AWS
All articles in the AWS category.
Which Is The Best AWS Region For Your Location? Based on Cost & Latency
There are many factors to consider when choosing an AWS region: latency to end-users, cost, data residency laws, inter-region latency, etc. Which makes it hard to unequivocally say which AWS region...
How To Find Which AWS Region Is Closest To You?
You can’t do anything in AWS without picking a region. You can’t navigate the console, launch a server, or even use the SDK. AWS resources have to exist in some physical location. So where should you...
Which AWS Region Is Cheapest? A Costing Report
I’ve heard lots of anecdotal over the years about which AWS regions are the cheapest, with both Ireland, and North Virginia coming up frequently. But whilst researching the cheapest AWS region I was...
Is An AWS Certification Enough To Get You A Job? (Spoiler Alert - No)
If you’re in the space of learning AWS, it takes (roughly 😉) 0.3 seconds before someone recommends you get a certificate, right? But is that AWS certification alone enough to land you a job? And if...
Can You Learn AWS (And Get Certified) With No Experience? e.g. No IT Background Or Degree
So you’re thinking about learning AWS and maybe even taking an AWS exam, but you’re worried about your job prospects because you don’t have a lot of experience in IT, or maybe you don’t have a...
How Long Will It Take To Learn AWS? And How To Speed The Process Up!
So, you’re thinking of learning AWS, but of course, you’ll need to know at least roughly how long it’s going to take you, right? AWS is huge, so finding an answer to how long it might take can be...
Best Resources For AWS Certifications - An Extensive & Opinionated Guide (So You Pass The First Time!)
When it comes to passing your AWS certification, it’s one of those “1000 open chrome tab” type situations, right? There’s just so many different options available that it can make your head hurt:...
How To Test AWS Lambda - Everything You Need To Get Started.
If you’re just starting out working with AWS Lambda there are a LOT of things for you to understand. And of course, one of those areas is going to be: testing. How to test AWS Lambda? AWS Lambda can...
How To Debug AWS Lambda - A Detailed Overview
Ah, so you’ve reached that point: you’ve been through the euphoria and the buzz of setting up a Lambda function, and the eureka moment when everything is running… but then everything comes crashing...
Are Containers Serverless?
The cloud industry is evolving quickly right now, and when it comes to the big trends likes containers and serverless it can be hard to work out the difference. Are Containers Serverless? No....
Lambda Extensions - What Are They, And Should You Care?
This month AWS announced a new feature called Lambda Extensions (Source). AWS release so many features it is hard to keep up. With each new feature we often need to ask ourselves, is this something...
Can You Stop An AWS Lambda Execution?
There are a few reasons why you may want to stop a Lambda. Either the Lambda is buggy or performing incorrectly, your Lambda is reading an event source like kinesis and you need to pause it, or your...
Can You Learn AWS On Your Own? How To Ensure Success.
There are many ways to learn AWS. But the thought of learning anything new on your own definitely seems daunting, right? So you might be wondering if AWS is one of those topics where it possible to...
What Are The Pre-Requisites To Learning AWS? 5 Topics You Probably Should Look Into First.
So, I’m guessing you’re new to AWS? If you are—you might be wondering what different things you should understand before deep diving into your learning. Well, you’re in the right place, since that’s...
Does AWS Require Coding? Understanding When You Might Need To Code.
AWS (Amazon Web Services) is a cloud computing platform popular with tech companies and engineers. When it comes to working with AWS a question that comes immediately to most people is: “Will I need...
Can AWS Lambda Access A Database? And The Considerations You Should Be Taking.
Architecting solutions using AWS Lambda means understanding many nuances in how AWS works, and a main consideration for our application architecture is the database. So we’ll need to need to know...
Is AWS Easy To Learn? (And How You Can Make It Easier)
Are you just starting out learning AWS? AWS has lots of services and it can be daunting when you’re just starting out. Staring at all those online resources, articles and courses gets you wondering:...
You’re Alerting Wrong - The Why & How Of Setting An AWS Lambda Alarm Using Error Rate Percentages.
When it comes to operating Lambda, we often want to configure alarms to alert us when things aren’t running smoothly. Naturally our first choice for Lambda alarms is CloudWatch, the default...
Should You Use Typescript To Write Terraform? (The Terraform CDK)
Recently, Terraform dropped an interesting new extension to their Terraform toolchain: the Terraform CDK. The new CDK allows you to write Terraform using TypeScript and Python — neat! But is the CDK...
How To Setup Monitoring / Observability On Existing Software (e.g. A Web API) - A Practical 5 Step Guide.
Recently I find myself in the position of applying monitoring to existing software applications quite often. Whilst I have been applying the monitoring tools, I noticed that I follow the same steps...
How Do You Look at Console.Log Output of an Amazon Lambda Function?
Are you creating a lambda function? Are you currently debugging wondering where you can access the output of your console.log entries? Understanding how logs work is a common confusion area when...
The Simplest Possible EC2 Web Server Setup Using Terraform (On AWS)
Are you looking to create a basic AWS instance web server? Maybe you’re learning AWS, trying to get an understanding on Terraform or actually trying to get a pieceof your infrastructure setup....
Serverless on AWS Lambda - A Comprehensive Comparison Of Approaches (Serverless Framework vs SAM vs Terraform vs CloudFormation)
When it comes to working with Serverless and AWS Lambda there are many different tools and approaches to choose from. You may have heard about a few already and might be wondering about the...
3 Simple Serverless Beginner Projects Ideas
Are you looking to learn Serverless but need a little help in where to start? One of the best ways to get your head around a new technology is to dive in and build some example projects. But what are...
Misconceptions of Serverless - 5 Things You Thought AWS Lambda Did… But It Doesn’t.
Ah Serverless… it’s the golden child of software engineering right now, and the internet is full of Serverless and AWS Lambda success stories. But actually the golden child of software engineer is...
How to Use AWS KMS in AWS Lambda
So you’re new to AWS Lambda and secrets management? Maybe you’ve just joined a team that’s using KMS and you want to know more about how KMS and Lambda work, or maybe you’re looking to use KMS as...
The Ultimate Terraform Workflow - Setup Terraform (And Remote State) With Github Actions
Running Terraform in a CI Server can be incredibly useful when you’re trying to automate or experiment with cloud resources. One of the easiest, cheapest and most accessible setups I’ve found is...
Master the AWS Lambda Console - A Comprehensive Walkthrough.
I remember staring at the AWS Lambda console for the first time and feeling overwhelmed. There were so many things happening: qualifiers, actions, triggers, permissions. It’s like the cockpit of a...
AWS Queues And Lambda Processing - A Simple, Quick Walkthrough.
Have you ever wondered what a queue is or how you could implement a queue in AWS? Perhaps you’re considering using a queue for a solution that you’re working on but you’re not fully sure how the...
Create An AWS S3 Website Using Terraform And Github Actions
We’ve talked a lot recently about infrastructure as code and setting up cloud environments. But nothing beats getting hands on with a technology to help learning. A workflow I’ve used a lot recently...
You’re Logging Wrong - What One-Per-Service (“Phat Event”) Logs Are and Why You Need Them.
Common sense says that application logging is a good thing. But common advice doesn’t answer questions like: what to log, when to log, or the format to log, which can get really frustrating...
Where (And How) to Start Learning AWS as a Beginner
AWS (Amazon Web Services) is overwhelming. If you’re new to AWS you’ll know the feeling of being lost and not knowing where to start. But today, that’s going to change change. We’re going to clear...
How To Get AWS Lambda Logs Into CloudWatch
Your AWS Lambda code is throwing errors in production. To defuse the situation, you need to pinpoint what’s going wrong and find the fix. It’s a good thing you already instrumented your Lambda with...
Set Up AWS Lambda With An ALB (Load Balancer)
The marketing around Serverless likes to make it out like “spinning up” a function is a simple task with no other dependencies. However, Serverless functions have to be triggered somehow. And one of...
AWS Lambda on Github Actions - How To Send Zipped Artifacts to AWS S3
Recently I’ve been experimenting with Github Actions as a CI tool, specifically for setting up AWS Lambda on Github Actions. Container based CI is awesome. And I’m really excited about the community...
AWS access keys — 5 Tips To Safely Use Them.
AWS Access Keys are how you can programatically access the AWS cloud. AWS Access Keys can be used to provision, update — or even delete cloud resources. When it comes to your cloud account, personal...
The Big List Of Cloud Native Engineering Resources
I spend a lot of time researching Cloud Native technologies. Also whilst editing the Cloud Native Software Engineering Newsletter I’m always looking for the best sources of knowledege and high...
AWS networking fundamentals - A simple guide for software engineers.
Have you ever been into the AWS console and been completely baffled about all the concepts and jargon? You’ve got: Security Groups, Inbound rules, VPC’s, Subnets, Internet Gateways, NAT, ENI’s and...
4 Signs You Should Break Your App Into Microservices
Microservices have been talked about a lot in the last few years. And it’s commonly accepted practice that applications should start as monolithic applications before being broken down into...
Your personal AWS setup (and how to not get hacked)
In 2016 hackers compromised my personal AWS setup. Within a matter of hours I received an AWS bill for $3000 dollars 😱😱.😱.😱. When you’re a Cloud Native Engineer one of the best ways we can learn is...