Off-by-none: Issue #282

June 4, 2024

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

The Future of Serverless Advocacy 🔮

In our previous issue, CloudFormation got easier to troubleshoot, Pinecone launched its serverless vector database, and SES got its own Mail Manager. This week, Bedrock gets a new Converse API, AppSync goes async, and we reach the end of an era for serverless advocacy. Plus, we have lots of great content from the serverless community!

Serverless News & Announcements 📣

Lots of exciting AWS news this past week, including the new Amazon Bedrock Converse API. If you've tried working with multiple models in the past, this will greatly simplify the process.

In other AWS AI news, Powertools for AWS Lambda (Python) added support for Agents for Amazon Bedrock and they introduced the Document widget for PartyRock that lets you integrate text content from files and documents directly into a PartyRock app.

There were some other welcomed announcements as well. Amazon Cognito user pools now support the ability to customize access tokens, Amazon CloudWatch Logs announced Live Tail streaming CLI support, Enhanced Full Load Performance in AWS DMS Serverless is now available, and Amazon EventBridge Scheduler added new API request metrics for improved observability.

And, AWS AppSync now supports long running events with asynchronous Lambda function invocations, which is pretty cool. This opens up a lot of use cases that can be triggered by a GraphQL request.

Finally, it was announced that Vista Equity wrote off PluralSight's entire equity value. If you're not familiar with PluralSight, they acquired A Cloud Guru (an early serverless startup and creators of Serverlessconf back in the day). There was a $3.5 billion buyout back in 2020, but now that AI is supposedly automating some of the developer skills it teaches, the future of the company is unclear.

Serverless Concepts 🏗

aws-samples/amazon-bedrock-serverless-prompt-chaining
Clare Liguori put together this super helpful repository that provides examples using AWS Step Functions and Amazon Bedrock to build complex, serverless, and highly scalable generative AI applications with prompt chaining. You definitely want to check this out.

The evolution of Serverless Postgres
Brandon Strittmatter shares a detailed comparison of Amazon Aurora Serverless and Neon to help you decide which one is a better choice for your use case.

AppSync's new async Lambda resolver is great news for GenAI apps
Yan Cui explains how AppSync's new support for async Lambda invocations helps simplify LLM streaming architecture.

Data API for Amazon Aurora Serverless v2 with AWS SDK for Java - Part 7 Data API meets SnapStart
Vadym Kazulkin shares more benchmarks using SnapStart, Java, and the Data API.

Serverless Tutorials 👷‍♀️

Here are some amazing serverless tutorials to keep you busy:

• Preventing A Buildup of CloudFormation Orphaned Resources by Samuel Lock
• A developer's guide to Bedrock's new Converse API by Dennis Traub
• Using Lambda@Edge for Amazon S3 Uploads: A Client-Friendly Approach to Bypa by Ike Gabriel Yuson
• Executing long running tasks with AppSync by Mohammed Izzy
• Leveraging AWS Step Functions to Call Third-Party APIs Directly with AWS CDK by Rushi Patel
• Implement a full stack serverless search application using AWS Amplify, Amazon Cognito, Amazon API Gateway, AWS Lambda, and Amazon OpenSearch Serverless by Anand Komandooru, Andrew Yankowsky, Molly Wu, Rama Krishna Ramaseshu, and Sachin Vighe
• Building a serverless connected BBQ as SaaS - Part 1 by Jimmy Dahlqvist
• How to package and deploy a Lambda function as a container image by Saifeddine Rajhi
• AWS Security Best Practices: Leveraging IAM for Service-to-Service Authentication and Authorization by Ran Isenberg

Serverless Reads 🤓

Does Serverless Still Matter?
Benjamen Pyle has an thought-provoking piece on whether or not we've moved past the age of serverless. I think he gets a lot right in here, but my gut is that there is more to this. I need to find some time to collect my thoughts.

The Serverless Mirage
This is an excellent post by Ehsaan Forghani that hits the nail on the head. Serverless is awesome, but there is a complexity cost that's often obscured by perceived simplicity.

A framework to adopt generative AI assistants for builders
Speaking of complexity, this post by Massimo Re Ferrè is an absolute must read. How much responsibility do you abdicate to GenAI assistants if the task complexity is beyond your skill set?

How to successfully adopt serverless in large organizations
Edouard Ma Poon shares some useful insights for bringing serverless into companies with traditional infrastructure inertia.

Case Study: When serverless is not the best solution
Saad Afzal explains that serverless isn't a silver bullet. There's a middle ground between Lambda and EC2, but the point is still valid.

Podcasts, Videos, and more 🎧

AWS Bites #124: S3 Performance
Eoin and Luciano discuss some tips and tricks for optimizing performance when working with Amazon S3 at scale, including how to implement multipart uploads and downloads, spread load across key namespaces, enable transfer acceleration, and more.

Serverless Platform Engineering | Serverless Office Hours
Ran Isenberg and Anton Aleksandrov join Julian Wood to talk about what platform engineering is and why it's crucial for modern organizations.

From Junior Developer to Cloud Expert | Working in the cloud ☁️
Santiago Garcia, Andrea Merariu, and Paul Chin Jr. share invaluable advice on succeeding as a cloud developer.

New from AWS 🆕

Here are a few more AWS announcements that might interest you:

• Amazon DynamoDB local supports configurable maximum throughput for on-demand tables
• AWS Batch introduces the Job Queue Snapshot to view jobs at the front of the job queues
• Amazon MSK adds support for Apache Kafka version 3.7
• Amazon Connect now supports Apple Messages for Business
• Introducing versioning for AWS WAF Bot & Fraud Control managed rule groups
• Amazon CloudWatch now offers 30 days of alarm history
• AWS Elastic Beanstalk now supports .NET 8 on AL2023
• Announcing AWS DMS Serverless improved Oracle to Redshift Full Load throughput

Thoughts from Social 🐦

sadly, the #serverless DA team at AWS is essentially disbanded. a few years ago I was given an opportunity to build a new role and a new team, in what became one of hottest trends in tech. I was fortunate enough to hire incredibly smart and driven people who delivered tons 1/

— Chris Munns (@chrismunns) May 31, 2024

This makes me sad. I totally get what AWS is trying to do by consolidating the DAs into an single org, and I'm rooting for its success. Chris built an amazing team that pushed serverless to the masses. This is the end of an era.

SQL is undefeated pic.twitter.com/PSADUUqRXL

— Forrest Brazeal (@forrestbrazeal) June 3, 2024

This cartoon by Forrest Brazeal is spot on. I hope others are paying attention.

Upcoming Serverless Events 🗓

June 7, 2024 - Diagrid Catalyst AWS Hackathon - Project Submissions Deadline

June 13, 2024 - ServerlessDays Milano 2024 🗣️

June 13, 2024 - ServerlessDays Bengaluru 2024

Please send me your serverless events!

Star of the Week ⭐️

This week's star is James Beswick (@jbesw). If you don't know James, you really should. James was the Senior Manager for AWS Serverless Developer Advocacy for the last several years, taking over the team started by Chris Munns. He recently announced that after 5 years at AWS, he was moving on to his next Day 1. The serverless community is forever indebted to you, James. Your contributions are immeasurable. Thank you for all you've done to educate the world.

Final Thoughts 🤔

It was an interesting week for serverless advocacy. There's no doubt that the tech world's collective mind share has shifted to GenAI as the next shiny new thing. There are plenty of valid reasons for that, but I think it's a mistake to put serverless innovation on the back burner. I agree that serverless mattered, and it may very well be (or has been) a stepping stone to the next evolution of cloud. But even if that's the case, GenAI may change how we build apps in the cloud, but it's unlikely to change the infrastructure we build on.

Until next time,
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.