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AWS Lambda in Action: Event-driven serverless applications
Summary
AWS Lambda in Action is an example-driven tutorial that teaches you how to build applications that use an event-driven approach on the back end.
Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications.
About the Technology
With AWS Lambda, you write your code and upload it to the AWS cloud. AWS Lambda responds to the events triggered by your application or your users, and automatically manages the underlying computer resources for you. Back-end tasks like analyzing a new document or processing requests from a mobile app are easy to implement. Your application is divided into small functions, leading naturally to a reactive architecture and the adoption of microservices.
About the Book
AWS Lambda in Action is an example-driven tutorial that teaches you how to build applications that use an event-driven approach on the back-end. Starting with an overview of AWS Lambda, the book moves on to show you common examples and patterns that you can use to call Lambda functions from a web page or a mobile app. The second part of the book puts these smaller examples together to build larger applications. By the end, you'll be ready to create applications that take advantage of the high availability, security, performance, and scalability of AWS.
What's Inside
Create a simple API
Create an event-driven media-sharing application
Secure access to your application in the cloud
Use functions from different clients like web pages or mobile apps
Connect your application with external services
About the Reader
Requires basic knowledge of JavaScript. Some examples are also provided in Python. No AWS experience is assumed.
About the Author
Danilo Poccia is a technical evangelist at Amazon Web Services and a frequent speaker at public events and workshops.
Table of Contents
PART 1 - FIRST STEPS
Running functions in the cloud
Your first Lambda function
Your function as a web API
PART 2 - BUILDING EVENT-DRIVEN APPLICATIONS
Managing security
Using standalone functions
Managing identities
Calling functions from a client
Designing an authentication service
Implementing an authentication service
Adding more features to the authentication service
Building a media-sharing application
Why event-driven?
PART 3 - FROM DEVELOPMENT TO PRODUCTION
Improving development and testing
Automating deployment
Automating infrastructure management
PART 4 - USING EXTERNAL SERVICES
Calling external services
Receiving events from other services
AWS Lambda in Action is an example-driven tutorial that teaches you how to build applications that use an event-driven approach on the back end.
Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications.
About the Technology
With AWS Lambda, you write your code and upload it to the AWS cloud. AWS Lambda responds to the events triggered by your application or your users, and automatically manages the underlying computer resources for you. Back-end tasks like analyzing a new document or processing requests from a mobile app are easy to implement. Your application is divided into small functions, leading naturally to a reactive architecture and the adoption of microservices.
About the Book
AWS Lambda in Action is an example-driven tutorial that teaches you how to build applications that use an event-driven approach on the back-end. Starting with an overview of AWS Lambda, the book moves on to show you common examples and patterns that you can use to call Lambda functions from a web page or a mobile app. The second part of the book puts these smaller examples together to build larger applications. By the end, you'll be ready to create applications that take advantage of the high availability, security, performance, and scalability of AWS.
What's Inside
Create a simple API
Create an event-driven media-sharing application
Secure access to your application in the cloud
Use functions from different clients like web pages or mobile apps
Connect your application with external services
About the Reader
Requires basic knowledge of JavaScript. Some examples are also provided in Python. No AWS experience is assumed.
About the Author
Danilo Poccia is a technical evangelist at Amazon Web Services and a frequent speaker at public events and workshops.
Table of Contents
PART 1 - FIRST STEPS
Running functions in the cloud
Your first Lambda function
Your function as a web API
PART 2 - BUILDING EVENT-DRIVEN APPLICATIONS
Managing security
Using standalone functions
Managing identities
Calling functions from a client
Designing an authentication service
Implementing an authentication service
Adding more features to the authentication service
Building a media-sharing application
Why event-driven?
PART 3 - FROM DEVELOPMENT TO PRODUCTION
Improving development and testing
Automating deployment
Automating infrastructure management
PART 4 - USING EXTERNAL SERVICES
Calling external services
Receiving events from other services
- GenresProgrammingTechnology
384 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 27, 2016
16 people are currently reading
93 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 12, 2017
Very good book on a topic that ... doesn't require a book that much.
I've bought this one as a MEAP some time ago when I had barely any knowledge on what AWS Lambda is (& will be, as it was in this service'es infancy period), but the version I've read (& reviewed) is the final one.
To keep the long story short:
* code samples are very clear, written in JS (Node.js) & Python
* there's a brief (but sufficient) description of other AWS services you'd need to know to work with Lambda (e.g. IAM, API Gateway), so you shouldn't get stuck even if you're fresh'n'green
* there's also an event-driven architecture primer (incl. actor model, reactive paradigm & the other usual suspects), but I've skimmed through very quickly as it's (not a surprise) very generic
* there's a nice (& rather practical) introduction to AWS Cognito - I found it very useful (especially because the service itself is interesting but not that popular)
* (fortunately) author didn't commit the typical sin of neglecting deployment/operations aspect - there are 2 & half chapters on the topic :)
In general - it's really a very good book if you want to get familiar with AWS Lambda. It's technical depth ain't astonishing (as Lambda itself isn't ...), but it's not the point as clear book fulfills its mission.
I've bought this one as a MEAP some time ago when I had barely any knowledge on what AWS Lambda is (& will be, as it was in this service'es infancy period), but the version I've read (& reviewed) is the final one.
To keep the long story short:
* code samples are very clear, written in JS (Node.js) & Python
* there's a brief (but sufficient) description of other AWS services you'd need to know to work with Lambda (e.g. IAM, API Gateway), so you shouldn't get stuck even if you're fresh'n'green
* there's also an event-driven architecture primer (incl. actor model, reactive paradigm & the other usual suspects), but I've skimmed through very quickly as it's (not a surprise) very generic
* there's a nice (& rather practical) introduction to AWS Cognito - I found it very useful (especially because the service itself is interesting but not that popular)
* (fortunately) author didn't commit the typical sin of neglecting deployment/operations aspect - there are 2 & half chapters on the topic :)
In general - it's really a very good book if you want to get familiar with AWS Lambda. It's technical depth ain't astonishing (as Lambda itself isn't ...), but it's not the point as clear book fulfills its mission.
June 27, 2019
This is good but too much time on basic AWS. The lambda info is in the back.
November 16, 2023
Is a really good book but the examples are outdated. A wide range of topics and useful theory and use cases
June 15, 2017
A very good starter reading for AWS Lambda.
Pros:
- all the samples are mostly in JS (sometimes also Python) but they are kept on such a level (e.g. don't use many external libs) that you would easily be able convert them (mentally) to C# or Java.
- it covers most of services that you may need to start developing with Lambda
- apart from development practices it shows you how to start working with security, deployment and versioning (things I could imagine could easily be neglected by many authors)
- covers (well mostly list them with brief description) most commonly used frameworks that you can use (again - assuming you are using JS or Python).
Cons:
- it falls short in the area of useful patterns to be adopted on AWS Lamba - this could easily be a separate chapter (or even part of the book) about this
- I could use a part about commonly met problems with Lambda and how to overcome them (e.g. how to overcome the problem with undetermined number of instances of Lambda running at the same time at general lack of orchestration).
Imagine for instance a solution with DDD and Akka Cluster where actors back operations for certain aggregates. This model is relatively wide-spread and easy to mentally understand (particular aggregate is handled by one specific actor on one single node within a cluster). Yet this approach is completely unfeasible for AWS Lambda (or is it?). It would be interesting to go for instance into such scenarios and see how we could think about adapting them to Lambda landscape.
Overall good introductory reading.
Pros:
- all the samples are mostly in JS (sometimes also Python) but they are kept on such a level (e.g. don't use many external libs) that you would easily be able convert them (mentally) to C# or Java.
- it covers most of services that you may need to start developing with Lambda
- apart from development practices it shows you how to start working with security, deployment and versioning (things I could imagine could easily be neglected by many authors)
- covers (well mostly list them with brief description) most commonly used frameworks that you can use (again - assuming you are using JS or Python).
Cons:
- it falls short in the area of useful patterns to be adopted on AWS Lamba - this could easily be a separate chapter (or even part of the book) about this
- I could use a part about commonly met problems with Lambda and how to overcome them (e.g. how to overcome the problem with undetermined number of instances of Lambda running at the same time at general lack of orchestration).
Imagine for instance a solution with DDD and Akka Cluster where actors back operations for certain aggregates. This model is relatively wide-spread and easy to mentally understand (particular aggregate is handled by one specific actor on one single node within a cluster). Yet this approach is completely unfeasible for AWS Lambda (or is it?). It would be interesting to go for instance into such scenarios and see how we could think about adapting them to Lambda landscape.
Overall good introductory reading.
June 28, 2018
Good review of AWS Lambda, but some of the examples seemed a little less than production ready. Also convinced me that adoption a framework like Serverless.com makes a lot of sense.
April 9, 2017
AWS Lambda is a way to develop in terms of functions and be able to deploy the functions directly to the cloud (without creating VM, deploying OS and application servers our usual web based frameworks)
If you know nothing about Lambda, it is a good way to get some idea about it.
But the book in general seems to lack a general theme and has several review/editing issues. It starts with a project, then without continuity it forgets about the project and delves on authentication (which granted is an interesting topic), then moves back to the project, then shows a philosophical one (chapter 12) that looks it was initially in a different place (since it mentions the project that will be built in future chapters), then it ends up with a strange mix of recipes that includes some good practices and some (at least to me) things that don't look right.
Similarly, the book starts mentioning that it is going to focus in Javascript and Python, since other runtimes are more complicated. The first few chapters show the code for both JS and Python, and then only Python. It would have been better, to show only a glimpse of Python (and maybe Java and C#) afterwards, but focus in one language.
I guess the main issue is that being interested in the topic, I was expected a more consolidated body of knowledge and recommended way to do things, but I found the field is lacking that state.
Still interested in the topic, and probably I will be playing more in the future.
If you know nothing about Lambda, it is a good way to get some idea about it.
But the book in general seems to lack a general theme and has several review/editing issues. It starts with a project, then without continuity it forgets about the project and delves on authentication (which granted is an interesting topic), then moves back to the project, then shows a philosophical one (chapter 12) that looks it was initially in a different place (since it mentions the project that will be built in future chapters), then it ends up with a strange mix of recipes that includes some good practices and some (at least to me) things that don't look right.
Similarly, the book starts mentioning that it is going to focus in Javascript and Python, since other runtimes are more complicated. The first few chapters show the code for both JS and Python, and then only Python. It would have been better, to show only a glimpse of Python (and maybe Java and C#) afterwards, but focus in one language.
I guess the main issue is that being interested in the topic, I was expected a more consolidated body of knowledge and recommended way to do things, but I found the field is lacking that state.
Still interested in the topic, and probably I will be playing more in the future.
April 15, 2017
This is a good book on AWS Lambda and the author handholds you from "hello world", to building face detection using OpenCV, and more.
PROS:
* Easy-to-follow
* Shows you how to use AWS Lambda for a greenfield project and gives you a glimpse of how you can use it for a brownfield project.
* Shows you how to build dev / test / prod environments
CONS:
* At times the book loses track. It goes from building a media application to a very detailed section on security for your Lambda functions and finally comes back to it in chapter 11.
If you're willing to let go of the lack of coherence, this book gives you everything you need to know about using AWS Lambda.
PROS:
* Easy-to-follow
* Shows you how to use AWS Lambda for a greenfield project and gives you a glimpse of how you can use it for a brownfield project.
* Shows you how to build dev / test / prod environments
CONS:
* At times the book loses track. It goes from building a media application to a very detailed section on security for your Lambda functions and finally comes back to it in chapter 11.
If you're willing to let go of the lack of coherence, this book gives you everything you need to know about using AWS Lambda.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews