AWS re:Invent chalk talk showing how to tackle business problems with a serverless mindset. Solutions deck available at https://www.slideshare.net/JamesBeswick/thinking-serverless-aws-reinvent-2019-chalk-talk-svs213-solutions-slides.

2. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Thinking serverless: From business
problem to serverless solution
James Beswick
S V S 2 1 3 - R
Senior Developer Advocate, AWS Serverless
Amazon Web Services

3. About me
• James Beswick
• Email: jbeswick@amazon.com
• Twitter: @jbesw
• Senior Developer Advocate – AWS Serverless
• Serverless geek
• Software developer and product manager
• Previously:
• Multiple-startup tech guy
• Rackspace, USAA, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan …
• AWS customer since 2012

4. Agenda
• Where we have come from – Servers
• Where to start with serverless
• Good practices of serverless design
• Whiteboarding

5. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

6. How do we use servers?
• State management
• Monolithic container for functionality
• One version, one server
• Server is an atomic unit of thinking
• The challenges of this model

7. https://github.com/aws-samples/aws-refarch-wordpress

8. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

9. Understanding how AWS Lambda fits in
Attributes:
• Runs on demand
• Supports many runtimes
• Responds to events
• Stateless
• Automatically scales
Best practices:
• Avoid lifting-and-shifting
• One Lambda function per
purpose
• Keep functions small
• Choose the right runtime for the
job
• Use your functions for business
logic and plumbing between
services

10. General approach to thinking serverlessly
Avoid monolithic
thinking
The key to
scaling effectively
Don’t reinvent
the wheel
Make data
decisions early on
Events are triggers
that cause action

11. What are serverless services?
Amazon
DynamoDB
Amazon API
Gateway
AWS
Lambda
AWS Step
Functions
Amazon S3
Amazon
EventBridge
Amazon Simple
Notification Service
(Amazon SNS)
Amazon Simple
Queue Service
(Amazon SQS)
Amazon
Kinesis
AWS
IoT Core
Amazon Elastic
Transcoder

12. Integrating with other AWS services
Amazon
Comprehend
Amazon
Rekognition
Amazon
Textract
Amazon
Transcribe
Amazon
Translate

13. Good serverless practices
• Infrastructure is disposable
• Asynchronous versus synchronous processing
• You can mix and match runtimes
• Security still matters—build in from the start
• Automation …

14. Introducing AWS SAM

15. AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM)
• AWS CloudFormation extension
optimized for serverless
• New serverless resource types:
functions, APIs, tables
• Supports anything AWS
CloudFormation supports
• Open specification (Apache 2.0)
https://github.com/awslabs/serverless-application-model

16. AWS SAM template
Tells AWS CloudFormation this is an AWS
SAM template it needs to “transform”
Specifies an input parameter
Creates an S3 bucket
Creates a Lambda function with:
- Referenced managed IAM policy
- Language runtime/memory
- Code at the referenced zip location
Defines the event triggering the
Lambda function:
- New objects
- Specifies rule (ends in .txt)

17. AWS SAM template
Tells AWS CloudFormation this is an AWS
SAM template it needs to “transform”
Specifies an input parameter
Creates an S3 bucket
Creates a Lambda function with:
- Referenced managed IAM policy
- Language runtime/memory
- Code at the referenced zip location
Defines the event triggering the
Lambda function:
- New objects
- Specifies rule (ends in .txt)

18. AWS SAM template
Tells AWS CloudFormation this is an AWS
SAM template it needs to “transform”
Specifies an input parameter
Creates an S3 bucket
Creates a Lambda function with:
- Referenced managed IAM policy
- Language runtime/memory
- Code at the referenced zip location
Defines the event triggering the
Lambda function:
- New objects
- Specifies rule (ends in .txt)

19. AWS SAM template
Tells AWS CloudFormation this is an AWS
SAM template it needs to “transform”
Specifies an input parameter
Creates an S3 bucket
Creates a Lambda function with:
- Referenced managed IAM policy
- Language runtime/memory
- Code at the referenced zip location
Defines the event triggering the
Lambda function:
- New objects
- Specifies rule (ends in .txt)

20. AWS SAM template
Tells AWS CloudFormation this is an AWS
SAM template it needs to “transform”
Specifies an input parameter
Creates an S3 bucket
Creates a Lambda function with:
- Referenced managed IAM policy
- Language runtime/memory
- Code at the referenced zip location
Defines the event triggering the
Lambda function:
- New objects
- Specifies rule (ends in .txt)

21. AWS SAM transforms YAML into infrastructure

22. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

23. 1. Form upload
Create a serverless application to support a customer review form
submitted from a webpage

24. 2. Create a virtual queue
A global retailer wants to implement a virtual queue for customers. Use
an IoT button to manage a “now serving” counter.

25. 3. Web application
Create a serverless web application to support a national e-commerce
business

26. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

27. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Free, on-demand courses on serverless, including
Visit the Learning Library at https://aws.training
Additional digital and classroom trainings cover modern
application development and computing
Learn serverless with AWS Training and Certification
Resources created by the experts at AWS to help you learn modern application development
• Introduction to Serverless
Development
• Getting into the Serverless
Mindset
• AWS Lambda Foundations
• Amazon API Gateway for
Serverless Applications
• Amazon DynamoDB for Serverless
Architectures

28. Thank you!
© 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
James Beswick
jbeswick@amazon.com
jbesw@

29. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.