In this deck I talk through AWS SAM and the AWS SAM CLI. SAM is the Serverless Application Model and the CLI is used for developing, debugging, and deploying Serverless applications. Including serverless resources like Lambda, API gateway, and EventBridge.

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Eric Johnson
Sr. Developer Advocate – Serverless
@edjgeek
Meet AWS SAM
The Serverless Application Model

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Who am I?
• Eric Johnson - @edjgeek
• Sr. Developer Advocate – Serverless, AWS
• Serverless / Tooling / Automation Geek
• Software Architect / Solutions Architect
• Husband
• Father
• Music lover
• Pizza / Diet Dr. Pepper fanatic

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Howdy SAM
S
A
M

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Howdy SAM
Serverless
Application
Model

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SAM comes in two parts

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SAM templates
SAM comes in 2 parts
SAM CLI
Using shorthand syntax
to express resources
and event source
mappings, it provides
infrastructure as code
(IaC) for serverless
applications.
Provides tooling for
local development,
debugging, build,
packaging, and
deployment for
serverless applications

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SAM templates

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AWS SAM templates
• Can mix in other non-SAM CloudFormation resources in
the same template
• i.e. Amazon S3, Amazon Kinesis, AWS Step Functions
• Supports use of Parameters, Mappings, Outputs, etc
• Supports Intrinsic Functions
• ie: Ref, Sub, Join, Select, Split
• Can use ImportValue
• (exceptions for RestApiId, Policies, StageName attributes)
• YAML or JSON

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SAM templates
Just 20 lines to create:
• Lambda function
• IAM role
• API Gateway
• DynamoDB table

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AWS Cloud
SAM templates
Amazon API Gateway
Lambda function
Table Role
===
To become
this
Allowing
this

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SAM serverless resources
AWS::Serverless::Function
AWS::Serverless::Api
AWS::Serverless::HttpApi
AWS::Serverless::SimpleTab
le
AWS::Serverless::LayerVersion
AWS::Serverless::Applicatio
n
AWS::Serverless::StateMac
hine
SAM Version 2016-10-31
7
serverles
s specific
resource
types

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SAM serverless resources - Function
AWS Lambda
AWS::Serverless::Function
AWS::Serverless::Api
AWS::Serverless::HttpApi
AWS::Serverless::SimpleTable
AWS::Serverless::LayerVersion
AWS::Serverless::Application
AWS::Serverless::StateMachine

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SAM serverless resources – Function build options
Option 1: Set “BuildMethod” to a
supported runtime or leave
blank to use the default build
system.
Option 2: Set “BuildMethod” to
makefile to use a MakeFile
directed build.

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SAM serverless resources – Policies
https://slip.link/sam-policies
70+Managed templates with
more being added.
Best Practice: start here

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SAM serverless resources – Policies
Permissions to
be applied
Resources they
are applied to

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SAM serverless resources – Policies
Attach the template to the
Lambda function
Dynamically pass in resource
information
Can be used with Functions and StateMachines

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SAM serverless resources - API
Amazon API Gateway
AWS::Serverless::Function
AWS::Serverless::Api
AWS::Serverless::HttpApi
AWS::Serverless::SimpleTable
AWS::Serverless::LayerVersion
AWS::Serverless::Application
AWS::Serverless::StateMachine

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SAM serverless resources - HttpApi
Amazon API Gateway
AWS::Serverless::Function
AWS::Serverless::Api
AWS::Serverless::HttpApi
AWS::Serverless::SimpleTable
AWS::Serverless::LayerVersion
AWS::Serverless::Application
AWS::Serverless::StateMachine

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SAM serverless resources - SimpleTable
Amazon DynamoDB
AWS::Serverless::Function
AWS::Serverless::Api
AWS::Serverless::HttpApi
AWS::Serverless::SimpleTable
AWS::Serverless::LayerVersion
AWS::Serverless::Application
AWS::Serverless::StateMachine

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SAM serverless resources - SimpleTable
Amazon DynamoDB
Creates a DynamoDB table with:
• Primary key id
• Dynamic capacity
• AWS managed encryption
AWS::Serverless::Function
AWS::Serverless::Api
AWS::Serverless::HttpApi
AWS::Serverless::SimpleTable
AWS::Serverless::LayerVersion
AWS::Serverless::Application
AWS::Serverless::StateMachine

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SAM serverless resources – SimpleTable
Amazon DynamoDB
AWS::Serverless::Function
AWS::Serverless::Api
AWS::Serverless::HttpApi
AWS::Serverless::SimpleTable
AWS::Serverless::LayerVersion
AWS::Serverless::Application
AWS::Serverless::StateMachine

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SAM serverless resources - LayerVersion
AWS::Serverless::Function
AWS::Serverless::Api
AWS::Serverless::HttpApi
AWS::Serverless::SimpleTable
AWS::Serverless::LayerVersion
AWS::Serverless::Application
AWS::Serverless::StateMachine

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SAM serverless resources – LayerVersion build options
Option 1: Set “BuildMethod” to a
supported runtime or leave
blank to use the default build
system.
Option 2: Set “BuildMethod” to
makefile to use a MakeFile
directed build.

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SAM serverless resources - Application
AWS Serverless Application Repository
AWS::Serverless::Function
AWS::Serverless::Api
AWS::Serverless::HttpApi
AWS::Serverless::SimpleTable
AWS::Serverless::LayerVersion
AWS::Serverless::Application
AWS::Serverless::StateMachine

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SAM serverless resources - StateMachine
AWS::Serverless::Function
AWS::Serverless::Api
AWS::Serverless::HttpApi
AWS::Serverless::SimpleTable
AWS::Serverless::LayerVersion
AWS::Serverless::Application
AWS::Serverless::StateMachine
AWS Step Functions

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Standard CloudFormation resources
Reminder:
Standard CloudFormation resources
work in SAM.

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Lambda function event sources
14Function Event
source types
supported in SAM
• S3
• SNS
• Kinesis
• DynamoDB
• SQS
• Api
• HttpApi
• Schedule
• CloudWatchEvent
• CloudWatchLogs
• IoTRule
• AlexaSkill
• Cognito
• EventBridgeRule

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Other services that integrate with Lambda
• Elastic Load Balancing (Application Load Balancer)
• Amazon Lex
• AmazonCloudFront (Lambda@Edge)
• Amazon Simple Email Service
• AWS CloudFormation
• AWS CodeCommit
• AWS Config

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Using events with a Lambda function

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AWS SAM Globals

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AWS SAM Globals

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AWS SAM Globals

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AWS SAM Globals
Globals help you make your SAM
templates even smaller by
enabling you to re-use attributes
throughout.

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Metadata – Serverless Application Repository
Publish an application to the
Serverless Application
Repository

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AWS SAM CLI
Command line interface

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AWS SAM Command Line Interface (CLI)
CLI tool for local development, debugging, testing, deploying, and
monitoring of serverless applications
SupportsAPI Gateway “proxy-style” and Lambda service API testing
Response object and function logs available on your local machine
Uses open source docker-lambda images to mimic Lambda’s execution
environment such as timeout, memory limits, runtimes
Can tail production logs from CloudWatch logs
Can help you build in native dependencies
https://aws.amazon.com/serverless/sam

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SAM init
• Creates a new serverless application
• Options
• Runtime: nodejs, dotnet, go, python, java, ruby
• Dependency manager: (Ex: Maven or Gradle)
• Output directory: path to application
• Name: Application name
• Location: location of custom template

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SAM init

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SAM init
Creates a serverless application
based on user input
• Select an AWS managed
template or a custom template of
your own
• Select runtime
• Select dependency manager
• Name application
Results

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SAM build
• Generates deployment artifacts targeting Lambda's
execution environment
• Options
• Use container to compile for native dependencies on Lambda
execution environment
• Utilizes native build tools like Dotnet, Go, and Maven for
compiling
• Allows for file omission in final artifacts

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SAM build
Results

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SAM package
• Packages a SAM application
• Copies the artifacts to an S3 bucket
• Outputs a YAML file with update CodeUri addresses
• Options
• Specify input template
• Specify S3 bucket
• Specify output template
• Now built in to SAM deploy, but still available for CI/CD
pipelines

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SAM package

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SAM deploy
• Deploys or updates serverless application on AWS
Cloud
• Deploys and manages S3 bucket for deployment
artifacts
• Saves deploy options to a config file

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SAM deploy --guided

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SAM deploy --guided

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SAM deploy - changeset

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SAM deploy – execute changeset

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SAM deploy - outputs

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SAM deploy
Results
Serverless application
• One lambda function
• One API Gateway

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SAM local
• Provides local development tools for serverless
applications.
• Depends on a docker container
• Options:
• Generate-event
• Start-API
• Start-Lambda
• Invoke Lambda

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SAM local generate-event
Generates a JSON object
representing the output from the
given service and type.
Current available event types:
alexa-skills-kit
alexa-smart-home
apigateway
batch
cloudformation
cloudfront
cloudwatch
codecommit
codepipeline
cognito
config
connect
dynamodb
kinesis
lex
rekognition
s3
sagemaker
ses
sns
sqs
stepfunctions
*Abbreviated for display

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SAM local start-api
$ curl http://127.0.0.1:3000/hello
SAM fetches proper
docker container if it
does not exist.
Lambda function
invoked locally via
local API Gateway
emulator.
REST client call

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Some helpful options for SAM local start-api
• --env-vars
• --debug-port
• --debug-path
• --debug-args
• --log-file
• --static-directory
• --docker-network

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SAM local start-lambda
$ aws lambda invoke --function-name "HelloWorldFunction" --endpoint-url
"http://127.0.0.1:3001" --no-verify-ssl out.txt
AWS CLI used to
invoke
Lambda function
invoked locally via
Lambda API
emulator
SAM fetches proper
docker container if it
does not exist.

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Some helpful options for SAM local start-lambda
• --debug-port
• --debug-path
• --debug-args
• --log-file
• --static-directory
• --env-vars
• --docker-network

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SAM local invoke lambda
Directly invokes Lambda as if
through Lambda API

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Some helpful options for SAM local invoke
• [function name]
• --event
• --env-vars
• --debug-port
• --debug-path
• --debug-args
• --log-file
• --static-directory
• --docker-network

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SAM local is “build” aware
sam-app
├── .aws-sam
│ └── build
│ ├── HelloWorldFunction
│ │ ├── app.js
│ │ ├── node_modules
│ │ └── package.json
│ └── template.yaml
├── .gitignore
├── README.md
├── events
│ └── event.json
├── hello-world
│ ├── .npmignore
│ ├── app.js
│ ├── package.json
│ └── tests
│ └── unit
│ └── test-handler.js
└── template.yaml
Which manifest?

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SAM logs
AWS Cloud
Amazon CloudWatch
User

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Some helpful options for SAM logs
• --filter: simple keywords or CloudWatch supported
pattern
• --start-time: relative values or timestamps
• --end-time: relative values or timestamps
• --tail: continuously fetches logs

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Debugging locally with SAM CLI
http://bit.ly/sam-debug
NODE Example
1. In your IDE create a debug
configuration
2. Add a breakpoint in your code
3. Invoke the Lambda using start-api,
start-lambda, or invoke lambda
4. Attach the debugger

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Debugging locally with SAM CLI

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#SessionsWithSAM
slip.link/sws

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@edjgeek Image Source: Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay