Real World Serverless with theburningmonk

Latest Episodes:

#95: How Dunelm went from on-prem to serverless while going faster Feb 14, 2024

Show notes

In this episode, I spoke with Mark White, who is a principal engineer at Dunelm, a leading home furnishing retailer in the UK.
We talked about Dunelm's journey from on-premise infrastructure to serverless and how they stayed agile while migrating their systems to this new paradigm safely.
We discussed the challenges of shifting the engineering culture and habits to fit the constraints and opportunities that serverless technologies offer. And we recounted Dunelm's success and failure stories along the way.
Links from the episode:

Opening theme song:
Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

#94: Serverless Framework v4 with Austen Collins Dec 27, 2023

Show notes

In this episode, I spoke with Austen Collins, founder and CEO of Serverless Inc. about the upcoming release of Serverless Framework v4.
We talked about the origin of the Serverless Framework and the challenges it faces. We discussed the rationale behind the upcoming changes in v4. Including the ability to easily switch between containers and Lambda functions as the deployment target, and the revenue share model for Extensions.
Links from the episode:
* Serverless v4 announcement post
* HashiCorp's license change announcement
* Ep87 with Anton Babenko on the Terraform pricing change
* Ep88 with AJ Stuyvenberg on Lambda cold start mistakes
* State of Serverless report 2023
Opening theme song:
Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

#93: Building serverless AI apps with Sam Williams Dec 13, 2023

Show notes

In this episode, I spoke with Sam Williams about his drive for work-life balance and discussed his experience of building AI-powered apps using serverless technologies.
Links from the episode:

Opening theme song:
Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

#92 - Rise of the AI Engineer with Shawn Wang Dec 06, 2023

Show notes

In this episode, I spoke with Shawn Wang, who coined the term "AI Engineer" as a new title for engineers who are building the chains and agents that powers AI applications. This is likely to be the highest-demand engineering job of the decade.
We talked about the evolution of software development and how AI is changing everything. And why ambitious developers should attach themselves to AI and build thought leadership in this space.
We also touched on topics such as AGI (artificial general intelligence), and talked about Shawn's "smol-developer" project, which lets you bootstrap entire projects using prompt engineering.
If you want to see Shawn's short demo of smol-developer, then you can watch the episode on YouTube here.
Links from the episode:

Opening theme song:
Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

#91: DevOps Reimagined with Patrick deBois on the Future of AI and DevOps Nov 29, 2023

Show notes

In this episode, I spoke with Patrick deBois, who is known as the "father of DevOps" as he coined the term "DevOps" in 2009.
In a wide-ranging conversation, we talked about the evolution of DevOps, what it means in 2023 and how it related to "Platform Engineering".
We also talked about AI, how AI technologies are impacting software development, and what developers can do to prepare themselves for what is to come.
Links from the episode:

Opening theme song:
Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

#90: He built a hotel booking system that costs $0.82/month to run Nov 22, 2023

Show notes

In this episode, I spoke with Hieu Do, who is a Solution Architect at FPT Software in Vietnam. As a side project, he built a hotel booking system for a friend using entirely serverless technologies.
He shared his experience and learnings from building this system and how he was able to keep the cost down. After running the system for a year, the system only costs an average of $0.82 per month and serves over 3000 users per day.
There are some useful tips that everyone can apply. Such as reducing the cost of API Gateway by cutting out the OPTION requests associated with CORS. Or looking out for CloudWatch costs when using 3rd party services that poll CloudWatch data, such as NewRelic.
Links from the episode:

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For more stories about real-world use of serverless technologies, please subscribe to the channel and follow me on X as @theburningmonk.
And if you're hungry for more insights, best practices, and invaluable tips on building serverless apps, make sure to subscribe to our free newsletter and elevate your serverless game! https://theburningmonk.com/subscribe
Opening theme song:
Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

#89: Hashnode's serverless architecture with Sandro Volpicella Nov 15, 2023

Show notes

In this episode, I spoke with Sandro Volpicella, who is a platform lead at Hashnode, a fully serverless blogging platform. He is also the co-author of AWS Fundamentals (https://awsfundamentals.com).
We explored Hashnode's architecture and went deep into its caching strategy, which is a crucial ingredient of a scalable and performant blogging platform.
Links from the episode:

You can find Sandro on X as @sandro_vol
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For more stories about real-world use of serverless technologies, please subscribe to the channel and follow me on X as @theburningmonk.
And if you're hungry for more insights, best practices, and invaluable tips on building serverless apps, make sure to subscribe to our free newsletter and elevate your serverless game! https://theburningmonk.com/subscribe
Opening theme song:
Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

#88: Optimizing Lambda cold starts with AJ Stuyvenberg Nov 08, 2023

Show notes

In this episode, I spoke with AJ Stuyvenberg, who is an AWS Hero and staff engineer at Datadog. We discussed the findings from the latest state of serverless report and spoke about Lambda cold starts at length. AJ has done some incredible research into Lambda cold starts and shared the 4 biggest mistakes people make regarding Lambda cold starts.
If you care about getting the best performance for your Lambda functions and minimizing cold starts, then this is the episode for you!
Links from the episode:

You can find AJ on X as @astuyve
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For more stories about real-world use of serverless technologies, please subscribe to the channel and follow me on X as @theburningmonk.
And if you're hungry for more insights, best practices, and invaluable tips on building serverless apps, make sure to subscribe to our free newsletter and elevate your serverless game! https://theburningmonk.com/subscribe
Opening theme song:
Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

#87: Anton Babenko on Serverless.TF and the Terraform licensing fiasco Nov 01, 2023

Show notes

In this episode, I spoke with Anton Babenko, who is an AWS Community Hero and creator of the Serverless.TF framework. We spoke at length about serverless development with Terraform and the problems that Serverless.TF aims to solve. We also discussed the recent seismic split in the Terraform community, with HashiCorp's license change and the initiation of the OpenTofu movement. Anton didn't hold back on his feelings about the oversized reaction to HashiCorp's announcement, and I agree with him!
Links from the episode:
* Serverless.TF framework
* Serverless.TF example for Lambda
* Anton's various other projects
* Hire Anton for consulting engagements
* HashiCorp's license change announcement
* OpenTofu
You can find Anton on X as @antonbabenko
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For more stories about real-world use of serverless technologies, please subscribe to the channel and follow me on X as @theburningmonk.
And if you're hungry for more insights, best practices, and invaluable tips on building serverless apps, make sure to subscribe to our free newsletter and elevate your serverless game! https://theburningmonk.com/subscribe
Opening theme song:
Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

#86: Enterprise CDK with Ran Isenberg Oct 25, 2023

Show notes

In this episode, I spoke with Ran Isenberg, who is an AWS Serverless Hero and Principal Software Architect at CyberArk. Amongst other things, we talked about platform engineering at CyberArk, how they adopted CDK and how they approach testing and tenant isolations.
Links from the episode:
* Ran's blog
* Open positions at CyberArk
* cdk-nag
* Ran's AWS Lambda cookbook
* See Ran speak at re:Invent, session OPN305
* My approach towards serverless testing
* My course on serverless testing
* Episode 85 with Matt Bonig about CDK dos & don'ts
You can find Ran on X as @IsenbergRan
-----
For more stories about real-world use of serverless technologies, please subscribe to the channel and follow me on X as @theburningmonk.
And if you're hungry for more insights, best practices, and invaluable tips on building serverless apps, make sure to subscribe to our free newsletter and elevate your serverless game! https://theburningmonk.com/subscribe
Opening theme song:
Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

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