building and deploying serverless applications and don't know which tool to choose? Look no further, as we dive into a comparison of the two heavyweights in the serverless world - AWS SAM and Serverless Framework. Find out their unique features, ease of use, and what the future holds for these Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools. By the end of this episode, you will know which one is right for you and your projects!

Join us as we explore the pros and cons of each tool, from the flexibility and ease of use of Serverless Framework to the cloud-side deployment management of SAM. Learn about the different syntax options, supported languages, and credentials management (especially SSO).

Get the inside scoop on the installation process and build and deployment capabilities, including the new "sam accelerate" feature for faster development. Discover the difference between handling multiple components and stacks and how each tool keeps up with new AWS features.

Don't miss out on this exciting episode as we determine the winner in the ultimate battle of Serverless Framework vs AWS SAM!

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In this episode of the AWS Bites Podcast, we dive into the serverless pattern of using AWS Lambda together with SQS. We explain the basics of both Lambda and SQS for those who may not be familiar with them. We talk about how we use Lambda, a Function as a Service offering in AWS, to write our own functions and have AWS run them in response to certain events. And we also discuss SQS, a scalable and managed queuing system available on AWS, which we use to offload work to background workers.

We delve into how the two services work together through the use of "Event Source Mapping" in Lambda, which polls our SQS queue and makes synchronous Lambda invocation requests when messages are available. We also mention how this feature provides us with the ability to control batch size and window, as well as specify filters to save execution time and cost. But we also share one of the limitations we faced when using SQS and Lambda together which was the lack of control over concurrency and the potential for excessive throttling.

But recently, AWS has released a new feature called "SQS maximum concurrency support" which allows us to specify a maximum number of invocations for an Event Source Mapping. This solves the problem of excessive throttling and eliminates the need to use reserved concurrency. It also allows for more control over concurrency when using multiple Event Source Mappings with the same function. We explain how this new feature has improved our workflow and made it much more efficient.

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Are you curious about using Rust to write AWS Lambda functions?

In this episode of AWS BItes, we will be discussing the pros and cons of using Rust for serverless applications. With Rust, you'll be able to take advantage of its fast performance and memory efficiency. Plus, its programming model makes it easy to write safe and correct code. However, Rust is not a native runtime for Lambda, but rather a library that implements a custom runtime built and maintained by AWS. This custom runtime is built on top of the Tokio async runtime and even has a built-in middleware engine, which allows for easy hook-in of reusable logic and building your own middleware.

But what if you're new to Rust? Don't worry, we'll also be walking you through the steps on how to write your first Lambda in Rust. From cargo-lambda to the serverless framework plugin for Rust, we'll be sharing different alternatives for building and deploying your Rust-based Lambda functions.

So join us on this journey as we explore the exciting world of Rust and Lambda.

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We built a Step Function that allows us to generate high-quality transcripts for AWS Bites podcast!

After evaluating different approaches and technologies we ended up using Amazon transcribe and OpenAI whisper. They both have their pros and cons but combined together they gave us everything we were looking for with quite a good degree of accuracy!

In this episode, we describe our use case, our research, and how eventually we did go about productionizing our final solution.

re:Invent 2022, the biggest AWS conference of the year is just over and there were tons of interesting announcements: many new features and some interesting new AWS products!

But we are not going to bother you with yet another walkthrough of all of them.

In this episode of AWS Bites podcast we just discuss our top 3 announcements and explained what we liked and what could have made them even better!  We will talk about EventBridge Pipes, Step Functions Distributed Map, and Application Composer.

What are your favorite announcements? Let us know on Twitter or in the comments!

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Let's face it: when it comes to AWS, cost is one of the scariest topics! 

Why? Mostly because the underlying model can get very complex. 

There are too many variables and ultimately it's just hard to predict how much is a given workload going to cost you on AWS. Are going to be bankrupted by this unpredictable cost? Probably not!

In this episode, we share some suggestions and tools on how to approach cost when going to AWS. It's not a simple topic, but it's something you need to embrace, learn and get confident with. With a bit of effort, cost will not be so scary anymore and you'll be able to take advantage of all the awesome services and features of AWS without being so worried about cost!

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AWS Lambda is one of the most famous AWS services these days. If you are just starting with your cloud journey you might be confused about what Lambda actually is, what are the limitations, and when you should be using it or not.

In this episode, we provide a beginner-friendly introduction to Lambda and summarise everything there’s to know about it: when to use it and when not, differences with containers, the pricing model, limitations, and integrations.

By the end of this episode, we will also chime in with some of our opinions and share whether we believe that Lambda is the future of cloud computing or not! 

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AWS Bites is sponsored by fourTheorem (https://fourtheorem.com/). fourTheorem is an AWS Consulting Partner offering training, cloud migration, and modern application architecture.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

You can listen to AWS Bites wherever you get your podcasts:

The definition of serverless has already changed in the few years since it first emerged. There have been many success stories using serverless - in startups and the enterprise. But what comes next?

In this episode, we will clarify our definition of Serverless, what are the main challenges with it today, and speculate on what we believe will come next! By the end of this episode, you’ll have heard our thoughts and predictions on what Serverless 2.0 will look like. We will also reveal who we think will be the main challenger to AWS for domination of serverless as it goes mainstream! 

Building actual projects is a great way to consolidate our understanding of AWS. In this episode, we present 4 different project ideas to explore services and concepts in the space of web application development, machine learning, and data science.

Ok, you are probably wondering where kitties come into the equation here. Every one of these 4 project ideas involves kitties! 🐱

We can learn stuff and have some fun too!

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

If you looked into Amazon Cognito, chances are that you have been confused by User Pools and Identity Pools (now renamed to Federated Identities). Well, Cognito is not one of the simplest AWS services to get started with but it is indeed very powerful and it can be very convenient to use when you are dealing with authentication and authorization.

In this Episode of the AWS Bites Podcast, we try to clarify what is the difference between User Pools and Identity Pools. When to use one or the other and even when to use them together. Throughout the episode, we will cover several practical examples and use cases.

In this episode, we didn’t really mention any resources, but if you want to deep dive into this topic here are some useful links:

Uploading and downloading files are some of the most common operations for web applications. But let’s face it, as common as they are, they are still challenging features to implement in a reliable and scalable way!  This is especially true for serverless environments where you have strict limits in payload size and you cannot have long-running connections.  So what’s the solution? If you are using S3, pre-signed URLs can help quite a bit!   In this episode of AWS Bites podcast, we are going to learn more about them, and… if you stick until the very end of this episode, we are going to disclose an interesting and quite unknown tip about pre-signed URLs!

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

Sometimes people talk about an MVP and then say "yeah but we deploy manually" or "we don't have tests yet". Is that really an MVP or is it something else? And what it takes to build a successful MVP when using AWS? In this episode, we discuss the differences between a prototype, a proof of concept, and an MVP. Then we debate about what's the minimum amount of work you need to put in place to have an MVP on AWS. We debate on whether our weshare.click is an MVP or just a prototype and why. Finally, we provide a list of previous episodes that can help to acquire the foundational AWS knowledge that is needed to be able to build an MVP successfully.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

AWS Step Functions are all the rage right now! The visual editor is getting better and better and there are always new capabilities like the recently introduced intrinsic functions. In this episode we will try to answer the question “are Step Functions a Low-Code tool”? In the process, we will give our own definition of what Low-Code means, and we will describe the main characteristics of Step Functions and try to assess whether they match our definition or not. We will also discuss several practical use cases that can be addressed with Low-Code and Step Functions.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

In this special episode we announce our next initiative: starting some YouTube coding live streams where we build something on AWS. Specifically we are going to build a file transfer service, just like WeTransfer or Dropbox Transfer! In this episode we announce why we decided to start this, the logistic and some of the details of the product we are going to build.

The public cloud gives you amazing machine learning powers with a low barrier to entry. Once you know where to begin, you can quickly build solutions to process images, video, text and audio, as well as structured data. In this episode we talk about the managed AI services that are available on AWS and that require zero machine learning expertise (Rekognition, Polly, Transcribe, Forecast, Personalise, Comprehend, Lex, Textract, Translate). We will also talk about services you can use to create and run your own custom models (SageMaker). We will finally cover some different use cases and some of the things you need to consider before you do machine learning in production.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

If you are thinking of using an external CICD tool to deploy to AWS you are probably wondering how to securely connect your pipelines to your AWS account.

You could create a user for your CICD tool of choice and copy some hard coded credentials into it, but, let’s face it: this doesn’t feel like the right - or at least the most secure - approach!

In the previous episode we discussed how AWS and GitHub solved this problem by using OIDC identity providers and this seems to be a good solution to the problem.

In this episode of AWS Bites we will try to demystify the secrets of OIDC identity providers and explain how they work and what’s the trust model between AWS and an OIDC provider like GitHub actions. We will also explain all the steps required to integrate AWS with GitHub, how JWT works in this particular scenario and other use cases where you could use OIDC providers.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

Automated, Continuous Build and Continuous Delivery are must-haves when building modern applications on AWS. To achieve this, you have numerous options, including third party providers like GitHub Actions and Circle CI, and the AWS services, CodePipeline and CodeBuild. In this episode we focus on GitHub Actions and we compare it with the native AWS features offered by services like CodePipeline and Code Build. In particular we discuss what CodePipeline offers and how to set it up, what the tradeoffs are and when to choose one over the other. We also discuss when you should look outside AWS to a third-party provider and highlight when GitHub Actions can be a great fit for your AWS CI/CD needs!

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

We do love AWS, but sometimes we have to admit that it’s not always a silver bullet. There are definitely use cases where it might be worth considering alternatives to AWS.

In this episode we will discuss some of these use cases and try to highlight what are the advantages that other platforms or services can have over AWS in very specific circumstances. First of all we clarify why we like AWS and why (and when) it’s worth sticking with it. Then, we discuss what are some of the reasons why it might be worth considering alternatives to AWS. At this point we go into the specifics and talk about authentication services (Auth0), search services (ElasticSearch, Algolia), CDN Services (GitHub Pages, Netlify, Vercel, CloudFlare, Fastly, Akamai), Databases (MongoDB Atlas, Digital Ocean managed databases, IBM Compose, CloudFlare D1, Upstash, Confluent Kafka), Headless CMS services (ContentFul, Storyful, AirTable, Google Spreadsheet), Virtual Machine services (Digital Ocean, Linode).

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

We recently talked about migrating a monolithic application to AWS, using EC2, load balancers, S3 and RDS. In this episode we want to talk about a slightly different setup, where we are going for containers instead of EC2 and we want to deploy them in Fargate. In this We are going to cover all the components you will need in your architecture, the reasons to choose Fargate over any alternatives and discuss some CDK tricks to get started in a quick way (and the pitfalls that might come with them).

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

Lambda functions are small units of code that achieve a specific purpose. It’s always a good idea to keep your code short, clean and simple. And yet, sometimes you find yourself writing lots of boilerplate code in every function to do common things, like parsing events, validation, loading parameters and lots more.

The Middy.js framework was designed to help you keep Node.js Lambda function code simple, letting you focus on the business logic and clearing away duplication and boilerplate. By the end of this episode, you will know: How Middy.js works with JavaScript and TypeScript, how to perform validation, event parsing and parameter loading, and how you can even write and use your own Middy middleware. Finally you’ll get to know who is using Middy and how you could contribute to the Middy ecosystem.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

Identity Access Management, also known as IAM, can be an intimidating service when getting started with AWS. But IAM is also one of those core services that you can’t really avoid. In this episode we try to distill down everything that you need to know to understand IAM and start to use it proficiently. We cover what IAM is, why it is so important, how authentication and authorization work, what policy documents are and how to write them, how a user or an application get credentials to interact with AWS and finally many examples, tips and tricks.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

When it comes to building and deploying microservice applications on AWS, there are 2 emerging best practices: use a separate AWS account per application (and environment) and decouple communication between separate systems using events (instead of point-to-point communication). Can we use these two best practices together? Yes, but we will need to find a way to pass messages between AWS accounts! In this episode we discuss how to do that using EventBridge as a cross-account event backbone! We discuss why these 2 suggestions are well established best practices, what are the pros and cons that they bring to the table, what an event backbone is and why EventBridge is a great service to implement one. Finally, we will discuss a case study and an example implementation of this pattern in the context of an e-commerce application built with a microservices architecture.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

When it comes to choosing compute services on AWS, there are a lot of options, including EC2, ECS, Lambda, EKS… New ones keep emerging all the time! Selecting the right one for each application is no longer an easy choice. In this episode we discuss why you need compute services and what kinds of problems should be offloaded to something else entirely. We suggest how you can develop a methodology to make the selection process easier and less biased within your company. We discuss at a high level what are some of the different compute options available in AWS and finally we provide a few different options example use cases and describe how we picked the compute service for each.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

Migrating monoliths to the cloud can be a scary, expensive and time consuming and time consuming activity. Many companies try to avoid it even if it could be beneficial for them, just because they think it would require too much work and be too risky. But there are interesting compromises and incremental approaches that can be used to simplify and de-risk this kind of migration. The idea is that you don’t necessarily have to dramatically re-engineer your application to move it to the cloud (and start to take advantage of it).

In this episode, based on an InfoQ article that we recently published, we discuss a fictional use case where a company with a monolithic application managed to move to the cloud with a minimum amount of change. The move to the cloud has brought more scalability and resilience for the company to move forward and expand. But it also brings new challenges and opportunities. We will discuss all of this in more detail and by the end of this episode you should have a checklist for migrating monoliths to the cloud with minimal effort.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

There are lots of options for programming languages on AWS these days but one of the most popular ones remains JavaScript. In this episode of AWS Bites we discuss what it’s like to develop with JavaScript, Node.js and TypeScript on AWS and what’s new in this field.

We explore why you would choose JavaScript and what are the trade-offs that come with this choice. We present some of the main features of the all-new AWS SDK v3 for JavaScript. We discuss runtime support and tooling for AWS Lambda and finally some interesting developments in the JavaScript ecosystem for the cloud and AWS.

In the age of distributed systems we produce tons and tons of logs. This is especially true for AWS when using CloudWatch logs. So how do we make sense of all these logs and how can we find useful information in them?

In this episode we talk all about logs on AWS and we discuss the main concepts in CloudWatch for logs like Log Groups and Log Streams. We discuss how you can consume logs and how this used to be a big pain point with AWS CloudWatch logs and how now things are a lot better thanks to a relatively new feature called Log Insights.

Finally we discuss some best practices that you should consider when thinking about logs for your distributed cloud applications.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

CloudWatch is a great service for metrics. You get tons of metrics out of the box and you can also create your custom ones. One of the most important things you can do with metrics is to create alarms, so how do we get the most out of CloudWatch alarms?

In this episode we share our insights and cover the different types of alarms that exist, how to create an alarm, what to do when an alarm is triggered, a few examples of useful alarms and some of the drawbacks of CloudWatch alarms and how to overcome them.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

CloudWatch is the main Observability tool in AWS and it offers a wide range of features: logs, metrics, dashboards, alarms and even events (recently moved into EventBridge).

In this episode we are going to focus on CloudWatch metrics. We are going to discuss the characteristics of metrics in CloudWatch: namespaces, dimensions, units and more. What metrics you get out of the box and how to create your own. How to access and explore metrics.

Finally we will compare CloudWatch to other providers like DataDog, New Relic, Honeycomb and Grafana + Prometheus and try to assess whether CloudWatch is enough or if you need to use other third-party services.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

What are the benefits of Tags? You have probably seen that you can add tags to almost every resource in AWS… but should you really do it? And if you do it, what are the benefits?

In today’s episode Eoin and Luciano cover what tags are, some examples of how to use them and what kind of benefits they can give you and your team. Finally we’ll give you a bunch of ideas on how to build a tagging strategy and get value from tags!

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

Should I use CloudFormation or should I use Terraform instead? If you are just starting to do Infrastructure as Code (IaaC) you probably have this question. In this episode we will discuss in detail how these two amazing pieces of technology compare against each other and what their features, weaknesses and strengths are. We will share our opinions based on our experience with these 2 technologies and guess what, for once we have a bit of clash of opinions! Can you guess who is in the Terraform camp and who is in the CloudFormation camp instead?

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

AWS Lambda just got a big upgrade in ephemeral storage: you can now have up to 10 GB of storage for your /tmp folder! Before this was limited to “only” 512 Mb… But is this really useful? What can we do now that we couldn’t do before? Also, is this going to have an impact on price? And how does it compare with other storage capabilities that are available in Lambda? Eoin and Luciano are on the case to try to find some answers to these compelling questions, for the greater serverless good!

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

Eoin and Luciano take you through the ways serverless can give you more security out of the box. We cover the tradeoffs between having more security control and the responsibility that comes with this power. There are always new security challenges so we cover some of the common pitfalls with serverless and AWS security in general. Finally, we share some tips to make your serverless deployments more secure.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

Luciano and Eoin discuss their strategies and ideas to help new team members to start embracing cloud computing and get productive with AWS. What are the main concepts to focus on when bootstrapping this journey, how to make a plan and make sure it’s bespoke to the expectation of the new employee. How to do pairing sessions and make sure we can build hands-on experience. Finally we discuss building troubleshooting skills and make sure we put in place a virtuous cycle that can foster continuous learning.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources: