Off-by-none: Issue #294

August 27, 2024

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Conditional Writes ✍️

In our previous issue, AWS enabled container restarts, DBOS hired a new CEO, and "Serverless Platforms" got a new definition. This week, the Serverless Framework adds support for SAM, S3 gets conditional writes, and Neon Autoscaling goes GA. Plus, we have a whole bunch of awesome serverless content from the community!

Serverless News & Announcements 📣

It was a busy week for serverless at AWS. They announced that AWS Lambda now supports function-level configuration for recursive loop detection, and support for encryption of filter criteria for event source mappings. Plus, AWS Amplify introduced multiple bucket support for Storage, giving you greater control over your storage resources.

AWS also announced that Amazon S3 added additional context to HTTP 403 Access Denied error messages and support for conditional writes. I think S3 conditional writes are a pretty big deal. So much so that we added it to Ampt Storage within a few hours of the announcement. 🚀

CloudFormation continues to release some great improvements as well, including simplified resource discovery and template review in the IaC Generator. You can now see a graphical summary and preview it in Application Composer.

And, in case you missed it, the AWS Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Region is now open!

In other serverless news, the Serverless Framework now supports AWS SAM & Cloudformation, helping teams consolidate serverless tools and standardize development processes. Very cool. Check out the docs for more info.

Also, Google Cloud Run is embracing Nvidia GPUs. It now integrates Nvidia L4 GPUs, enabling organizations to run serverless inference.

Finally, Neon Autoscaling is Generally Available. When enabled (including the Free plan), your Neon Postgres databases automatically adjust CPU and memory based on workload, ensuring optimal performance and cost efficiency. 🤯

Serverless Concepts 🏗

How Amazon Aurora Serverless Manages Resources and Scaling for Fleets of 10K+ Instances
Rafal Gancarz provides highlights of the recently published paper describing the evolution and latest design of resource management and scaling for the Amazon Aurora Serverless platform.

Optimise your Lambda Functions in just 5 minutes
Josh Thorne explains how using Lambda Power Tuning and Compute Optimizer will let you fine tune your Lambda Functions.

18 AWS Lambda Microstacks
Chris St. John cataloged and shared some easy AWS Lambda stacks and use cases for each of them.

AWS SQS Deep Dive
Joud W. Awad provides an excellent in-depth guide to AWS SQS.

Serverless Tutorials 👷‍♀️

• Serverless Ephemeral Environments with Serverful AWS Services by Lee Gilmore
• Build the Perfect Compliment to DynamoDB with Typesense by Benjamen Pyle
• Lambda function using Docker Container Image - Part 1 How to develop and deploy Lambda function with Java (21) runtime by Vadym Kazulkin
• Pessimistic Concurrency Control in DynamoDB by Samarth Malige
• Human-in-the-loop workflows for AI agents Made Easy with AWS Step Functions by Arnel Jan Sarmiento
• Building a serverless connected BBQ as SaaS - Part 3 - Tenants by Jimmy Dahlqvist
• EventBridge: working around API Destination 5s maximum client timeout constraint, using Lambda PowerTools idempotency by Paul Santus
• Enhancing AWS Lambda with AWS Lambda Powertools: A Complete Guide to CRUD Operations in DynamoDB by Sunil Yaduvanshi
• Send Scheduled Emails Using Amazon SES & EventBridge - (Let's Build 🏗️ Series) by Awedis Keofteian

Serverless Reads 🤓

Serverless Sucks?
Derek Comartin doesn't think so, plus he outlines a few things you should consider before just "using a normal node.js server."

SST, AWS CDK, AWS CloudFormation migration to Terraform
Martin Mueller walks through the process (and frustrations) of migrating your IaC from something like SST to Terraform. I think the overall conclusion is that, with the right tools and knowledge, it's not that difficult. Also a good use case for GenAI (with human review).

An Analyst Said, “Serverless Is Trending Again.” The Question Is, When Was It Not Trending?!
Sheen Brisals challenges the notion that serverless ever stopped trending. I agree that the serverless ecosystem has continued to grow in spite of all the GenAI noise, but IMO, growing pains continue to crack the foundation.

How Wesfarmers Health implemented upstream event buffering using Amazon SQS FIFO
Robbie Cooray and Shaun Guo share a great article on why serverless was the answer here, plus the visuals are great!

Podcasts, Videos, and more 🎧

There is a lot of excellent content to watch and listen to this week!

Matt Garman, CEO of AWS | CUBE Conversation
Matt Garman says they'll continue to maintain AWS's foundational strengths (i.e. security, reliability and performance), support developers and startups, and, of course, go all in on GenAI. 😐

The AWS Developers Podcast #127 - Serverless is Not Dead
Yan Cui addresses the misconception that serverless is dead and clarifies that it is still a thriving technology. This is a smart conversation, and like most smart conversations about serverless nowadays, it covers the need for high-performance/steady-state options in Lambda.

GenAI function calling with Step Functions | Serverless Office Hours
Dhiraj Mahapatro joins Julian Wood to show how LLM agents can invoke tools autonomously.

AWS Bites #129: Lambda Provisioned Concurrency
Eoin and Luciano explain how provisioned concurrency works to initialize execution environments in advance to avoid cold starts. They also cover pricing details, common issues, and alternatives like self-warming or using other services.

Ampt Live: Utilizing Event-Driven, Distributed Blob Storage on AWS using Ampt
I take you on a tour of Ampt's event-driven storage capabilities and quickly build a workflow for processing images.

Securing Your Event-Driven Systems
James Eastham teaches you how to improve the security posture of your event-driven system through strategies like thick versus thin events, encryption, and infrastructure-level controls.

Be sure to check out all the amazing stuff the Believe In Serverless community is producing:

• Serverless speed: Rust vs. Go, Java, and Python in AWS Lambda functions with Cliff Crossland
• Harder, better, faster, stronger Lambda functions with Rust with Luciano Mammino
• Can we get Elastic serverless working in one hour? with Allen Helton and Andres Moreno
• Believe In Serverless Podcast: You Can Live Debug This Episode with Danielle Heberling and Benjamen Pyle

New from AWS 🆕

Here are a few more interesting announcements from AWS this past week:

• Amazon Bedrock offers select FMs for batch inference at 50% of on-demand inference price
• Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB Compatibility) Global Clusters introduces Failover
• Amazon EventBridge Scheduler now provides higher default service quotas
• Amazon Q now provides more details about user subscriptions and associated resources
• Knowledge Bases for Amazon Bedrock supports Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet
• Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB Compatibility) Global Clusters introduces Switchover

Thoughts from Social 🐦

If you're not doing over a million dollars in ARR for your SaaS app, you almost certainly don't need more than a single server. Chasing a 99.99% uptime in those early days by prematurely optimizing your resilience is a vast of effort that could have fueled features and bug fixes.

— DHH (@dhh) August 24, 2024

I think I would argue that if simplicity is your goal as a means to reduce effort, why would you want to spend any time thinking about servers at all?

Upcoming Serverless Events 🗓

August 31, 2024 - ServerlessDays Bengaluru 2024

September 20, 2024 - ServerlessDays Lima

October 10, 2024 - ServerlessDays Cardiff

December 2-6, 2024 - AWS re:Invent 2024

February 20, 2025 - ServerlessDays Manchester 2025

Please send me your serverless events!

Star of the Week ⭐️

This week's star is Martin Mueller (@MartinMueller_). Martin is an AWS Solution Architect Professional, Community Builder, User Group Leader, and AWS Consultant. Martin has been regularly sharing posts about his experience with software development, cloud, and serverless for years on his blog, and has recently started a new podcast called EyF (Engineer Your Future) that is geared toward helping engineers find jobs. Thank you, Martin, for continuing to share your experience and knowledge with the community.

Final Thoughts 🤔

Every week, I'm still amazed by how much serverless content is being produced. This is an incredible community backed by an ever-growing and constantly evolving ecosystem. What a time to be alive. 😎

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.