Taking Serverless to the Next Level

ServerlessDays, Belgrade, September 13th, 2019

Moving to serverless brings more benefits if you can optimize the way you work. In this session, I share best practices on different areas, from infrastructure management to deployments, distributed architectures and the role of teams, focusing on people and processes that are at the core of software development. To support our findings, we’ll review customer case studies to see what they did, why, and which benefits they got most.

Transcript

1. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
   Taking Serverless to the Next Level
   Danilo Poccia
   Principal Evangelist, Serverless
   @danilop
   

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2. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
   “I know how to build
   a serverless function,
   now what?”
   

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3. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
   

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4. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
   Infrastructure
   as code
   

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5. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
   Infrastructure as code
   ✓
   Make infrastructure
   changes repeatable and
   predictable
   ✓
   Release infrastructure
   changes using the same
   tools as code changes
   ✓
   Replicate production in
   a staging environment
   to enable continuous
   testing
   

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6. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
   Infrastructure as code best practices
   ✓
   Infrastructure
   and application
   in the same
   source repository
   For example:
   AWS CloudFormation
   HashiCorp Terraform
   ✓
   Deployments
   include
   infrastructure
   updates
   

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7. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
   Infrastructure as code for serverless apps
   For example:
   AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM)
   Serverless Framework
   AWS
   Lambda
   Amazon
   DynamoDB
   Amazon
   S3
   ?
   

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8. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
   AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM) template
   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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9. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
   Use SAM CLI to package and deploy SAM templates
   pip install --user aws-sam-cli # Or even better use native installers
   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
   CodePipeline
   Use
   CloudFormation
   deployment
   actions with any
   SAM application
   Jenkins
   Use SAM CLI
   plugin
   O
   pen
   Source
   

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10. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    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
    aws-serverless-twitter-event-source app
    Polling schedule
    (CloudWatch
    Events rule)
    trigger
    TwitterProcessor
    SearchCheckpoint
    TwitterSearchPoller
    Twitter
    Search API
    

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11. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK)
    npm install -g aws-cdk
    cdk init app --language typescript
    cdk synth
    cdk deploy
    cdk diff
    cdk destroy
    CodePipeline
    Use CloudFormation
    deployment actions with
    any synthesized CDK
    application
    Jenkins
    Use CDK CLI
    TypeScript
    JavaScript
    Python
    Java
    C#
    F#
    O
    pen
    Source
    

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12. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    CDK Lambda cron example
    export class LambdaCronStack extends cdk.Stack {
    constructor(app: cdk.App, id: string) {
    super(app, id);
    const lambdaFn = new lambda.Function(this, 'Singleton', {
    code: new lambda.InlineCode(fs.readFileSync('lambda-handler.py’,
    { encoding: 'utf-8' })),
    handler: 'index.main',
    timeout: cdk.Duration.seconds(300),
    runtime: lambda.Runtime.PYTHON_3_7,
    });
    const rule = new events.Rule(this, 'Rule', {
    schedule: events.Schedule.expression('cron(0 18 ? * MON-FRI *)')
    });
    rule.addTarget(new targets.LambdaFunction(lambdaFn));
    }
    }
    Lambda function
    CloudWatch Events rule
    TypeScript
    CloudFormation Stack
    Set the target
    

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13. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Infrastructure
    as code
    

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14. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Infrastructure
    as code
    Automate
    deployments
    

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15. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Source Build Test Production
    Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment
    

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16. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    CodeDeploy – Lambda canary deployment
    API
    Gateway
    Lambda
    function
    weighted
    alias
    “live”
    v1
    Lambda
    function
    code
    100%
    

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17. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    CodeDeploy – Lambda canary deployment
    API
    Gateway
    Lambda
    function
    weighted
    alias
    “live”
    v1 code
    100%
    Run PreTraffic hook against v2 code before it receives traffic
    v2 code
    0%
    

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18. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    CodeDeploy – Lambda canary deployment
    API
    Gateway
    Lambda
    function
    weighted
    alias
    “live”
    v1 code
    90%
    Wait for 15 minutes, roll back in case of alarm
    v2 code
    10%
    

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19. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    CodeDeploy – Lambda canary deployment
    API
    Gateway
    Lambda
    function
    weighted
    alias
    “live”
    v1 code
    0%
    Run PostTraffic hook and complete deployment
    v2 code
    100%
    

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20. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    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
    CustomCodeDeployConfiguration
    

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21. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Infrastructure
    as code
    Automate
    deployments
    

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22. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Infrastructure
    as code
    Automate
    deployments
    Project
    to product
    

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23. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    v1 v2 v3
    Customer
    needs
    Project
    Product
    

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24. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Project
    Product
    Reach
    milestone
    Customer
    value
    Lifecycle
    costs
    Cost to reach
    milestone
    Backward
    looking
    Forward
    looking
    

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25. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Product
    Features
    Defects
    Risks
    Debts
    Product development
    Business
    Customers
    Security &
    Compliance
    Developers &
    Architects
    Avoid
    Overutilization
    

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26. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Positive Chat – Serverless architecture
    Amazon
    DynamoDB
    Amazon
    Cognito
    Amazon API
    Gateway
    WebSocket
    connection
    PositiveChat
    Lambda function
    Connections
    table
    Conversations
    table
    Topics
    table
    Web
    browser
    AWS Cloud
    S3 bucket for
    static assets
    (HTML, CSS, JS)
    Authentication
    Authorization
    To be implemented
    Amazon
    Comprehend
    Amazon
    Translate
    Amazon
    Rekognition
    To be implemented
    https://github.com/danilop/serverless-positive-chat
    D
    em
    o
    

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27. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Positive Chat
    https://pchat.demo.danilop.net/?room=Belgrade
    D
    em
    o
    

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28. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    $ wc -l positive-chat/app.js
    326 positive-chat/app.js
    $ wc -l www/index.js
    204 www/index.js
    backend + frontend ≃ 460 lines of code
    removing empty lines and comments
    

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29. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Serverless for Product Development
    Less code, more speed
    Focus on what you want to build
    Estimate the cost per user or per feature
    Link business models and tiers to features and costs
    Faster to turn an idea into a prototype
    Prototypes are easier to bring in production
    Service updates enable new features
    

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30. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    

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31. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Infrastructure
    as code
    Automate
    deployments
    Project
    to product
    

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32. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Infrastructure
    as code
    Automate
    deployments
    Project
    to product
    Event-driven
    microservices
    

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33. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    “Complexity arises when
    the dependencies among
    the elements become
    important.”
    Scott E. Page, John H. Miller
    Complex Adaptive Systems
    

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34. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Monolithic
    Application
    Services Microservices
    

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35. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    “A complex system that
    works is invariably found
    to have evolved from a
    simple system that
    worked.”
    Gall’s Law
    

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36. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    “A complex system
    designed from scratch
    never works and cannot
    be patched up to make it
    work. You have to start
    over with a working
    simple system.”
    

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37. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    “Amazon S3 is intentionally
    built with a minimal feature set.
    The focus is on simplicity and
    robustness.”
    – Amazon S3 Press Release,
    March 14, 2006
    

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38. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Amazon S3
    8 → more than 200
    microservices
    Mai-Lan Tomsen Bukovec
    VP and GM, Amazon S3
    

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39. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    How does Serverless work?
    Storage
    Databases
    Analytics
    Machine Learning
    . . .
    Your
    unique
    business
    logic
    User uploads a picture
    Customer data updated
    Anomaly detected
    API call
    . . .
    Fully-managed
    services
    Events
    Functions
    

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40. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    What is an “event” ?
    “something that happens”
    Events tell us a fact
    Immutable time series
    Time What
    2019 06 21 08 07 06 CustomerCreated
    2019 06 21 08 07 09 OrderCreated
    2019 06 21 08 07 13 PaymentSuccessful
    2019 06 21 08 07 17 CustomerUpdated
    . . . . . .
    

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41. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Commands Vs Events
    Command
    Has an intent
    Directed to a target
    Personal communication
    ”CreateUser”
    “AddProduct”
    Event
    It’s a fact
    For others to observe
    Broadcast one to many
    ”UserCreated”
    “ProductAdded”
    

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42. Photo by J W on Unsplash
    Can we help more?
    

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43. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Amazon
    EventBridge
    A serverless event bus service for
    SaaS and AWS services
    • Fully managed, pay-as-you-go
    • Native integration with
    SaaS providers
    • 15 target services
    • Easily build event-driven
    architectures
    N
    ew
    

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44. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Amazon EventBridge
    Event source
    SaaS event
    bus
    Custom event
    bus
    Default event
    bus
    Rules
    AWS Lambda
    Amazon Kinesis
    AWS Step Functions
    Additional targets
    

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45. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Amazon EventBridge
    AWS services
    Custom events
    SaaS apps Event source
    SaaS event
    bus
    Custom event
    bus
    Default event
    bus
    Rules
    AWS Lambda
    Amazon Kinesis
    AWS Step Functions
    Additional targets
    "detail-type":
    "source": "aws.partner/example.com/123",
    "detail":
    "ticketId":
    "department":
    "creator":
    

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46. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Amazon EventBridge
    AWS services
    Custom events
    SaaS apps Event source
    SaaS event
    bus
    Custom event
    bus
    Default event
    bus
    Rules
    AWS Lambda
    Amazon Kinesis
    AWS Step Functions
    Additional targets
    "detail-type":
    "source": "aws.partner/example.com/123"
    "detail":
    "ticketId":
    "department":
    "creator":
    "source":
    

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47. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Amazon EventBridge
    AWS services
    Custom events
    SaaS apps Event source
    SaaS event
    bus
    Custom event
    bus
    Default event
    bus
    Rules
    AWS Lambda
    Amazon Kinesis
    AWS Step Functions
    Additional targets
    "detail-type":
    "source": "aws.partner/example.com/123",
    "detail":
    "ticketId":
    "department": "billing"
    "creator":
    "detail":
    "department": ["billing", "fulfillment"]
    

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48. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Amazon EventBridge
    AWS services
    Custom events
    SaaS apps Event source
    SaaS event
    bus
    Custom event
    bus
    Default event
    bus
    Rules
    AWS Lambda
    Amazon Kinesis
    AWS Step Functions
    Additional targets
    "detail-type": "Ticket Created"
    "source": "aws.partner/example.com/123",
    "detail":
    "ticketId":
    "department": "billing",
    "creator":
    "detail-type": ["Ticket Resolved"]
    

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49. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Common use cases
    

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50. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Common use cases
    

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51. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Amazon EventBridge integration partners
    

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52. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Infrastructure
    as code
    Automate
    deployments
    Project
    to product
    Event-driven
    microservices
    

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53. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Infrastructure
    as code
    Automate
    deployments
    Project
    to product
    Event-driven
    microservices
    Focus on
    your team
    

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54. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    You Build It, You Run It
    “This brings developers into
    contact with the day-to-day
    operation of their software. It
    also brings them into day-to-
    day contact with the
    customer.”
    – Werner Vogels
    CTO, Amazon.com
    

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55. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Team size & communication paths
    =
    ( − 1)
    2
    Communication paths
    in a team of N people
    

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56. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Two pizza teams
    Photo by Kristina Bratko on Unsplash
    

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57. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Separable Vs complex tasks
    Separable
    task
    Complex
    task
    

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58. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Ability as a collection of cognitive tools
    Adam
    Ability = 5
    { A, B, C, D, E }
    For example:
    A – mobile development on iOS
    B – back end development in Java
    C – data analytics in Python
    D – complex SQL queries
    E – …
    

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59. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Ability as a collection of cognitive tools
    Adam Carl
    Betsy
    { C, D, G }
    Ability = 5 Ability = 4 Ability = 3
    { A, B, E, F }
    { A, B, C, D, E }
    

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60. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Diversity bonus model – Team with best abilities
    Adam Carl
    Betsy
    { C, D, G }
    Ability = 5 Ability = 4 Ability = 3
    Team Ability = 6
    { A, B, E, F }
    { A, B, C, D, E }
    

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61. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Diversity bonus model – Team with more cognitive tools
    Adam Carl
    Betsy
    { A, B, E, F }
    { A, B, C, D, E } { C, D, G }
    Ability = 5 Ability = 4 Ability = 3
    Team Ability = 7
    

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62. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    No diversity, no bonus – Beware hiring managers
    Adam Carl
    Betsy
    { A, B, C, D }
    { A, B, C, D, E } { B, C, D }
    Ability = 5 Ability = 4 Ability = 3
    

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63. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Some cognitive tools must be learned in order
    Adam Carl
    Betsy
    { A, B, C, D }
    { A, B, C, D, E } { A, B, C }
    Ability = 5 Ability = 4 Ability = 3
    

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64. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    2,092 people who worked on
    474 musicals from 1945 to 1989
    Small world networks & creativity
    AJS Volume 111 Number 2 (September 2005): 000–000 PROOF 1
    ᭧ 2005 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
    0002-9602/2005/11102-0003$10.00
    Thursday Oct 13 2005 11:31 AM AJS v111n2 090090 VSJ
    Collaboration and Creativity: The Small
    World Problem1
    Brian Uzzi
    Northwestern University
    Jarrett Spiro
    Stanford University
    Small world networks have received disproportionate notice in di-
    verse fields because of their suspected effect on system dynamics.
    The authors analyzed the small world network of the creative artists
    who made Broadway musicals from 1945 to 1989. Based on original
    arguments, new statistical methods, and tests of construct validity,
    they found that the varying “small world” properties of the systemic-
    level network of these artists affected their creativity in terms of the
    financial and artistic performance of the musicals they produced.
    The small world network effect was parabolic; performance in-
    creased up to a threshold after which point the positive effects
    reversed.
    Creativity aids problem solving, innovation, and aesthetics, yet our un-
    derstanding of it is still forming. We know that creativity is spurred when
    diverse ideas are united or when creative material in one domain inspires
    or forces fresh thinking in another. These structural preconditions suggest
    1 Our thanks go out to Duncan Watts; Huggy Rao; Peter Murmann; Ron Burt; Matt
    Bothner; Frank Dobbin; Bruce Kogut; Lee Fleming; David Stark; John Padgett; Dan
    Diermeier; Stuart Oken; Jerry Davis; Woody Powell; workshop participants at the
    University of Chicago, University of California at Los Angeles, Harvard, Cornell, New
    York University, the Northwestern University Institute for Complex Organizations
    (NICO); and the excellent AJS reviewers, especially the reviewer who provided a
    remarkable 15, single-spaced pages of superb commentary. We particularly wish to
    thank Mark Newman for his advice and help in developing and interpreting the
    bipartite-affiliation network statistics. We also wish to give very special thanks to the
    Santa Fe Institute for creating a rich collaborative environment wherein these ideas
    first emerged, and to John Padgett, the organizer of the States and Markets group at
    the Santa Fe Institute. Direct correspondence to Brian Uzzi, Kellog School of Man-
    agement, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208. E-mail:
    Uzzi@northwestern.edu
    

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65. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Infrastructure
    as code
    Automate
    deployments
    Project
    to product
    Event-driven
    microservices
    Focus on
    your team
    

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66. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Infrastructure
    as code
    Automate
    deployments
    Project
    to product
    Event-driven
    microservices
    Focus on
    your team
    Don’t reinvent
    the wheel
    

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67. SCALING CHALLENGES
    350
    DONATIONS PER SECOND
    Case
    Study
    

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68. OLD VS NEW
    March 2019 cost*
    $5,393
    March 2015 cost*
    $83,908
    *All hosting costs are paid for through corporate partnerships.
    100% of public donations go to the projects we fund.
    Case
    Study
    

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69. WE COULD DO
    IT ALL AGAIN TOMORROW
    Serverless services cost
    $92
    Case
    Study
    

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70. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Infrastructure
    as code
    Automate
    deployments
    Project
    to product
    Event-driven
    microservices
    Focus on
    your team
    Don’t reinvent
    the wheel
    

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71. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Infrastructure
    as code
    Automate
    deployments
    Project
    to product
    Event-driven
    microservices
    Focus on
    your team
    Don’t reinvent
    the wheel
    

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72. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
    Thank you!
    @danilop Please give me your feedback
    

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