AWS Bites

Latest Episodes:

114. What's up with LLRT, AWS' new Lambda Runtime? Feb 16, 2024

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In this episode, we discuss the new experimental AWS Lambda LLRT Low Latency runtime for JavaScript. We provide an overview of what a Lambda runtime is and how LLRT aims to optimize cold starts and performance compared to existing runtimes like Node.js. We outline the benefits of LLRT but also highlight concerns around its experimental status, lack of parity with Node.js, and reliance on dependencies like QuickJS. Overall, LLRT shows promise but needs more stability, support, and real-world testing before it can be recommended for production use. In the end, we also have an appeal for AWS itself when it comes to investing in the larger JavaScript ecosystem.

💰 SPONSORS 💰 AWS Bites is brought to you by fourTheorem, the AWS consulting partner with lots of experience with AWS, Serverless, and Lambda. If you are looking for a partner that can help you deliver your next Serverless workload successfully, look no further and reach out to us at ⁠⁠⁠https://fourTheorem.com⁠⁠⁠ In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

Episode 104. "Explaining Lambda Runtimes": https://awsbites.com/104-explaining-lambda-runtimes/
LLRT official repository on GitHub: https://github.com/awslabs/llrt
QuickJS official website: https://bellard.org/quickjs/
Lambda performance benchmark by Maxime David: https://maxday.github.io/lambda-perf/
Richard Davidson on GitHub: https://github.com/richarddavison
Fabrice Bellard on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabrice_Bellard
QuickJS-ng fork: https://github.com/quickjs-ng/quickjs
QuickJS issue where users debate whether the project is dead or alive: https://github.com/bellard/quickjs/issues/188
WinterCG initiative: https://wintercg.org/

Do you have any AWS questions you would like us to address? Leave a comment here or connect with us on X, formerly Twitter: - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/eoins⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/loige⁠⁠

113. How do you revoke leaked credentials? Feb 09, 2024

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In this episode, we discuss what to do if you accidentally leak your AWS credentials during a live stream. We explain the difference between temporary credentials and long-lived credentials, and how to revoke each type. For temporary credentials, we recommend using the AWS console to revoke sessions or creating an IAM policy to deny access. For long-lived credentials, you must deactivate and rotate the credentials. We also touch on using tools like HashiCorp Vault to manage credentials securely.

💰 SPONSORS 💰 AWS Bites is brought to you by fourTheorem, the AWS consulting partner that doesn’t suck. Check us out at ⁠⁠https://fourTheorem.com⁠⁠ In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

Gist with example policy: https://gist.github.com/lmammino/02fef8ce0cc22a45f219fe4f47fcf20c
Revoking IAM role temporary security credentials (official AWS docs): https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_roles_use_revoke-sessions.html

Do you have any AWS questions you would like us to address? Leave a comment here or connect with us on X, formerly Twitter: - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/eoins⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/loige⁠⁠

112. What is a Service Control Policy (SCP)? Feb 02, 2024

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In this episode, we provide a friendly introduction to Service Control Policies (SCPs) in AWS Organizations. We explain what SCPs are, how they work, common use cases, and tips for troubleshooting access-denied errors related to SCPs. We cover how SCPs differ from identity-based and resource-based policies, and how SCPs can be used to set boundaries on maximum permissions in AWS accounts across an organization.

💰 SPONSORS 💰 AWS Bites is sponsored by fourTheorem, an AWS Partner with plenty of experience setting up AWS accounts and Service Control Policies. If that's something you'd like some help with, reach out to us on social media or check out ⁠https://fourTheorem.com⁠ In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

Episode 96: "AWS Governance and Landing Zone with Control Tower, Org Formation, and Terraform": https://awsbites.com/96-aws-governance-and-landing-zone-with-control-tower-org-formation-and-terraform/
Episode 40: "What do you need to know about IAM?": https://awsbites.com/40-what-do-you-need-to-know-about-iam/
Conor Maher's repo with some SCP examples: https://github.com/conzy/terraform-demo

Do you have any AWS questions you would like us to address? Leave a comment here or connect with us on X, formerly Twitter: - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/eoins⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/loige⁠⁠

111. How we run a Cloud Consulting business Jan 26, 2024

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In this episode, we discuss how we work as a cloud consulting company, including our principles, engagement process, sprint methodology, and focus on agile development to deliver successful projects. We aim to be trusted partners, not just vendors, and enable our customers' business goals. By the end of this episode, you will know what working with a cloud consulting company like fourTheorem could look like and you might learn some strategies to make cloud projects a success! We will also digress a little into the history of software practices, common misconceptions, and what we believe should be the right way to build software.

💰 SPONSORS 💰 AWS Bites is sponsored by fourTheorem, an AWS Partner with plenty of experience delivering cloud projects to production. If you want to chat, reach out to us on social media or check out https://fourTheorem.com In this episode, we mentioned the following resources.

Working with fourTheorem (blog post): https://fourtheorem.com/working-with-fourtheorem/
AI as a service, book by Peter Elger and Eoin Shanaghy: https://www.manning.com/books/ai-as-a-service
Majority of developers spending half, or less, of their day coding, report finds (TechRepublic article): https://www.techrepublic.com/article/majority-of-developers-spending-half-or-less-of-their-day-codin g-report-finds/
2023 software.com Future of Work Report: https://www.software.com/reports/future-of-work
Managing the Development of Large Software Systems, Dr. WInston W. Royce, 1970: https://www.praxisframework.org/files/royce1970.pdf

Do you have any AWS questions you would like us to address? Leave a comment here or connect with us on X, formerly Twitter: - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/eoins⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/loige⁠⁠

110. Why should you use Lambda for Machine Learning? Jan 19, 2024

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In this episode, we discuss using AWS Lambda for machine learning inference. We cover the tradeoffs between GPUs and CPUs for ML, tools like ggml and llama.cpp for running models on CPUs, and share examples where we've experimented with Lambda for ML like podcast transcription, medical imaging, and natural language processing. While Lambda ML is still quite experimental, it can be a viable option for certain use cases.

💰 SPONSORS 💰 AWS Bites is brought to you by fourTheorem, an Advanced AWS Partner. If you are moving to AWS or need a partner to help you go faster, check us out at fourtheorem.com ! In this episode, we mentioned the following resources.

Episode "46. How do you do machine learning on AWS?": https://awsbites.com/46-how-do-you-do-machine-learning-on-aws/
Episode "108. How to Solve Lambda Python Cold Starts": https://awsbites.com/108-how-to-solve-lambda-python-cold-starts/
ggml (the framework): https://github.com/ggerganov/ggml
ggml (the company): https://ggml.ai
llama.cpp: https://github.com/ggerganov/llama.cpp
whisper.cpp: https://github.com/ggerganov/whisper.cpp
whisper.cpp WebAssembly demo: https://whisper.ggerganov.com/
ONNX Runtime: https://onnxruntime.ai/
An example of using whisper.cpp with the Rust bindings: https://github.com/lmammino/whisper-rs-example
Project running Whisper.cpp in a Lambda function: https://github.com/eoinsha/whisper_lambda_cpp
AWS Lambda Image Container Chest X-Ray Example: https://github.com/fourTheorem/lambda-image-cxr-detection
Episode "103. Building GenAI Features with Bedrock": https://awsbites.com/103-building-genai-features-with-bedrock/⁠

Do you have any AWS questions you would like us to address? Leave a comment here or connect with us on X, formerly Twitter: - ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/eoins⁠⁠⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/loige⁠⁠

109. What is the AWS Project Development Kit (PDK)? Jan 12, 2024

Show notes

This episode of the AWS Bites Podcast provides an overview of the AWS Project Development Kit (PDK), an open-source tool to help bootstrap and maintain cloud projects. We discuss what PDK is, how it can help generate boilerplate code and infrastructure, keep configuration consistent across projects, and some pros and cons of using a tool like this versus doing it manually. Is PDK something you should use for your cloud projects? Let's find out!

The official PDK website (and documentation): https://aws.github.io/aws-pdk/
Our previous episode "16. What are the pros and cons of CDK?": https://awsbites.com/16-what-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-cdk/
Our previous episode "93. CDK Patterns - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly": https://awsbites.com/93-cdk-patterns-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/
Projen's official website: https://projen.io/
Introduction talk to Projen at CDK Day 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOWMPzXtTCw
Our previous episode "70. How do you create good AWS diagrams?": https://awsbites.com/70-how-do-you-create-good-aws-diagrams/
Building a shopping list app with PDK (tutorial): https://aws.github.io/aws-pdk/getting_started/shopping_list_app.html
PDK in-depth developer guides: https://aws.github.io/aws-pdk/developer_guides/index.html
Opinion by Vlad Ionescu on X: https://twitter.com/iamvlaaaaaaad/status/1743608823896592640
Yeoman: https://yeoman.io/
CookieCutter: https://github.com/cookiecutter/cookiecutter
Terraform project generation example: https://github.com/conzy/terraform-demo

Do you have any AWS questions you would like us to address? Leave a comment here or connect with us on X, formerly Twitter: - ⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/eoins⁠⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/loige⁠⁠

108. How to Solve Lambda Python Cold Starts Dec 15, 2023

Show notes

In this episode, we discuss how you can use Python for data science workloads on AWS Lambda. We cover the pros and cons of using Lambda for these workloads compared to other AWS services. We benchmark cold start times and performance for different Lambda deployment options like zip packages, layers, and container images. The results show container images can provide faster cold starts than zip packages once the caches are warmed up. We summarize the optimizations AWS has made to enable performant container image deployments. Overall, Lambda can be a good fit for certain data science workloads, especially those that are bursty and need high concurrency.

Our blog post detailing our research on how to optimise Python Data Science in AWS Lambda: https://fourtheorem.com/optimise-python-data-science-aws-lambda/
The repository with our benchmarks and related visualizations: https://github.com/fourTheorem/lambda-datasci-perf
On-demand Container Loading on AWS Lambda (AWS Paper): https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.13162

Do you have any AWS questions you would like us to address? Leave a comment here or connect with us on X, formerly Twitter: - ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/eoins⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/loige⁠⁠

107. Expert opinions from re:Invent 2023 Dec 08, 2023

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In this episode, we share expert opinions from AWS community leaders on their favorite announcements from re:Invent 2023, advice for those starting their cloud journey, predictions for the future of serverless, whether to go multi-cloud or not, and how AI will impact developers. Our guests provide insightful perspectives on getting hands-on experience, leveraging the AWS community, thinking through architectural decisions, and more. AWS Bites is brought to you by fourTheorem, an Advanced AWS Partner. If you are moving to AWS or need a partner to help you go faster, check us out at fourtheorem.com ! In this episode, we mentioned the following resources.

Alex Kearns on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexjameskearns/
AWS Console-to-Code (Preview) to generate code for console actions: https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2023/11/aws-console-to-code-preview-generate-console-actions/
Emily Shea on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emshea/
Emily's talk: Getting started building serverless event-driven applications (SVS205): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aTQI-Kqs2U
Ran Isenberg on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ranisenberg/
Ran's blog: https://www.ranthebuilder.cloud/
Maxime David on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxday/
Danielle Heberling on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deeheber/
Jones Zachariah Noel N on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jones-zachariah-noel-n/
Sam Williams on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-complete-coding/
AJ Stuyvenberg on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-stuyvenberg/
Faizal Khan on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/faizal-khan/
Heitor Lessa on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heitorlessa/
Chris Williams on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisfwilliams/
Praneeta Prakash on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/praneetaprakash/

Do you have any AWS questions you would like us to address? Leave a comment here or connect with us on X, formerly Twitter: - ⁠https://twitter.com/eoins⁠ - ⁠https://twitter.com/loige⁠

#aws #reinvent2023 #reinvent #networkingevents

106. Luciano at re:Invent Dec 01, 2023

Show notes

Luciano and Eoin chat about Luciano's experience attending AWS re:Invent 2023 in Las Vegas for the first time. They talk about the massive scale of the event, logistical challenges getting around between venues, highlights from the keynotes and announcements, and tips for networking and getting the most out of re:Invent. Luciano shares his perspective on the AI focus, meeting people in real life after connecting online, rookie mistakes to avoid, and why re:Invent is worth the investment for anyone working in the AWS space. AWS Bites is brought to you by fourTheorem, an Advanced AWS Partner. If you are moving to AWS or need a partner to help you go faster, check us out at fourtheorem.com ! In this episode, we mentioned the following resources.

- Amazon Q: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/introducing-amazon-q-a-new-generative-ai-powered-assistant-preview/

- Efi Merdler-Kravitz's talk on "Rustifying serverless" with AWS Lambda (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdh_2PXe9i8

- ElastiCache Serverless for Redis and Memcached: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/amazon-elasticache-serverless-for-redis-and-memcached-now-generally-available/

- Throughput increase and dead letter queue redrive for SQS FIFO: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/announcing-throughput-increase-and-dead-letter-queue-redrive-support-for-amazon-sqs-fifo-queues/ - Step Functions Workflow Studio in AWS Application Composer: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-step-functions-workflow-studio-is-now-available-in-aws-application-composer/

- Lambda scales 12x faster: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-lambda-functions-now-scale-12-times-faster-when-handling-high-volume-requests/

- Step Function redrive from a failed state: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/introducing-aws-step-functions-redrive-a-new-way-to-restart-workflows/

Do you have any AWS questions you would like us to address? Leave a comment here or connect with us on X, formerly Twitter: - https://twitter.com/eoins - https://twitter.com/loige

#aws #reinvent2023 #reinvent #networkingevents

105. Integration Testing on AWS Nov 24, 2023

Show notes

In this episode, we discuss integration testing event-driven systems and explore AWS's new Integration Application Test Kit (IATK). We cover the challenges of testing events and common approaches like logging, end-to-end testing, and using temporary queues. We then introduce IATK, walk through how to use it for EventBridge testing, and share our experience trying out the X-Ray trace validation. We found IATK promising but still rough around the edges, though overall a useful addition to help test complex event flows. 💰 SPONSORS 💰 AWS Bites is brought to you by fourTheorem, an Advanced AWS Partner. If you are moving to AWS or need a partner to help you go faster, check us out at ⁠⁠⁠⁠fourtheorem.com⁠⁠⁠⁠!

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

sls-test-tools on GitHub: https://github.com/aleios-cloud/sls-test-tools
Sarah Hamilton’s article on Integration testing and how to use sls-test-tool: https://medium.com/serverless-transformation/bridge-integrity-integration-testing-strategy-for-eventbridge-based-serverless-architectures-b73529397251
Our previous episode on building a cross-account Event Bridge deployment: https://awsbites.com/39-how-do-you-build-a-cross-account-event-backbone-with-eventbridge/
Our IATK tests for the cross-account Event Bridge project: https://github.com/fourTheorem/cross-account-eventbridge/blob/main/test/integration/test_events.py
IATK tutorial: https://awslabs.github.io/aws-iatk/tutorial/
IATK examples: https://awslabs.github.io/aws-iatk/tutorial/examples/retrieve_cfn_info/

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