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Don't just learn the cloud—BYTE it!
Byte the Cloud is your go-to, on-the-go, podcast for mastering AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud certifications and exam prep!
Chris 0:00
Hey, cloud engineers out there, welcome to another deep dive.
Kelly 0:03
It's great to be here
Chris 0:04
today. We're gonna be focusing on the AWS serverless application repository. And I know you're probably thinking, hey, I use AWS every day. Yeah, know all about it, but we're gonna dig deeper than that. Oh yeah. We're gonna go deeper into some of those details that you might not know that might even pop up on an exam. Yes. So let's start off by, I guess, explaining, like, what is this service?
Kelly 0:27
Yeah, so the serverless application repository is basically, it's kind of like a it's a library, okay, of pre built serverless applications that you can use to deploy things. So
Chris 0:36
you're telling me, if I need to deploy a serverless application, I don't have to write it all from scratch, exactly. It's gonna save you a lot of time. Okay? So I can go to this repository and pull down some pre built code and use that, yeah,
Kelly 0:47
and a lot of it's built by the community, so it's, you get a lot of different options, and it's always being updated. So
Chris 0:53
it's not just like AWS providing this, it's like a community effort. Yeah, it's a big community effort that's really cool. So what kind of real world things can we use this for?
Kelly 1:04
So you could use it for things like deploying like a simple web application. You know, if you wanted to set up like a basic API, you could do that. You could use it for image processing, okay, if you need to do some image manipulation, or you could even use it for things like chat bots,
Chris 1:20
wow. So a lot of like the basic serverless tasks that I do, I can just pull something pre built, yep. And get started really quickly, okay, I'm starting to see the benefit of this, yeah. So when we talk about this service, what are some of the features and benefits that you think stand out?
Kelly 1:35
I mean, the biggest one is just the speed of deployment. Okay, you can deploy an application from the serverless application repository in just a few clicks. Wow. So it's really simplified, super simplified. Yeah. And another thing is it's integrated with all these other AWS services, okay,
Chris 1:51
so it's not like a standalone thing. It fits into the whole ecosystem. Yeah,
Kelly 1:55
you can use it with lambda, API, Gateway, step functions, all that stuff. That's
Chris 1:59
great. So I can use the tools that I'm already familiar with. Okay, so it seems like there's a lot of benefit here, but I'm also curious, like, is there anything we need to watch out for?
Kelly 2:08
Yeah. I mean, one thing to keep in mind is that a lot of these applications are community built, okay, so you want to make sure that you're evaluating them carefully, okay, you know, reading the reviews, looking at the source code, if you can. So it's
Chris 2:22
kind of like downloading anything from like an open source repository,
Kelly 2:25
yeah, exactly you want to make sure that it's do your due diligence, yeah, exactly it's high quality and that it meets your security standards. Okay,
Chris 2:33
that's a really good point. So it's not just blindly deploying whatever we find, right? We need to actually look into it make sure it fits our needs and that it's secure Exactly, okay? That makes a lot of sense. So I'm starting to get a good picture of this service. I'm curious now like, how this is going to play into what we might see on an exam,
Kelly 2:53
right? So you're definitely going to see questions about deploying applications from the repository, okay, so make sure you understand the different deployment options, okay, how to configure the applications and how to troubleshoot any issues that come
Chris 3:06
up. So it's not just, do you know what this service is, it's actually, can you use it, right?
Kelly 3:11
Can you use it in a real world scenario?
Chris 3:13
Okay, that makes sense. I like that. So let's jump into some of those questions and see what kind of things we might encounter on the exam. All
Kelly 3:19
right, sounds good. Okay, so let's say you're asked to deploy an application that needs to process data in real time from a Kinesis data stream. Okay,
Chris 3:29
in real time, Kinesis, what
Kelly 3:31
service would you use with the serverless application repository?
Chris 3:36
Okay, so real time and it's a data stream, yeah. So I'm thinking we're probably going to want to use lambda for this, right? Exactly.
Kelly 3:42
Lambda is perfect for that, okay, because it can handle that real time data coming in and process it as it arrives. So
Chris 3:48
I would go to the repository, I'd find a lambda function that's already built to work
Kelly 3:52
with Kinesis. Yeah, there's tons of them. Okay, just search for Kinesis, you'll find a bunch of options, okay,
Chris 3:56
and then I would configure that lambda function to connect to my Kinesis stream, yep,
Kelly 4:00
and deploy it, and you're good to go. Wow,
Chris 4:03
that's a lot simpler than I thought it would be. Yeah, it's
Kelly 4:05
pretty straightforward. Okay, so
Chris 4:07
what if we need to make sure this application is secure,
Kelly 4:11
right? So security is always a big concern, oh, yeah, especially when we're talking about serverless. Sure. So in this case, you'd want to use IAM. Okay, so I am our good friend. Yep, you'd create an IAM role, okay, that has the specific permissions that that application needs. Okay,
Chris 4:27
so we're not just giving it access to everything, yeah, no. Least privilege. We're locking it down exactly, okay, and that's how we can make sure that our application is secure, even though we're using pre built code, exactly, okay. That's really good to know. What if we find an application in the repository, but we're not quite sure if we trust the security of it. Yeah,
Kelly 4:47
that's a good point. How
Chris 4:48
do we evaluate that?
Kelly 4:49
So there's a few things you can do. Okay, first, you want to check the documentation. Okay, see if there's any information about security best practices. Okay,
Chris 4:57
so look for some security documentation. Yep. And then you want
Kelly 5:00
to look at the reviews. Oh, okay, yeah, see what other users are saying, see if other people have had problems with it exactly. And then if you're really comfortable with code, yeah, you can actually look at the source code yourself. Oh,
Chris 5:12
wow. So I can actually go in and see what the code's doing, yeah, if you're comfortable with that, okay, so we can get really in depth with this. Yeah, that's good to know, yeah. So let's say we have this application, it needs to be able to scale up and down right based on demand. How does the repository help us with that? Well, that's
Kelly 5:29
the beauty of serverless, okay? You don't have to worry about scaling too much, okay, because AWS handles all that for you.
Chris 5:35
So I can just deploy this application and it's gonna automatically scale pretty much based on the
Kelly 5:40
traffic services like lambda, they scale automatically. Okay, that's amazing. So you don't have to worry about setting up servers or anything like that. That
Chris 5:47
takes a lot of the work off my plate, yeah, for sure. Okay, but what happens if one of the servers running my application fails? So again,
Kelly 5:55
this is where serverless comes in. AWS has built in fault tolerance, okay? So if a server fails, they'll automatically spin up a new one.
Chris 6:02
So my application is not going to go down. Should keep running. Okay, that's a relief. Yeah. Okay. So what if I have a team of developers, and we all need to deploy our own versions of the application, right?
Kelly 6:15
So for that, you'd want to use something like cloud formation. Oh, okay, cloud formation, yep. You can create a template that defines the application, okay? And then each developer can just deploy their own instance. So we can
Chris 6:27
all have our own little sandbox to play in, exactly. That's great, and that way we're not stepping on each other's toes Exactly, okay, like that. So let's say we deploy the application, it's working fine, but now we need to make some code changes, right?
Kelly 6:39
So you can definitely customize these applications. Okay? If you need to make small changes, you can do it right in the console. But if you need to make big changes, you'll probably want to download the source code, okay, make the change of locally, okay, and then redeploy it.
Chris 6:56
So it's kind of like forking the code and then creating my own version. Yeah, exactly. Okay. That's a good way to think about it. Yeah. So how do we keep an eye on our application once it's deployed?
Kelly 7:04
So for monitoring, you're gonna wanna use CloudWatch. CloudWatch, good old CloudWatch. Yep, you can set up dashboards to track all sorts of metrics, so I
Chris 7:13
can see how many times my function is being invoked, yep, how long it's taking. Okay, any errors that are happening, so if there any problems, I'll know right away exactly. Okay, that's great. And then if we do run into a problem, where do we go to find more information?
Kelly 7:26
So for that, you'll use Cloud watch logs. Cloud watch logs, okay, you can see all the logs from your application, okay? And you can filter them and search them, so
Chris 7:34
I can really drill down and figure out what's going on. Yep, okay, that's really helpful. So now I want to step back a little bit and think about the big picture. Okay, how does this service fit into like the trends we're seeing in cloud computing?
Kelly 7:48
So the serverless application repository is really part of the serverless movement. It's all about making serverless easier, okay, more accessible. So
Chris 7:57
it's not just about this one service. It's about this whole way of building applications, exactly, okay, that's really interesting. So let's say we have this application and it needs to talk to a bunch of other AWS services, right? Like s3 DynamoDB, SNS, yep. How do we make sure that it can only access the things it needs to?
Kelly 8:19
So again, this is where I am. Comes in. Okay, I am again, yep, you'll create a role, okay, with very specific permissions, so
Chris 8:26
least privilege. Again, exactly. Okay, so we're really locking this application down, yep, okay, that's good to know. So this has been really helpful. I'm starting to see how valuable this service can be. Yeah, it's definitely a powerful tool. But I'm curious, what do you think the future holds for this service?
Kelly 8:42
So one thing I'm really excited about is the integration of AI. Oh, AI, okay, yeah, imagine being able to use AI to help you find the right applications. Oh, wow, or even customize them.
Chris 8:52
So it's like having a serverless expert right there in the console, pretty much. Yeah, that's amazing. It's gonna be really interesting to see how this develops. Yeah, I'm really excited to see where this goes.
Kelly 9:02
Me too. So are you ready for another question? Yeah, let's
Chris 9:04
do it. Okay, so
Kelly 9:05
let's say you have a massive amount of data in s3 okay, and you need to process it. It's a batch job,
Chris 9:12
okay, batch processing s3 what service would you use? Hmm, batch processing. That sounds like a job for AWS batch. You
Kelly 9:22
got it? Okay, AWS batch is perfect for that. Okay, so
Chris 9:25
I could find an application in the repository that's built to work with batch and s3 Yep, and it'll handle all that processing for you, so I don't have to worry about setting up my own servers or anything. Nope. AWS takes care of it all. That's fantastic. Yeah, okay, so let's say I have an application and it needs to respond to events from a lot of different sources, okay, like what kind of sources, like DynamoDB, SQS, maybe even some HTTP requests.
Kelly 9:51
Sounds like you need an event bus. Oh, yeah, eventbridge.
Chris 9:53
Okay, so eventbridge can listen to all those different sources and then trigger my application. When something happens. Okay, so I don't have to have my application constantly checking for updates, nope. Event bridge takes care of all that. It's really efficient. Okay, one last question, all right, I've got my application deployed. It's all working, but I want to make sure I'm staying on top of performance, right? You always want to be monitoring, yeah. So what should I be using for that? Cloud
Kelly 10:18
watch is your best friend. Cloud watch, okay, yep, you can set up dashboards, alarms, all that good stuff, so I can see if anything's going wrong. Yep,
Chris 10:25
you'll know right away. Okay, that's reassuring. Yeah, so this has been a great deep dive into the serverless application repository. Yeah, it's been fun. I think we've covered a lot of really valuable information. I hope so, and I think our listeners are now well equipped to start using this service, definitely. So go out there build some amazing serverless applications and let us know how it goes. Yeah, thanks for joining us. Thanks
Kelly 10:49
for having me.