This document summarizes Droplr's evolution to a serverless cloud architecture on AWS over the past year. Some key points: - Droplr moved from multiple programming languages and microservices to primarily using Node.js and monolith architecture. - Monitoring was optimized using services like Pingdom, DataDog, Logz.io and Sentry. - AWS Lambda was adopted for its cost effectiveness, scalability and reliability. It allowed Droplr to reduce costs by 60% and deploy updates in minutes. - The current architecture uses Lambda with VPC, CloudFront, API Gateway, SNS and CloudWatch Events. Serverless improved performance and reduced response times.

1. A year of Droplr Cloud
architecture evolution
with AWS and Serverless
Antoni Orfin <antoni@droplr.com>
Solutions Architect @ Droplr

2. What is Droplr?
Screen Capture, File Sharing, Team Collaboration
Used by...
Droplr in numbers:
+ 500k users
+ 50M files (70 TB) in AWS S3

3. Droplr in Poland
Photos by instagram.com/mariuszgil
In 2017, Droplr opened office
in Wrocław, Poland

4. Technologies overview

5. Optimising
Monitoring
Serverless Revolution

6. Optimising
Reduction of...
1. ...programming languages → Node.JS
2. ...microservices → monolith ;-)
3. ...AWS infrastructure → EC2, ELB, ECS (Docker!), Serverless

7. Monitoring
1. SLA/Uptime monitoring → Pingdom
2. Infrastructure Metrics → DataDog
3. Log Analysis → Logz.io (ELK)
4. Error tracking → Sentry

8. Do we need
servers?

9. No.

10. Serverless Revolution
Bare metal IaaS
PaaS
Serverless
FaaS

11. Serverless Revolution
AWS Lambda - run code without thinking about underlying
infrastructure
1. Crazy cheap
2. Multiple programming languages support
3. Highly-Scalable
4. Reliable
5. Fast

12. Serverless Revolution
AWS Lambda - run code without thinking about underlying
infrastructure
1. Crazy cheap
Free Tier: 1M requests per month & 400,000/GB-sec
Above: $0.0000002/request + $0.00001667/GB-sec

13. Serverless Revolution
AWS Lambda - run code without thinking about underlying
infrastructure
2. Multiple programming languages support: Node.js
(JavaScript), Python, Java (Java 8), C# (.NET Core), Go
(from 15.01.2018)
$ npm install serverless -g
$ serverless create --template hello-world
$ serverless deploy

14. Serverless Revolution
AWS Lambda - run code without thinking about underlying
infrastructure
3. Highly-Scalable out of the box
Default limit: 1,000 concurrent executions
Our Benchmark: 800 req/s per Node.js function

15. Serverless Revolution
AWS Lambda - run code without thinking about underlying
infrastructure
4. Reliable
100% uptime
in our Pingdom from start (7 months)

16. Serverless Revolution
AWS Lambda - run code without thinking about underlying
infrastructure
5. Fast
<1 ms
for Node.js Express “Hello World”

17. AWS Lambda invocation
SNS
Time
HTTP

18. Droplr Current Architecture
Droplr Serverless Architecture
1. AWS Lambda in VPC
2. CloudFront in front of API Gateway
3. Web Application Firewall
4. SNS (~RabbitMQ?)
5. CloudWatch Events (~CRON?)

19. Serverless Performance
1. Throughput 2. Response Time
CloudFront 118 ms 100.00%
API Gateway 63 ms 53.39%
Lambda 0.92 ms 0.78%

20. Result?
99.99% uptime
60% AWS cost reduction (10x for computing)
10x faster uploads
1 min production deployments

21. Do we need
regions?

22. No.

23. Moving towards real Cloud
1. Cloud with single region? What about running application nearer
your clients? Maybe in...
Tok

24. 1. Cloud with single region? What about running application nearer
your clients? Maybe in...
Moving towards real Cloud
Tok
Paris

25. 1. Cloud with single region? What about running application nearer
your clients? Maybe in...
Moving towards real Cloud
Tok
Paris
Sydney

26. Better
Lambda@Edge

27. Result?

28. Thanks
Time for discussion :-)
- Serverless as a game-changer?
- Your ideas of using Serverless?
- Btw. Senior JavaScript/React Developer wanted! ;-)
Ref.: https://serverless.com/blog/how-droplr-scales-to-millions-serverless-framework/