In my recent hands-on experience with AWS, I completed an insightful tutorial on building a serverless web application using several key AWS services: AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway, Amazon S3, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon Cognito. This project provided a comprehensive understanding of the components and workflow involved in creating a scalable and cost-effective serverless application.

Key Learnings:

1. AWS Lambda:

   • Function as a Service (FaaS): Lambda enables running code without provisioning or managing servers. I learned how to write functions to handle backend logic and process events triggered by API Gateway and other AWS services.

   • Event-driven architecture: Lambda's ability to respond to various events (HTTP requests, changes in data in DynamoDB, etc.) was a crucial learning point, illustrating how serverless applications can be highly responsive and scalable.

2. Amazon API Gateway:

   • API Management: API Gateway was used to create, publish, and monitor RESTful APIs. I gained experience in setting up endpoints that invoke Lambda functions, thus creating a seamless interaction layer between the frontend and backend.

   • Security and Throttling: Configuring security features like API keys and throttling policies to protect and manage access to the APIs was an important aspect of the learning process.

3. Amazon S3:

   • Static Website Hosting: S3's capability to host static websites was utilized to store and serve the frontend assets (HTML, CSS, JavaScript). This illustrated the simplicity and efficiency of using S3 for static content delivery.

   • Security: Learning about bucket policies and IAM roles to secure the content stored in S3 was critical for ensuring that only authorized users can access the resources.

4. Amazon DynamoDB:

   • NoSQL Database: DynamoDB was employed to store application data. I learned how to design tables with appropriate partition and sort keys to ensure efficient data retrieval and storage.

   • Scalability and Performance: The tutorial emphasized DynamoDB’s ability to handle large amounts of data with high availability and low latency, which is essential for modern web applications.

5. Amazon Cognito:

   • User Authentication and Authorization: Cognito was used to manage user sign-up, sign-in, and access control. Implementing user authentication and integrating it with API Gateway to secure API endpoints provided a solid understanding of identity management in serverless applications.

Note : For some reason, it seems that AWS revoked public access to s3://wildrydes-us-east-1/WebApplication/1_S... Hence, we need to get the tutorial contents from unofficial alternatives: eg) s3://ttt-wildrydes/wildrydes-site

Conclusion:

This hands-on experience has significantly enhanced my understanding of serverless architecture and AWS services. By building a fully functional serverless web application (See it here), I have gained practical insights into designing, deploying, and managing scalable and secure applications on AWS.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or need insights into completing this tutorial from AWS.

---

Thank you for reading! I hope this article provides you with valuable insights into serverless web application development. Stay tuned for more updates and tutorials on cloud computing and DevOps.