aws Archives - Page 5 of 8 - A Pyle of Stories

AWS Step Function Versions and Aliases

Posted on June 27, 2023by Benjamen Pyle

Up until last week, when you deployed a new version of your State Machine in AWS Step Functions, the old version was gone and the ability to test or rollback was limited by your ability to re-push a previous commit. However, AWS has rolled out Step Function Versions and Aliases so that you can accomplish just those tasks. Creating a unique combination of a version and ASL gives you the ability to use things like Deployment Preferences to accomplish Canary or Linear-type deployments. In the below article, I’m going to walk you through Step Function Versions and Aliases.

Disclaimer

First up, I’m going to be using SAM to build the infrastructure. I think this is the first SAM-based deployment article I’ve written. I know this makes Allen Helton super happy. Second, I know the article from AWS says support for SAM and CDK, but they haven’t rolled this in as of the writing of this article. However, I’m using the SAM Nightly Builds and it does include the Transforms to make this happen. I could spend another few articles describing SAM and perhaps I will dig deeper later, but for now, here’s the AWS Docs on transforms.

Serverless

Lambda Extension with Golang

Posted on June 18, 2023by Benjamen Pyle

For full disclosure, I’ve been writing Lambda function code since 2017 and I completely breezed over the release of Lambda Extensions back in 2020. Here’s the release announcement. At the core of extensions, you have internal and external options. For the balance of this article, I’m going to focus on building a Lambda extension with Golang and lean into the external style approach.

Extensions and Why

Taking a quick step back, why extensions? From an architect level of thinking, extensions give me the ability to have cross-team reuse of code without being tied to a particular language or build process. For something like Node or Python, you could use a standard Layer to package your Lambda reuse. But for something like Golang, where your code is packaged at build time and not run-time, then you sort of have to look at the shared library. I wrote about that here. But what if you wanted to create some shared functionality that was usable regardless of which language you built your Lamabda in? That seems to have some serious appeal for my current projects where teams are using different stacks to build their APIs due to need and comfort.

Serverless Observability

SQS Re-Drive with Golang and Step Functions

Posted on June 10, 2023by Benjamen Pyle

Earlier this week a new set of APIs were released for working with Dead-Letter-Queues and re-drives back to its primary queue. Messaging-based systems have been around for a long time and they are a critical piece of modern Event-Driven Architecture. As I read more about the APIs, I started thinking about how I could build up a sample that could be used for starting a hardened auto-re-drive State Machine that could put messages back on queues protected behind an API Gateway or Event Bridge Scheduler. Below is my take on how I might start thinking through building an SQS re-drive with Golang and Step Functions

Infrastructure Observability Programming

Infrastructure as Code

Posted on May 27, 2023by Benjamen Pyle

Infrastructure as Code is an emerging practice that encourages the writing of cloud infrastructure as code instead of clicking your way to deployment. I feel like “ClickOps” is where we all started years ago when there weren’t any other options. The lessons learned from the inconsistency in human deployment were the genesis for the automation and power that comes from building your cloud stacks as code. Now, many start from IaC as the patterns and practices are well-defined. But instead of re-hashing those commentaries, I want to give you my opinions on why IaC decisions are more than about the tech. Infrastructure as Code is a shift of responsibilities that brings your teams closer together and will help establish a culture of accountability but it will come at a cost.

Serverless

Caching with Momento and Golang

Posted on May 20, 2023by Benjamen Pyle

Caching. Simple. Useful. This architectural topic applies to a serverless app as well as an app with servers. Some functions never need caching, and some benefit from it right as the first user traffics some data through it. I’ve used a variety of caching tools over the years but recently dropped Momento’s serverless cache in a real-time ETL application and I was astonished at how easy it was and how well it is performing. This article is a walk-through of my experience of Caching with Momento and Golang.

Serverless

Serverless, a CTO’s Perspective

Posted on May 13, 2023by Benjamen Pyle

I’ve been following along the past couple of weeks in the “wake” of the article by the Prime Video Team. I’ve seen a lot of rebuttal-type articles by some folks that I respect so I didn’t want to continue to add more of the same opinions in that direction. I think people that have spoken up in support of Serverless architecture have done a fantastic job of articulating why and when not to. What I wanted to write was something in my more official day-to-day title as CTO and why I support Serverless design choices for my teams and customers. So consider this, Why Serverless, a CTO Perspective.

Infrastructure Programming

Golang Private Module with CDK CodeBuild

Posted on May 6, 2023by Benjamen Pyle

Even experienced builders run into things from time to time that they haven’t seen before and this causes them some trouble. I’ve been working with CDK, CodePipeline, CodeBuild and Golang for several years now and haven’t needed to construct a private Golang module. That changed a few weeks ago and it threw me, as I needed to also include it in a CodePipeline with a CodeBuild step. This article is more documentation and reference for the future, as I want to share the pattern learned for building Golang private modules with CodeBuild.

Infrastructure Serverless

Custom API Gateway Authorizer with Golang

Posted on April 29, 2023by Benjamen Pyle

One of the nice things about building with Serverless is that you can design things in a way that the pieces are composeable. This means that you can put logic cohesively with other like-minded logic and then keep things loosely coupled from other components so that things are easy to change without being too fragile. When building an API, you often need an Authorizer of sorts to validate the token that is being supplied. In this article, I’m going to walk through building a custom API Gateway Authorizer with Golang.

Programming

Building Golang Lambda Functions

Posted on April 26, 2023by Benjamen Pyle

Using CDK for building Golang Lambda functions is a super simple process and easy enough to work with. It is well documented and is a subclass of the Function class defined in aws-cdk-lib/aws-lambda. Unsure about CDK or what it can do for you? Have a read here to get started and see what all the fuss is about.

Serverless Programming

Choosing Go when Building Lambdas

Posted on April 22, 2023by Benjamen Pyle

So you’ve decided to build your first or your 500th Lambda function with AWS. Congratulations! That in and of itself is a great decision that will set you up on a solid foundation for operational excellence, ease of maintenance, flexibility to extend and a whole host of other positives that come along with Serverless. Now, what language are you going to develop this new Lambda in? I’ve been a tremendous proponent for choosing Go when building Lambdas and I’d like to walk you through why.