Serverless is changing the way businesses think about speed and cost of innovation but today, Serverless is not limited to the code running as a Lambda function. In this session we will look into what it takes to run a full serverless application in production. We will cover additional services such as Serverless application management, storage solution for Serverless Apps, Step Functions for App orchestration and CI/CD and Monitoring for your full application lifecycle.

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Boaz Ziniman - Technical Evangelist
Amazon Web Service
Serverless Beyond Functions
@ziniman
boaz.ziniman.aws
ziniman

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Serverless applications
Services (anything)
Changes in
data state
Requests to
endpoints
Changes in
resource state
Event source Function
Node.js
Python
Java
C# / F# / PowerShell
Go
Ruby
Runtime API

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Anatomy of a Lambda function
Handler() function
Function to be executed
upon invocation
Event object
Data sent during Lambda
function Invocation
Context object
Methods available to
interact with runtime
information (request ID,
log group, more)
import json
def lambda_handler(event, context):
# TODO implement
return {
'statusCode': 200,
'body': json.dumps('Hello World!')
}

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“I know how to build a serverless
function, now what?”

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Agenda
• Orchestration
• CI/CD
• Step Functions
• Layers

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Project Orchestration

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Start with a framework
AWS
Chalice
AWS Amplify
AWS
SAM
AWS: Third-party:
Serverless
Framework

9. Meet
SAM!

10. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM)
AWS CloudFormation extension optimized for
serverless
Special serverless resource types: Functions, APIs,
SimpleTables, Layers, and Applications
Supports anything AWS CloudFormation supports
Open specification (Apache 2.0)
https://aws.amazon.com/serverless/sam

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AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM)
AWSTemplateFormatVersion: '2010-09-09’
Transform: AWS::Serverless-2016-10-31
Resources:
GetFunction:
Type: AWS::Serverless::Function
Properties:
Handler: index.get
Runtime: nodejs8.10
CodeUri: src/
Policies:
- DynamoDBReadPolicy:
TableName: !Ref MyTable
Events:
GetResource:
Type: Api
Properties:
Path: /resource/{resourceId}
Method: get
MyTable:
Type: AWS::Serverless::SimpleTable
Just 20 lines to create:
• Lambda function
• IAM role
• API Gateway
• DynamoDB table
O
pen
Source

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Use SAM CLI to package and deploy SAM templates
pip install --user aws-sam-cli
sam init --name my-app --runtime python
cd my-app/
sam local ... # generate-event/invoke/start-api/start-lambda
sam validate # The SAM template
sam build # Depending on the runtime
sam package --s3-bucket my-packages-bucket
--output-template-file packaged.yaml
sam deploy --template-file packaged.yaml
--stack-name my-stack-prod
sam logs -n MyFunction --stack-name my-stack-prod -t # Tail
sam publish # To the Serverless Application Repository
O
pen
Source
CodePipeline
Use
CloudFormation
deployment actions
with any SAM
application
Jenkins
Use SAM CLI plugin

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With the AWS Serverless Application Repository:
Developers can…
• Discover and deploy ready-made apps and
code samples
• Combine applications in the app repository
with their own via Nested Applications
• Customize open-source apps to get started
quickly
• Share apps privately or publish apps
for public use

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TweetSource:
Type: AWS::Serverless::Application
Properties:
Location:
ApplicationId: arn:aws:serverlessrepo:...
SemanticVersion: 2.0.0
Parameters:
TweetProcessorFunctionName: !Ref MyFunction
SearchText: '#serverless -filter:nativeretweets'
Nested apps to simplify solving recurring problems
Standard
Component
Custom
Business
Logic
Polling schedule
(CloudWatch
Events rule)
trigger
TwitterProcessor
SearchCheckpoint
TwitterSearchPoller
Twitter
Search API

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AWS Lambda Environment Variables
• Key-value pairs that you can dynamically pass to your
function
• Available via standard environment variable APIs such
as process.env for Node.js or os.environ for Python
• Can optionally be encrypted via AWS Key
Management Service (KMS)
• Allows you to specify in IAM what roles have access to the
keys to decrypt the information
• Useful for creating environments per stage
(i.e. dev, testing, production)

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Amazon API Gateway Stage Variables
Stage variables act like environment variables
• Use stage variables to store configuration values
• Stage variables are available in the $context object
• Values are accessible from most fields
in API Gateway
• Lambda function ARN
• HTTP endpoint
• Custom authorizer function name
• Parameter mappings
Amazon API
Gateway

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CI/CD for Serverless

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Source Build Test Production
Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment

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Serverless deployments
Code
StackPackage Deploy
Template

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Serverless deployments with a test environment
Code
Test
Stack
Package Deploy
Template
Feedback
Production
Stack
Deploy

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MyLambdaFunction:
Type: AWS::Serverless::Function
Properties:
Handler: index.handler
Runtime: nodejs6.10
AutoPublishAlias: !Ref ENVIRONMENT
DeploymentPreference:
Type: Linear10PercentEvery10Minutes
Alarms:
# A list of alarms that you want to monitor
- !Ref AliasErrorMetricGreaterThanZeroAlarm
- !Ref LatestVersionErrorMetricGreaterThanZeroAlarm
Hooks:
# Validation Lambda functions that are run before & after traffic shifting
PreTraffic: !Ref PreTrafficLambdaFunction
PostTraffic: !Ref PostTrafficLambdaFunction
AWS SAM + Safe Deployments

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CodeDeploy – Lambda deployments in SAM templates
Resources:
GetFunction:
Type: AWS::Serverless::Function
Properties:
AutoPublishAlias: live
DeploymentPreference:
Type: Canary10Percent10Minutes
Alarms:
- !Ref ErrorsAlarm
- !Ref LatencyAlarm
Hooks:
PreTraffic: !Ref PreTrafficHookFunction
PostTraffic: !Ref PostTrafficHookFunction
Canary10Percent30Minutes
Canary10Percent5Minutes
Canary10Percent10Minutes
Canary10Percent15Minutes
Linear10PercentEvery10Minutes
Linear10PercentEvery1Minute
Linear10PercentEvery2Minutes
Linear10PercentEvery3Minutes
AllAtOnce

24. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
Alarms: # A list of alarms that you want to monitor
- !Ref AliasErrorMetricGreaterThanZeroAlarm
- !Ref LatestVersionErrorMetricGreaterThanZeroAlarm
Hooks: # Validation Lambda functions that are run before & after
traffic shifting
PreTraffic: !Ref PreTrafficLambdaFunction
PostTraffic: !Ref PostTrafficLambdaFunction
AWS Lambda Alias Traffic Shifting & AWS SAM
Note: You can specify a maximum of 10
alarms
In SAM:

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CodeDeploy – Lambda canary deployment
API
Gateway
Lambda
function
weighted
alias
“live”
v1
Lambda
function
code
100%

26. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
CodeDeploy – Lambda canary deployment
API
Gateway
Lambda
function
weighted
alias
“live”
v1 code100%
Run PreTraffic hook against v2 code before it receives traffic
v2 code0%

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CodeDeploy – Lambda canary deployment
API
Gateway
Lambda
function
weighted
alias
“live”
v1 code90%
Wait for 10 minutes, roll back in case of alarm
v2 code10%

28. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
CodeDeploy – Lambda canary deployment
API
Gateway
Lambda
function
weighted
alias
“live”
v1 code0%
Run PostTraffic hook and complete deployment
v2 code100%

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API Gateway canary stage
API
Gateway
Production
stage
v1 code
v2 code
99.5%
0.5% Canary
stage

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Demo
https://github.com/ziniman/aws-devday-storereply

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Step Functions

32. Application Lifecycle in AWS Step Functions
Visualize in the
Console
Define in JSON Monitor
Executions

33. Define in JSON and Then Visualize in the Console
{
"Comment": "Hello World Example",
"StartAt" : "HelloWorld",
"States" : {
"HelloWorld" : {
"Type" : "Task",
"Resource" : "${lambdaArn}",
"End" : true
}
}
}

34. Execute One or One Million
Start
End
HelloWorld
Start
End
HelloWorld
Start
End
HelloWorld
Start
End
HelloWorld
Start
End
HelloWorld
Start
End
HelloWorld
Start
End
HelloWorld
Start
End
HelloWorld

35. Maximum Execution Time
AWS Lambda
Functions
15 minutes
AWS Step Functions
State Machines
1 year

36. Monitor Executions from the Console

37. Seven State Types
Task A single unit of work
Choice Adds branching logic
Parallel Fork and join the data across tasks
Wait Delay for a specified time
Fail Stops an execution and marks it as a failure
Succeed Stops an execution successfully
Pass Passes its input to its output

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Step Functions Tasks – Service Integrations
AWS Lambda invoke a Lambda function
AWS Batch submit a Batch job and wait for it to complete
Amazon DynamoDB get, put, update or delete an item
Amazon ECS/Fargate run an ECS task and waits for it to complete
Amazon SNS publish a message to a SNS topic
Amazon SQS send a SQS message
AWS Glue start a Glue job
Amazon SageMaker create a training or transform job

39. Build Visual Workflows from State Types
Task
Choice
Fail
Parallel

40. Image Recognition and Processing Backend
Task
Choice
Fail
Parallel
https://github.com/awslabs/lambda-refarch-imagerecognition

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AWS Step Functions Demo

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AWS Step Functions Case Studies

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Vending Pass problem
1. Thirsty consumer presents
card, can buy a drink with
Vending Pass or debit
2. But mobile wallet display can
get out of sync under certain
conditions
3.

44. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Vending Pass problem
• Just wait for backend
to catch up
• Create a two-step state
machine:
• Wait (90 seconds)
• Update mobile wallet
• Cheap and simple!

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• Transcode 350 clips/day into
14 formats, fast
• It’s all done with FFmpeg. The
processing time is just about
100% of the video length
• Aargh!
Video processing problem

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• Derive keyframe locations
within the source
• Split the source at the
keyframes
• Process segments (typically
0.5 sec per) in parallel
• Concatenate segments
• Elapsed time: ~20 min down
to ~2 minutes
Video processing solution

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Takeaways
Use Amazon S3 data events
to trigger parallel Lambda
processing: win
Use Amazon S3
URLs to stream
video to
Lambda: win
Scaling to 1,000
Lambdas, rather
than 1,000 EC2
instances: win
Process video
segments in
parallel: win

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More state machines
Image Recognition and Processing BackendEBS Snapshot Management
https://aws.amazon.com/step-functions/getting-started

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Lambda Layers

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Lambda Layers
Lets functions easily share code: Upload layer
once, reference within any function
Promote separation of responsibilities, lets
developers iterate faster on writing business logic
Built in support for secure sharing by ecosystem

51. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
Using Lambda Layers
• Put common components in a ZIP file and
upload it as a Lambda Layer
• Layers are immutable and can be versioned
to manage updates
• When a version is deleted or permissions to
use it are revoked, functions that used it
previously will continue to work, but you
won’t be able to create new ones
• You can reference up to five layers, one of
which can optionally be a custom runtime
Lambda
Layers
arn:aws:lambda:region:accountId:layer:shared-lib
Lambda
Layers
arn:aws:lambda:region:accountId:layer:shared-lib:2
Lambda
Layers
arn:aws:lambda:region:accountId:layer:shared-lib:3

52. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
Lambda Runtime API
Bring any Linux compatible language runtime
Powered by new Runtime API - Codifies the
runtime calling conventions and integration points
At launch, custom runtimes powering Ruby
support in AWS Lambda, more runtimes from
partners (like Erlang)
Custom runtimes distributed as “layers”
Rule
Stack

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PHP Runtime Demo

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Thank You!
Boaz Ziniman
Technical Evangelist - Amazon Web Services
@ziniman
boaz.ziniman.aws
ziniman