Faster with Serverless: Building production-ready applications

There are many discussions on how serverless is great and what are its advantages, but those could be all summed in that its main focus is to help us deliver applications better and faster. Building software that runs, satisfies requirements, is stable and scalable does indeed sound like a Disney fairytale, but it is our everyday job as architects, engineers and even managers. Serverless makes that job a lot easier and this talk's goal is to show how does it do that, how to build applications that are able to withstand heavy loads from day one, while delivering more features faster.

Transcript

1. Faster with Serverless:
 Building production-ready applications
2. About me Aleksandar Simovic Senior Software Engineer @ ScienceExchange • Co-author of “Serverless Applications with Node.js” 
 Book published by Manning Publications • AWS Serverless Hero • Core team member @ Claudia.js • Co-organizer of JS Belgrade (~1950 members) • Co-organizer of Serverless Belgrade • Organizer of Map Meetup Belgrade (Wardley Maps) • Writing on Serverless.Pub, streaming on Twitch, building Jarvis
3. Why are we here
4. Time for a story…
5. A story of a startup
6. The startup • Series A, B • Double digit billion dollar market • Traction of >100,000 customers • Innovative, disruptive… you name it • A-team talent, problem solving (10 engineers) • Customer-driven • Diverse customer base, world-wide
7. Architecture Overview
8. Reasonable enough?
9. Actually… No. • Unpredictable growth with scarce resources • Customers stuck, failing pilot programs • Night calls, crashes, scalability issues • Spending ~20% of backend developer time on infrastructure • So much overtime • Communication issues
11. “Oh, but we think we told you that there’s a demo tomorrow”
13. “Why don’t you just 
 scale it up a notch?”
14. Startups and financing • Money is scarce • Every decision has a high opportunity cost • Multiple stages cost a lot 
 (developers, management, investors, customers, 
 pilot programs) • Wasting ~20% of backend developer time on preparing demos, pilot programs, infrastructure
15. Average usage (per server)
16. Unexpected peak? New customers?
17. We didn’t serve our new customers!
18. Peak + a Buffer = The new setup
19. If we just reverse it?
20. Average waste (per server)
21. ~ 62.8% Waste was on average ($40,000 wasted per year)
22. But that’s how it should be!
23. Your customer 
 doesn’t care
 
 They didn’t get served.
24. Your investors 
 didn’t care
 
 You failed to serve the customers
 (and you lost the revenue) (and you wasted the investment)
25. The main problems • Slow feature development cycles • Bad capacity planning • Wasting resources • Miscommunication • No investment • Slow pivoting
26. Customer doesn’t care
27. Why should you care?
28. Being a developer is not easy • Lots of responsibilities • Increasing complexity • Everyone wants everything done “yesterday” • Constantly learning • Build a “production-ready” application, where if something goes wrong, its your fault • Lots of “smart-a**es” telling you what to do (including me)
29. What does the customer care about Have an application that: • Runs • Stable • Scales • Satisfies requirements • Can withstand heavy-loads from day one • Short Time to Market
30. That means that production ready applications are…
31. Production-ready applications Apps that satisfy: • Operational Excellence • Security • Reliability • Performance Efficiency • Cost Optimization • Compliance AWS Well-Architectured white paper
32. How would I do a startup now
33. Serverless • No server management, operations, provisioning • Never pay for idle • Scales per usage • Available, resilient with built-in fault tolerance
34. Serverless
35. It is serverless the same way, the WiFi is wireless. Gojko Adzic
36. Event listeners
37. Not just AWS Lambda And so many more…
38. Remember this?
39. Serverless scales with your usage
40. But I’m special…
41. Are you sure?
42. But I want to be in control…
43. Pick two Control Productivity Scale
44. What about compliance? Out-of-the-box: • HIPAA • PCI • SOC1, SOC2
45. What about security? How many of you have fixed or applied a patch • Spectre • Meltdown 
 
 on the 3rd of January 2018?
46. How to start?
47. Serverless Bootstrap Tools
48. Serverless Bootstrap Tool Details
49. Why these tools?
50. AWS AppSync
51. • Serverless backend for web and mobile applications • Robust GraphQL APIs including schema, resolvers, and databases • Client support for offline & subscriptions for real-time capabilities. • Available for Web, iOS, Android AWS AppSync
52. AWS Amplify
53. JavaScript library for app development using cloud-services • APIs & serverless logic • GraphQL Client • Secure Authentication and Authorization • Analytics • Streaming and Real-Time data • Push Notifications • Storage / S3 • Internationalization AWS Amplify
54. Integrates with the major frontend frameworks • React.js • React Native • Angular.js • Vue.js AWS Amplify
55. Why Amplify?
56. import { Auth } from ‘aws-amplify’ Auth.signUp({…credentials}) Auth.signIn(username, password) Auth? - AWS Cognito
57. import { withAuthenticator } from ‘aws-amplify-react-native’ export default withAuthenticator(App) Mobile Authenticator?
58. import { Analytics } from ‘aws-amplify-react-native’ Analytics.record(‘Button Pressed!’) Analytics - AWS Pinpoint
59. import { Storage } from ‘aws-amplify-react-native’ Storage.get(‘hello-athens.jpg’) Storage - AWS S3
60. import { API } from ‘aws-amplify’ let apiName = ‘HellasAPI’ let path = ‘/hello-hellas’
 
 API.get(apiName, path)
 .then(response => console.log(response)) API - Amazon API Gateway
61. import { API, graphqlOperation } from ‘aws-amplify’
 
 API.configure(
 graphql_endpoint: ‘https://exampleendpoint.com’
 )
 
 const oneEvent = await API.graphql(graphqlOperation(GetEvent, {id: 22})) API - GraphQL
62. And many more…
63. AWS Serverless Application Repository
64. • Prebuilt serverless components • Instantly deployable into your account • Instantly attachable to existing apps using Nested Apps • Copy as SAM resource • Can publish and share your own AWS Serverless Application Repository
65. Stop and show me,
 who uses it and how
68. Real world case #1
69. • >200,000 requests per hour • Migrated all preprocessors into serverless functions • Node.js, using Claudia.js • Depend on unpredictable peaks • Significant cost reduction • Migration done by their frontend engineers
70. Real world case #2
71. • 500,000 users per month • ~$107 / month. • Company size of two people • Migration took around a month MindMup
72. Real world case #3
73. ScienceExchange • Integration with an accounting reports service • Constant influx of events • The accounting service product costs $100,000 / year • Necessary for finance, data science and analytics teams • Decided to build the project in-house 
 (estimation 3 months)
74. ScienceExchange
75. ScienceExchange Result • Saving $99,990 / year • Development took 2 weeks • Scales automatically • Operational costs: $0.09 per GB
76. Key takeaways • Serverless helps us focus on our business core • Scale your services, not yourself • Serverless is much more than AWS Lambda, FaaS • Enterprises and startups alike are both adopting serverless • Serverless helps us easily develop and build applications that are able to withstand heavy-loads from day one.
77. Q&A Thank you! 40% discount 
 using
 
 claudia40
 
 More at:
 serverless.pub 
 
 Twitter:
 @simalexan