How to Design a Scalable Serverless Application on AWS

A discussion of AWS scalability, the main benefits of scalability in AWS, and why it’s essential for your project’s architecture.

A majority of companies prefer to focus their resources on other things rather than on scalability, which causes massive problems in the future, especially once they grow to one million users. The objective of building a robust serverless application is to succeed in making it scalable and powerful at the same time.

What is AWS scalability? What are the main benefits of scalability in AWS, and why is it essential for your project architecture? Keep reading to find out the answers and essential perks AWS has to offer your business.

What Is a Scalable Application?

A scalable application is an application that can adjust to the rising number of requests without a loss in performance. Auto-scaling instances are supposed to handle traffic fluctuation regardless of the number of users and requests. The unnecessary resources should be eliminated, and the required ones should be triggered following the demand.

What Is Scalability in AWS?

The tricky part is always establishing the number of instances needed to maintain good performance. However,  Amazon Auto Scaling solves the problem by automatically keeping the currently important instances active and removing the ones that are no longer needed. You can anchor the minimum and the maximum number of your instance pool, so the service scales within your limits. Not only is this approach effective, but it also saves you a small fortune on your AWS bill.

#web development #aws #serverless

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How To Unite AWS KMS with Serverless Application Model (SAM)

The Basics

AWS KMS is a Key Management Service that let you create Cryptographic keys that you can use to encrypt and decrypt data and also other keys. You can read more about it here.

Important points about Keys

Please note that the customer master keys(CMK) generated can only be used to encrypt small amount of data like passwords, RSA key. You can use AWS KMS CMKs to generate, encrypt, and decrypt data keys. However, AWS KMS does not store, manage, or track your data keys, or perform cryptographic operations with data keys.

You must use and manage data keys outside of AWS KMS. KMS API uses AWS KMS CMK in the encryption operations and they cannot accept more than 4 KB (4096 bytes) of data. To encrypt application data, use the server-side encryption features of an AWS service, or a client-side encryption library, such as the AWS Encryption SDK or the Amazon S3 encryption client.

Scenario

We want to create signup and login forms for a website.

Passwords should be encrypted and stored in DynamoDB database.

What do we need?

1. KMS key to encrypt and decrypt data
2. DynamoDB table to store password.
3. Lambda functions & APIs to process Login and Sign up forms.
4. Sign up/ Login forms in HTML.

Lets Implement it as Serverless Application Model (SAM)!

Lets first create the Key that we will use to encrypt and decrypt password.

KmsKey:
    Type: AWS::KMS::Key
    Properties: 
      Description: CMK for encrypting and decrypting
      KeyPolicy:
        Version: '2012-10-17'
        Id: key-default-1
        Statement:
        - Sid: Enable IAM User Permissions
          Effect: Allow
          Principal:
            AWS: !Sub arn:aws:iam::${AWS::AccountId}:root
          Action: kms:*
          Resource: '*'
        - Sid: Allow administration of the key
          Effect: Allow
          Principal:
            AWS: !Sub arn:aws:iam::${AWS::AccountId}:user/${KeyAdmin}
          Action:
          - kms:Create*
          - kms:Describe*
          - kms:Enable*
          - kms:List*
          - kms:Put*
          - kms:Update*
          - kms:Revoke*
          - kms:Disable*
          - kms:Get*
          - kms:Delete*
          - kms:ScheduleKeyDeletion
          - kms:CancelKeyDeletion
          Resource: '*'
        - Sid: Allow use of the key
          Effect: Allow
          Principal:
            AWS: !Sub arn:aws:iam::${AWS::AccountId}:user/${KeyUser}
          Action:
          - kms:DescribeKey
          - kms:Encrypt
          - kms:Decrypt
          - kms:ReEncrypt*
          - kms:GenerateDataKey
          - kms:GenerateDataKeyWithoutPlaintext
          Resource: '*'

The important thing in above snippet is the KeyPolicy. KMS requires a Key Administrator and Key User. As a best practice your Key Administrator and Key User should be 2 separate user in your Organisation. We are allowing all permissions to the root users.

So if your key Administrator leaves the organisation, the root user will be able to delete this key. As you can see **KeyAdmin **can manage the key but not use it and KeyUser can only use the key. ${KeyAdmin} and **${KeyUser} **are parameters in the SAM template.

You would be asked to provide values for these parameters during SAM Deploy.

#aws #serverless #aws-sam #aws-key-management-service #aws-certification #aws-api-gateway #tutorial-for-beginners #aws-blogs

Serverless Applications - Pros and Cons to Help Businesses Decide - Prismetric

In the past few years, especially after Amazon Web Services (AWS) introduced its Lambda platform, serverless architecture became the business realm’s buzzword. The increasing popularity of serverless applications saw market leaders like Netflix, Airbnb, Nike, etc., adopting the serverless architecture to handle their backend functions better. Moreover, serverless architecture’s market size is expected to reach a whopping $9.17 billion by the year 2023.

Global_Serverless_Architecture_Market_2019-2023

Why use serverless computing?
As a business it is best to approach a professional mobile app development company to build apps that are deployed on various servers; nevertheless, businesses should understand that the benefits of the serverless applications lie in the possibility it promises ideal business implementations and not in the hype created by cloud vendors. With the serverless architecture, the developers can easily code arbitrary codes on-demand without worrying about the underlying hardware.

But as is the case with all game-changing trends, many businesses opt for serverless applications just for the sake of being up-to-date with their peers without thinking about the actual need of their business.

The serverless applications work well with stateless use cases, the cases which execute cleanly and give the next operation in a sequence. On the other hand, the serverless architecture is not fit for predictable applications where there is a lot of reading and writing in the backend system.

Another benefit of working with the serverless software architecture is that the third-party service provider will charge based on the total number of requests. As the number of requests increases, the charge is bound to increase, but then it will cost significantly less than a dedicated IT infrastructure.

Defining serverless software architecture
In serverless software architecture, the application logic is implemented in an environment where operating systems, servers, or virtual machines are not visible. Although where the application logic is executed is running on any operating system which uses physical servers. But the difference here is that managing the infrastructure is the soul of the service provider and the mobile app developer focuses only on writing the codes.

There are two different approaches when it comes to serverless applications. They are

Backend as a service (BaaS)
Function as a service (FaaS)

1. Backend as a service (BaaS)
   The basic required functionality of the growing number of third party services is to provide server-side logic and maintain their internal state. This requirement has led to applications that do not have server-side logic or any application-specific logic. Thus they depend on third-party services for everything.

Moreover, other examples of third-party services are Autho, AWS Cognito (authentication as a service), Amazon Kinesis, Keen IO (analytics as a service), and many more.

2. Function as a Service (FaaS)
   FaaS is the modern alternative to traditional architecture when the application still requires server-side logic. With Function as a Service, the developer can focus on implementing stateless functions triggered by events and can communicate efficiently with the external world.

FaaS serverless architecture is majorly used with microservices architecture as it renders everything to the organization. AWS Lambda, Google Cloud functions, etc., are some of the examples of FaaS implementation.

Pros of Serverless applications
There are specific ways in which serverless applications can redefine the way business is done in the modern age and has some distinct advantages over the traditional could platforms. Here are a few –

🔹 Highly Scalable
The flexible nature of the serverless architecture makes it ideal for scaling the applications. The serverless application’s benefit is that it allows the vendor to run each of the functions in separate containers, allowing optimizing them automatically and effectively. Moreover, unlike in the traditional cloud, one doesn’t need to purchase a certain number of resources in serverless applications and can be as flexible as possible.

🔹 Cost-Effective
As the organizations don’t need to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on hardware, they don’t need to pay anything to the engineers to maintain the hardware. The serverless application’s pricing model is execution based as the organization is charged according to the executions they have made.

The company that uses the serverless applications is allotted a specific amount of time, and the pricing of the execution depends on the memory required. Different types of costs like presence detection, access authorization, image processing, etc., associated with a physical or virtual server is completely eliminated with the serverless applications.

🔹 Focuses on user experience
As the companies don’t always think about maintaining the servers, it allows them to focus on more productive things like developing and improving customer service features. A recent survey says that about 56% of the users are either using or planning to use the serverless applications in the coming six months.

Moreover, as the companies would save money with serverless apps as they don’t have to maintain any hardware system, it can be then utilized to enhance the level of customer service and features of the apps.

🔹 Ease of migration
It is easy to get started with serverless applications by porting individual features and operate them as on-demand events. For example, in a CMS, a video plugin requires transcoding video for different formats and bitrates. If the organization wished to do this with a WordPress server, it might not be a good fit as it would require resources dedicated to serving pages rather than encoding the video.

Moreover, the benefits of serverless applications can be used optimally to handle metadata encoding and creation. Similarly, serverless apps can be used in other plugins that are often prone to critical vulnerabilities.

Cons of serverless applications
Despite having some clear benefits, serverless applications are not specific for every single use case. We have listed the top things that an organization should keep in mind while opting for serverless applications.

🔹 Complete dependence on third-party vendor
In the realm of serverless applications, the third-party vendor is the king, and the organizations have no options but to play according to their rules. For example, if an application is set in Lambda, it is not easy to port it into Azure. The same is the case for coding languages. In present times, only Python developers and Node.js developers have the luxury to choose between existing serverless options.

Therefore, if you are planning to consider serverless applications for your next project, make sure that your vendor has everything needed to complete the project.

🔹 Challenges in debugging with traditional tools
It isn’t easy to perform debugging, especially for large enterprise applications that include various individual functions. Serverless applications use traditional tools and thus provide no option to attach a debugger in the public cloud. The organization can either do the debugging process locally or use logging for the same purpose. In addition to this, the DevOps tools in the serverless application do not support the idea of quickly deploying small bits of codes into running applications.

#serverless-application #serverless #serverless-computing #serverless-architeture #serverless-application-prosand-cons

3 Examples Of Design Applications With Great UX

When it comes to design, it has long been said that simplicity is key. And although I always understood the basis for this saying, I never fully appreciated what it really meant.

As a beginner it is natural to want to show all your ability by wowing your audience. And as a teacher I see my students making this mistake often. They try to build out features as much as possible and try to showcase every aspect of their ability. As many of you know, this approach does not always result in the most aesthetically pleasing design, let alone the most user friendly experience. This is why I have stressed the importance of simplicity to all my students from the first day I started teaching.

For our latest project, I assigned teams of 4 to each create a prototype for a design application.

#design #web-design #hackernoon-top-story #ux #good-ux-design-examples #good-ui-design-examples #web-application-ui-examples #web-application-design-example

Serverless CI/CD on the AWS Cloud

CI/CD pipelines have long played a major role in speeding up the development and deployment of cloud-native apps. Cloud services like AWS lend themselves to more agile deployment through the services they offer as well as approaches such as Infrastructure as Code. There is no shortage of tools to help you manage your CI/CD pipeline as well.

While the majority of development teams have streamlined their pipelines to take full advantage of cloud-native features, there is still so much that can be done to refine CI/CD even further. The entire pipeline can now be built as code and managed either via Git as a single source of truth or by using visual tools to help guide the process.

The entire process can be fully automated. Even better, it can be made serverless, which allows the CI/CD pipeline to operate with immense efficiency. Git branches can even be utilized as a base for multiple pipelines. Thanks to the three tools from Amazon; AWS CodeCommit, AWS CodeBuild, and AWS CodeDeploy, serverless CI/CD on the AWS cloud is now easy to set up.

#aws #aws codebuild #aws codecommit #aws codedeploy #cd #cd pipeline #ci #ci/cd processes #ci/cd workflow #serverless

Landscapes Website Design | Nature Landscapes Website Designer

Most landscapers think of their website as an online brochure. In reality of consumers have admitted to judging a company’s credibility based on their web design, making your website a virtual sales rep capable of generating massive amounts of leads and sales. If your website isn’t actively increasing leads and new landscaping contracts, it may be time for a redesign.

DataIT Solutions specializes in landscape website designing that are not only beautiful but also rank well in search engine results and convert your visitors into customers. We’ve specialized in the landscaping industry for over 10 years, and we look at your business from an owner’s perspective.

Why use our Landscapes for your landscape design?

• Superior experience
• Friendly personal service
• Choice of design layout
• Budget sensitive designs
• Impartial product choice and advice
• Planting and lighting designs

Want to talk about your website?
If you are a gardener or have a gardening company please do not hesitate to contact us for a quote.
Need help with your website? Get in touch

#nature landscapes website design #landscapes website design #website design #website designing #website designer #designer