Off-by-none: Issue #316

February 18, 2025

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Is the Serverless hype over? 🤨

In our previous issue, AWS let you refactor your CloudFormation Stacks, we saw the release of EventCatalog Cloud, and Serverless launched a new Container Framework. This week, Lambda adds APMs for Java and .NET, YouTube turns 20, and AI takes more support jobs. Plus, we have plenty of content from the awesome cloud and serverless communities!

Serverless News & Announcements 📣

Not a ton of exciting serverless news from AWS this past week, but there were a few announcements that caught my attention. AWS AppSync enhanced resolver testing with comprehensive context object mocking via the EvaluateCode and EvaluateMappingTemplate APIs. If you're still using GraphQL, then this should make building your unit tests a bit easier.

Amazon DynamoDB now supports auto-approval of quota adjustments, so instead of waiting for an AWS Support rep to approve it, an AWS Support rep replaced by AI can do it in just minutes!

Even though these are probably my two least favorite languages, AWS Lambda went ahead and added application performance monitoring (APM) for Java and .NET runtimes via Application Signals. Hopefully this will be useful to you.

In non-AWS news, YouTube turned 20 years old, Elon Musk finally released Grok 3, and David Boyne introduced EventCatalog Directory. Oh yeah, and Allen Helton is back! 👊

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Serverless Tutorials 👷‍♀️

Here are some excellent tutorials I came across this week:

• Dynamically Modifying CloudFront Origin for Country-Specific and A/B Testing by Avinash Dalvi
• Optimizing Amazon CloudWatch Costs for High-Traffic Lambda Functions with Advanced Logging Controls by Matheus das Mercês
• Create a serverless custom retry mechanism for stateless queue consumers by Kaizad Wadia
• Serverless v4: What’s New & My Typescript Template by Eugene Mahota
• Momento Token Vending Machine with Rust, Lambda, and Datadog by Benjamen Pyle
• Step Functions in 2025: Simplify Your Development With JSONata by Mario Bittencourt
• AWS Step Functions: Optimize Your Workflows with Variables and JSONata by Gabriele Cedrino
• AWS CloudWatch Logs Deep Dive by Joud W. Awad
• E-Commerce order processing — AWS Step functions by Srinath Krishnamoorthy
• Spring Boot 3.4 application on AWS Lambda- Part 2 AWS Lambda Web Adapter by Vadym Kazulkin
• Deploying Serverless Functions Across Regions with AWS Lambda by Joanne Skiles
• Spring Boot 3.4 application on AWS Lambda- Part 1 AWS Serverless Java Container by Vadym Kazulkin
• Building an AI Agent with AWS Bedrock for U.S. National Parks by Chris Ebert
• Future-Proofing our Serverless API skeleton: upgrading to Node.js 22 on AWS Lambda by Davide De Sio

Serverless Reads 🤓

How GaadiBazaar reduced database costs by 40% with Aurora MySQL Serverless
I know this is an AWS case study, but migrating spiky workloads from Amazon RDS to Amazon Aurora MySQL Serverless still makes a lot of sense. Wonder what this would cost on Aurora DSQL?

Do you need P? Systems Correctness Practices at AWS
Marcin Sodkiewicz argues that semi-formal methods like chaos engineering and rigorous error handling are more practical for typical AWS users. I agree.

Serverless was never a cure-all
David Linthicumn says it’s time to admit that serverless didn’t live up to its hype and that a mix of serverless and traditional architectures is almost always a better approach. I've always agreed with the second part, depending on the situation of course. But I don't think his serverless obituary will be published any time soon. 🪦

The Serverless Hype Is Over. Now What?
Wow, lots of serverless shade this week. Kostis Kapelonis argues that while serverless enables easy deployment and auto-scaling, it's not a one-size-fits-all solution. Um, yeah. That's why I don't use my hammer to paint the walls. I think many of us hoped serverless could be something like that, but inertia is a powerful beast.

Can serverless fix fintech’s scaling problem?
Yaron Yaniv thinks so.

When Serverless Scaling Isn't Enough: Lessons Learned with AWS Lambda Provisioned Concurrency
Interesting lesson from Svetlozar Kondakov. Lambda and API Gateway don't always scale as fast as you might think. Yes, ECS/EKS can give you more control to prewarm for a planned massive spike in traffic, but I'd be curious to know the specifics of why provisioned concurrency didn't solve this issue as well.

Podcasts, Videos, and more 🎧

How far can I get in an hour with Serverless Framework?
Andres Moreno tries out Serverless Framework v4 and tests the new Serverless Container Framework, which currently supports switching between AWS Lambda and Fargate.

Learn Better Prompt Engineering in 7 Minutes
Improve your Bedrock AI applications with Wanjiko Kahara's expert guidance on prompt engineering. These techniques will help both beginners and advanced users create smarter and more responsive AI applications.

Day Two DevOps #264: Serverless Goes Mainstream
Ben Pyle discusses the evolution of serverless computing, the rise of vendor-agnostic serverless services, the impact of distributed SQL on serverless adoption, and why Rust is an optimal choice for high-performance AWS Lambda functions.

Stop Letting External Events Control Your System (Do This Instead)
James Eastham teaches you the importance of implementing an anti-corruption layer and why an external system's data model shouldn't drive the business logic in yours.

New from AWS 🆕

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

• AWS CodePipeline adds CloudWatch Metrics support
• AWS AppSync GraphQL introduces operation-level caching for faster GraphQL API responses
• Amazon Q generative SQL is now available in additional regions
• Amazon ECS now enables you to update services from short to long ARNs
• AWS Network Load Balancer now supports removing availability zones
• Amazon Q Developer now supports upgrade to Java 21
• Amazon SES now offers tiered pricing for Virtual Deliverability Manager
• Amazon OpenSearch Serverless expands support for time-series workloads up to 100TB

Serverless Tools 🛠

serverless-pdf-generator
A lightweight package that simplifies the process of generating PDFs from web pages in serverless environments. It utilizes Puppeteer and Chromium to render pages and generate high-quality PDFs.

Upcoming Events 🗓

February 20, 2025 - ServerlessDays Manchester 2025

March 28, 2025 - Sem Servidor Conf 2025 – Florianópolis

April 2, 2025 - AWS Community Day Italy

April 10, 2025 - AWS Community Day Romania

April 19, 2025 - AWS Community Day Türkiye 2025

Please send me your serverless events!

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

YouTube turned 20 years old. What was its original purpose when it launched in 2005?
Click an answer below to start the quiz.

• A video sharing platform
• An online dating service
• A social media network
• A music streaming service
• A search engine

Final Thoughts 🤔

I'll be in NYC on Thursday and Friday for the AI Engineer Summit, so if you want to connect in person to chat about serverless, cloud, and AI, ping me!

See you 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 Bluesky, LinkedIn, X, or email.