Off-by-none: Issue #304

November 5, 2024

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You get to drink... from the firehose 🚒

In our previous issue, Amazon ECS celebrated 10 years, Lambda got a better console code editing experience, and there was a new fork of the Serverless Framework. This week, AWS turns on the pre:Invent announcement firehose, AppSync gives us better serverless WebSockets, and Neon simplifies row-level security for Postgres. Plus, we have lots of great content from the cloud and serverless communities!

Serverless News & Announcements 📣

AWS continues to push out their pre:Invent announcements. One of my favorites was the launch of AppSync Events, a new serverless WebSocket API service to power real-time web and mobile experiences. This is a very cool service that makes building serverless WebSockets so much easier. There's more detail on the official blog post, plus I shared some of my initial thoughts as well.

AWS also enhanced the Lambda application building experience with their VS Code IDE and AWS Toolkit. Julian Wood explains more here. Plus, AWS Lambda now supports AWS Fault Injection Service (FIS) actions, letting you run controlled fault injection experiments to improve app performance, observability, and resilience. Which is super useful.

AWS Amplify announce an integration with Amazon S3 for static website hosting, Amazon Redshift launched an integration with Amazon Bedrock for generative AI, and Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Haiku model is now available in Amazon Bedrock.

Also, Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL Limitless Database is now generally available. What's the difference between Limitless and Serverless? I'm honestly not 100% sure. 🤣

A bit strange, but AWS apparently announced the end-of-support for AWS Copilot CLI effective February 3, 2025, then deleted the post. Thanks to Luc van Donkersgoed for catching this one.

Danilo Poccia wrote a post introducing LLM Test Mate, a solution specifically designed for testing LLM-generated content using semantic similarity testing with LLM-based evaluation.

In non-AWS news, Neon introduced Neon Authorize that simplifies row-level security for Postgres.

Announcing Catalyst Public Beta Sponsored
Catalyst gives developers a powerful, all-in-one set of APIs for microservices, so you can stop hacking together fragmented frameworks and libraries and get back to building. Check it out now!

Serverless Tutorials 👷‍♀️

Here are some of my favorite tutorials from this past week:

• Lambda function with GraalVM Native Image - Part 4 Measuring cold and warm starts using different Lambda memory settings by Vadym Kazulkin
• Build Scalable Cloudflare Workers with Hono, D1, and KV: A Complete Guide to Serverless APIs and Storage by Jahel
• Enhancing AWS Lambda Functions with Extensions by Ashik M Hussain
• Smart File Organizer Using AWS Lambda & S3 - (Let's Build 🏗️ Series)
• How to e2e Test AI Responses using AI by Lee Gilmore
• AWS Lambda with RDS Data API (TypeScript)
• Serverless AI powered content moderation service by Jimmy Dahlqvist
• Using AWS Lambda for LLM Tool Scalability by Josh Wall
• 6 Amazon CloudFront Configurations You Should Set by Josh Thorne
• Query DynamoDB with SQL using Athena - Leveraging DynamoDB Exports to S3 (1/2) by Marko Štrukelj

Build real-world solutions with APIs using Postman Flows Sponsored
If you haven't taken a look at Postman Flows yet, you definitely should. Stitching together APIs to create complex workflows has always required writing lots of code. Postman Flows lets you quickly create and automate API tasks even if you don't have technical experience, and you do it all through a beautifully designed visual editor. They also have a ton of templates to get you started quickly.

Serverless Reads 🤓

Moving Baselime from AWS to Cloudflare: simpler architecture, improved performance, over 80% lower cloud costs
Interesting article from Boris Tane that breaks down the reduction of cost and complexity post AWS to Cloudflare migration. I'm still not convinced that Cloudflare is ready to fully compete with AWS, but posts like these certainly move the needle for me.

Simplicity Is An Achievement
Seth Orell shared his thoughts on why seeking simplicity is so important. It's not that developers can't learn something, it's that abstractions allow them to focus on their core abilities and move faster. It's been our premise at Ampt from the very beginning.

Podcasts, Videos, and more 🎧

AWS Bites #134: Eliminate the IAM User
In this episode, Luciano and (new co-host) Conor, discuss why IAM users and long-lived credentials are dangerous and should be avoided. 🔐

The AWS Developers Podcast
Julian Wood hosts Marc Brooker to discuss the origins of Lambda, its evolution, and the impact of serverless technology on modern computing.

Here are two more production horror stories from the Believe in Serverless community. #youarenotalone 😱

• Wait, who owns this code?
• I deleted everything 😨

New from AWS 🆕

Here are several more AWS pre:Invent announcements that you might find interesting:

• Announcing general availability of auto-copy for Amazon Redshift
• AWS announces CSV result format support for Amazon Redshift Data API
• Amazon RDS Performance Insights now supports Data API for Aurora MySQL
• Amazon Q Developer announces support for inline chat to streamline the developer experience
• AWS CodeBuild now supports retrying builds automatically
• Fine-tuning for Anthropic's Claude 3 Haiku in Amazon Bedrock is now generally available
• Amazon Q Business adds simplified setup and new web app experience
• Amazon MemoryDB for Valkey adds new CloudWatch metrics to monitor server-side response time
• Three enhancements for SES Mail Manager to improve interoperability, security, and compliance
• Amazon ElastiCache for Valkey adds new CloudWatch metrics to monitor server
• Amazon SES adds inline template support to send email APIs
• Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra) now supports User-Defined Types
• Amazon Redshift now supports incremental refresh on Materialized Views (MVs) for data lake tables
• Amazon Bedrock announces support for cost allocation tags on inference profiles
• Amazon Route 53 announces HTTPS, SSHFP, SVCB, and TLSA DNS resource record support

Serverless Tools 🛠

Apache OpenServerless™
A distribution that runs on any Kubernetes Cluster or Linux Virtual Machine, used to deploy a Serverless Environment ready to build AI applications.

Thoughts from Social 🐦

Sundar Pichai said on the earnings call today that more than 25% of all new code at Google is now generated by AI. pic.twitter.com/55Ph3GBIfX

— Andrew Curran (@AndrewCurran_) October 29, 2024

It's a good thing I spend most of my time thinking about what code actually needs to be written. 😳 I do worry about how much AI code slop is going to end up in git repositories though. I also wonder how that statistic is derived. I use AI to generate a lot of code, but I also have to heavily test and refactor it to get it anywhere near production quality.

Upcoming Events 🗓

November 12, 2024 - Debunking Serverless Misconceptions (Webinar)

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

December 3, 2024 - Believe In Serverless Party

December 13, 2024 - ServerlessDays Rome

February 20, 2025 - ServerlessDays Manchester 2025

Please send me your serverless events!

Take the latest Off-by-none Cloud Quiz 🧑‍🏫

What is the name of the new AWS service for building secure and performant serverless WebSocket APIs to power real-time web and mobile experiences at any scale?
Click an answer below to start the quiz.

• AWS AppSync Events
• AWS WebSocket APIs
• AWS Real-Time Experiences
• AWS Live Streaming
• AWS Mobile Events

Star of the Week ⭐️

This week's star is Marc Brooker (@MarcJBrooker). Marc is a VP/Distinguished Engineer at AWS that has been instrumental in helping to develop many of AWS's serverless technologies over the years. His blog is a treasure trove of information, as are his numerous conference talks and podcast appearances. Thank you, Marc, for continuing to push the boundaries of serverless. 🙌

Final Thoughts 🤔

It's been a long week for me, but lots of exciting things are happening. If you're able to attend re:Invent this year, please feel free to ping me if you want to connect in person. Hope to see you all there!

Take care,
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.