Off-by-none: Issue #261

January 9, 2024

Only have a few minutes? Check out this week's MOST POPULAR links as chosen by our email subscribers.

Believe in Serverless 🙌

In our previous issue, Aurora Serverless v2 got a new Data API, Lambda functions could be triggered by CloudWatch alarms, and there was a great argument for containers becoming the de facto Lambda packaging format. This week, Momento Topics goes stateless, we learn why serverless and agile are made for one another, and we take a closer look at DevEx. Plus, we have plenty of serverless content from the community!

Serverless News & Announcements 📣

AWS to Shut Down Aurora Serverless v1, Their Sole Relational Database with Scaling Capacity to Zero
We reported on this last week, but if you want to read more thoughts on the fall out, check out Renato Losio's wrap up.

In other interesting cloud news, Momento introduced webhooks that let you push events from Momento Topics. Pretty cool stuff.

And speaking of Momento, they wanted to keep the #BelieveInServerless party from re:Invent going! They've started a new "community of builders here to help inspire a serverless future, together." Visit the site and sign up for their Discord to join the conversation.

And for me, I've finally gotten rid of WordPress for my blog. Check out my post, New year, new blog! to see what I'm working on.

Serverless Concepts 🏗

Serverless and Agile
Benjamen Pyle says that serverless and agile go together like peanut butter and jelly (assuming you don't have a peanut allergy). I couldn't agree more.

Unlocking Real-Time Data Processing with Amazon Kinesis
Jouneid Raza shares an overview of the different flavors of Kinesis and some use cases where they fit in.

AWS SnapStart - Part 12 Measuring cold starts and deployment time with Java 21 using different Lambda memory settings
Vadym Kazulkin continues his series on SnapStart, this time measuring cold starts using different memory settings.

Introduction to AWS Proton for Container and Serverless Deployments
I have mostly been ignoring Proton because I didn't find it useful, but maybe Christopher Adamson can convince you otherwise.

Neon: Branching in Serverless PostgreSQL
I love the concept of branching in these newfangled serverless databases. Susan Hall explains how this works in Neon.

Leveraging EventBridge API Destinations to augment your application tracking
Helpful post for understanding how API Destinations might fit into your event-driven application workflows.

Serverless Tutorials 👷‍♀️

Deploy a web application with AWS Lambda
I think it's been awhile since we've shared a simple, straightforward Serverless Framework deployment tutorial. Check out Ananya Dasgupta's tutorial if you want to go back to the basics.

AI powered video summarizer with Amazon Bedrock and Anthropic’s Claude
Zied Ben Tahar shares a walkthrough of summarizing YouTube video transcripts and generating audio versions using Polly.

Github Actions: The Easiest Way to Deploy Serverless Applications
It is amazing how easy it is to create simple serverless CI/CD pipelines with GitHub Actions. Pamal Jayawickrama shows you how.

End-to-End Serverless Automation: Amazon ECR Source with Fargate and CodeDeploy
This is a bit more complex, but Sushanta Paudel explains how to automate this entire process.

AWS Step Functions: Example HTTP Request Call
Juan Jose Orjuela gives us a detailed step-by-step guide, plus several use cases and examples of using Step Functions HTTP Tasks feature.

Setting up AppSync subscriptions for out-of-band updates with Eventbridge pipes
Mohammed Izzy shows you how to accomplish this common scenario.

Decoding Serverless Orchestration: Understanding AWS Step Functions through the “Image Converter” Mini Project
In another post from Pamal Jayawickrama, he provides you everything you need to follow along and build an Image Converter with Step Functions.

Serverless Reads 🤓

Embracing Serverless Excellence
What's it like getting the AWS Serverless Learning Badge? Here's someone's first hand experience.

Book Recommendations from the AWS Enterprise Strategy Team
Not sure if you're into strategy at all, but this post by Mark Schwartz has some very, very good reads on it.

Top Serverless Platforms to look out for in 2024
Vishwasa Navada K from AntStack shares his picks for 2024.

7 Reasons Why Developer Experience Is a Strategic Priority
This is a sponsored post on The New Stack, but Nočnica Mellifera's thoughts on DevEx are worth looking at. I think she's missing one really critical aspect of good DX though: preventing burnout.

Product Managing to Prevent Burnout
Speaking of burnout, Winston Hearn has a great piece that talks about it. It's not directly related to DevEx, but I wish we could all live by the ideal to "Treat my teammates as more important than the product."

Podcasts, Videos, and more 🎧

Introducing ServerlessVideo | Serverless Office Hours
The AWS serverless advocacy team talks about ServerlessVideo, a demo application to stream live videos and perform advanced Gen AI post-video processing. They used this at re:Invent and it was pretty amazing.

New from AWS 🆕

Not much from AWS this past week, but I'll assume that's from the holiday break. Here are the few that seemed interesting:

• AWS Accounts discontinues the use of security challenge questions
• Amazon OpenSearch Service now supports TLS 1.3 and perfect forward secrecy
• Amazon Cognito identity pools enhances quota management in AWS Service Quotas
• Introducing simplified WordPress setup on Amazon Lightsail

Serverless Tools 🛠

Delete your Cloud Infrastructure with a single command — cloud nuke
It's been awhile since I've seen this come up, but it can be a handy tool.

aws-samples/serverless-ops-review
Serverless Ops Review is an open source tool that automatically generates operational review and configuration reports about AWS serverless services.

Upcoming Serverless Events 🗓

January 17, 2024 - Build a #GenAI Application with Ampt (webinar)

June 13, 2024 - ServerlessDays Milano 2024

Please send me your serverless events!

Star of the Week ⭐️

This week's star is Matt Lewis (@m_lewis). Matt is Chief AWS Architect at IBM and is an AWS Data Hero. He is also a certified AWS SA Professional and Security Specialist. Matt has helped organize Serverless Days Cardiff not once, not twice, but three times- most recently on September 21, 2023. As if that's not enough, he is also part of the organizing team for the AWS South Wales User Group. Knowledge sharing is such an important part of making serverless more and more accessible and Matt, you are certainly doing your part!

Final Thoughts 🤔

This was a relatively quiet week, but still lots happening in the serverless space. Hope everyone is getting back into the swing of things after the holidays and having a productive 2024 so far.

Until next week,
Jeremy

I hope you enjoyed this newsletter. We’re always looking for ideas and feedback to make it better and more inclusive, so please feel free to reach out to me via X, LinkedIn, or email.