Introduction

Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides many services that can be used to build serverless applications. At Defsense, we use a combination of these services to build modern, powerful serverless backend solutions for our customers.

Services

Here are some of the more common AWS serverless services organized by category.

Compute

• Lambda
  Compute service which allows you to run custom code in the cloud as a function. The function responds to events triggered by other services such as API Gateway, AppSync, S3, DynamoDB, SNS, SQS, EventBridge.
  https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/
• Fargate
  Serverless configurations of Elastic Container Service (ECS) and Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS).
  https://aws.amazon.com/fargate/

Configuration

• AppConfig
  AppConfig is a feature of AWS Systems Manager. This service allows you to store and deploy configuration to applications at runtime so, for instance, it can be used to implement feature flags.
  https://aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/features/appconfig/
• Secrets Manager
  This service allows you to store application secrets (e.g. database credentials and API keys) in a central location. Secrets are encrypted at rest and in transit, can be rotated, integrate with IAM, can be assigned resource policies, can be versioned, can be replicated across regions.
  https://aws.amazon.com/secrets-manager/

Orchestration

• Step Functions
  Workflow service used to build applications, automate processes, orchestrating other services (including 220+ AWS services). Step Functions enable two types of workflows: standard and express. Standard workflows are used for long-running processes (gets charged for number of transitions). Express workflows are used for executions of less than 5 minutes (gets charged for number of invocations, memory and CPU usage).
  https://aws.amazon.com/step-functions/

API

• API Gateway
  This service allows you to implement an Internet-facing RESTful and WebSocket APIs.
  https://aws.amazon.com/api-gateway/
• AppSync
  This service allows you to implement an Internet-facing GraphQL API to query and update data from many different sources. It also allows you to implement a publish/subscribe API using WebSockets.
  https://aws.amazon.com/appsync/

User Management

• Cognito
  Enables customer identity and access management (CIAM) in web and mobile applications.
  https://aws.amazon.com/cognito/

Databases and Object Storage

Services that allow you to reliably store or cache data and large object files.

• DynamoDB
  A highly available, fast and scalable NoSQL database. It features a key-value and document model with flexible schema, ACID transactions, active-active replication across regions, streams to enable event-driven architectures, secondary indexes (local and global), fine-grained access control down to attributes and items using IAM, point-in-time recovery, on-demand backup and restore, integration with other services.
  https://aws.amazon.com/dynamodb/
• ElastiCache
  A highly available in-memory store, compatible with Redis and Memcached.
  https://aws.amazon.com/elasticache/
• Simple Storage Service (S3)
  A highly-available scalable object storage, with many different storage classes, security features.
  https://aws.amazon.com/s3/

Events

Services that enable loosely-coupled event-driven applications.

• Simple Notification Service (SNS)
  Publish/subscribe service to loosely couple applications (A2A) or distribute notifications to customers (A2P). SNS uses the concepts of topics and subscriptions.
  https://aws.amazon.com/sns/
• Simple Queue Service (SQS)
  Messaging queue that lets you send, store, and receive messages. There are two types of queues: standard and FIFO. Standard queues feature nearly unlimited throughput, at least once delivery, best-effort ordering. FIFO queues feature high throughput (lower than standard), exactly-once delivery, first-in-first-out ordering.
  https://aws.amazon.com/sqs/
• EventBridge
  An event bus that allows you to send, filter, transform, route, and deliver events.
  Allows you to subscribe for events published by other AWS services.
  https://aws.amazon.com/eventbridge/