In this episode of AWS Bites podcast, Luciano and Eoin talk about AWS services related to events and message passing like SQS, SNS, Event Bridge, Kinesis and Kafka (MSK). We discuss in which context is convenient to use messages and events and we deliver a quick walkthrough of all the services discussing major features and some practical examples on how to use them. In this episode we mentioned the following resources: - SNS: https://aws.amazon.com/sns/ - SQS: https://aws.amazon.com/sqs/ - Event...
Jan 28, 2022•22 min•Ep 21•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of AWS Bites podcast, Eoin and Luciano talk about whether it is worth to get an AWS certification and why. We discuss why a certification can be important from the perspective of individuals and companies, what are the certifications available and how are they grouped. Finally we try to provide some suggestions for a study plan and give various useful resources and tips. In this episode we mentioned the following resources: - Official AWS certifications landing page: https://aws....
Jan 21, 2022•25 min•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of AWS Bites podcast, Luciano and Eoin talk about what the serverless Developer Experience (DX) is like and whether we should consider it still immature or not. In this context we discuss some of the struggles with local development, what are some tools that can make our lives easier and how we can improve the overall serverless experience. In this episode we mentioned the following resources: - LocalStack: https://localstack.cloud/ - Serverless offline plugin: https://github.com...
Jan 14, 2022•17 min•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of AWS Bites, Eoin and Luciano discuss some interesting strategies to take a workload to the cloud. Most of this episode is built around “6 Strategies for Migrating Applications to the Cloud” by Stephen Orban: ( https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/enterprise-strategy/6-strategies-for-migrating-applications-to-the-cloud/ ) in which you can find the concepts of the “6 Rs for cloud migrations”: Retire or Retain, Re-purchase, Re-host, Re-platform and Re-architecture. Throughout the episode ...
Jan 07, 2022•20 min•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of AWS Bites podcast, Luciano and Eoin talk about some ideas to stay update with the evergreen world of AWS. This is a much less structured episode than usual and we informally discuss some of our favourite resources including blogs, articles, YouTube channels, other podcasts and Twitter profiles. In this episode we mentioned the following resources: - AWS what’s new (official): https://aws.amazon.com/new/ - AWS Podcast https://aws.amazon.com/podcasts/aws-podcast/ - Werner Vog...
Dec 31, 2021•16 min•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Eoin and Luciano explore the various pros and cons of AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK). We start by describing what CDK is and what it is used for. Then we spend a bit of time covering the details of how CDK actually works defining L1, L2 and L3 (patterns) constructs and the integration with CloudFormation. In the central part of the episode we deep dive into a bunch of pros and cons of CDK, mostly trying to describe the tradeoffs and the pitfalls. Finally, we close the episode b...
Dec 24, 2021•26 min•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast In this extended episode, Luciano and Eoin try to cover a recurring topic around Serverless: is it a good or bad idea for startups? We start by giving a brief description of the different definitions and perspectives on serverless. Then, we try to explore some cases in which we believe serverless might not be the best fit for a startup. We follow on by revisiting some cases where instead we believe serverless can actually be a great fit. We finish by discussing some suggestions on how a startup ...
Dec 17, 2021•19 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast In this extended episode, Eoin and Luciano talk about Amplify with a particular focus on Amplify Studio, a new visual way to manage Amplify applications announced at the recent re:Invent event during Werner Vogels’ keynote. In this episode we mentioned the following: - Amplify Studio: https://aws.amazon.com/amplify/studio/ - Figma: https://www.figma.com/ - The 2021 AWS re:Invent Werner Vogels keynote segment on Amplify Studio: https://youtu.be/8_Xs8Ik0h1w?t=3346 - Ali Spittel: https://www.youtub...
Dec 10, 2021•19 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast In this special episode, Eoin and Luciano talk about their impression on the announcements from day 2 and 3 of AWS re:invent 2021. We mentioned the following resources: - Kinesis on-demand data streams - https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2021/11/amazon-kinesis-data-streams-on-demand/ - Redshift Serverless - https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2021/11/amazon-redshift-serverless/ - Serverless MSK - https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2021/11/amazon-msk-serverless-public-prev...
Dec 02, 2021•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this special episode, Eoin and Luciano talk about their impression on the announcements from the first day of AWS re:invent 2021. AWS Lambda now supports event filtering for Amazon SQS, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon Kinesis as event sources: https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2021/11/aws-lambda-event-filtering-amazon-sqs-dynamodb-kinesis-sources/ Amazon CodeGuru Reviewer now detects hardcoded secrets in Java and Python repositories: https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2021/11/ama...
Nov 30, 2021•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this special episode, Eoin and Luciano talk about their wishlist for AWS re:invent 2021. Based on our experience and personal AWS pain points, we share some of our wishes for new announcements during the biggest cloud event of the year. We also discuss some of the biggest announcements of last year and a few tips on how to get ready to follow the announcements of the next few days. CORRECTION: The changes in data transfer were not reported accurately in this episode. The monthly data transfer...
Nov 28, 2021•31 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Eoin and Luciano talk about how to manage AWS credentials and different ways to manage them. From the more traditional (and not recommended) IAM credentials to SSO. In this episode we mentioned the following resources: - GitHub integration with OIDC: https://docs.github.com/en/actions/deployment/security-hardening-your-deployments/configuring-openid-connect-in-amazon-web-services - MFA access for assumed roles: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_credentials_mfa_...
Nov 26, 2021•9 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Luciano and Eoin discuss the good and the bad of the AWS Management Console (a.k.a. the web console) and why you should consider migrating to Infrastructure as Code (IaC) as soon as possible, especially for your production applications. In this episode we mentioned the following resources: - Cloudformation: https://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/ - CDK: https://aws.amazon.com/cdk/ - Serverless Framework: https://www.serverless.com/ - SAM: https://aws.amazon.com/serverless/sam - T...
Nov 19, 2021•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Eoin and Luciano try to explain whether you should consider Lambda or Fargate for containers. We start by clarifying what we really mean by containers and what kind of container support you get in both Lambda and Fargate. Then we go into more detail about the characteristics of both services including limits and pricing. By the end of this episode you should be able to understand how the two services compare and which one might be more suitable for your next project! In this epi...
Nov 12, 2021•8 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Eoin and Luciano try to answer a beginner question: how to get started with AWS. Special thanks to Adam Mann ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-e-mann/ ) for suggesting this question! AWS is so big that it doesn’t make any sense to try to learn it all! It’s better to learn the fundamentals and then focus on specific areas of interest to get the best out of AWS. But what are these fundamentals and where do I start if I have a background as a web developer? Check out this episode ...
Nov 05, 2021•7 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast In this Halloween-themed episode, Eoin and Luciano tell some AWS horror stories! Get ready for some trick or treat! Of course we have to start with billing and we tell some of our failures with predicting cost ending up with a nightmarishly bad billing surprise! We also discuss some horror stories from the perspective of AWS developer experience and finally we touch on some Cloudformation terrors! In this episode we mentioned the following resources: AWS NAT Gateway: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/...
Oct 28, 2021•8 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode Eoin and Luciano try to reply to a question suggested by Emily Shea on Twitter ( https://twitter.com/em__shea ): When do you use Step Functions? Our answer describes what Step Function is and what you can build with it. We discuss some examples of features that we built in the past using step functions (a billing engine and a crawler) and why. We also discuss what are the main advantages of Step Functions and some things to be aware of, including limitations, cost and when ...
Oct 21, 2021•10 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode Eoin and Luciano talk about the pricing model for AWS Lambda and describe some cases where it could be a very convenient solution but also cases where it might end up being very expensive (compared to EC2 spot instances). In this episode we mentioned the following resources: Lambda power tuning: https://github.com/alexcasalboni/aws-lambda-power-tuning You are thinking about serverless costs all wrong: https://theburningmonk.com/2019/01/you-are-thinking-about-serverless-costs-all-...
Oct 15, 2021•8 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode Eoin and Luciano talk about their favourite AWS services and why they like them. Spoiler: we talk about EventBridge, Lambda, CloudFormation, CDK, S3, ECS/Fargate plus some honorable mentions like CloudWatch and IAM. In this episode we mentioned the following resources: SLIC Watch: https://github.com/fourTheorem/slic-watch/ This episode is also available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3WPpke5mzsbiij1zGFbeEA You can listen to AWS Bites wherever you get your podcasts:...
Oct 08, 2021•10 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode Eoin and Luciano talk about programming languages in the context of Lambda. What language should you use? Actually we really answer the question “what languages do WE like to use in the context of Lambda”. Be ready for a lot of strong opinions in this episode! In this episode we mentioned the following resources: - AWS Lambda Rust Runtime: https://github.com/awslabs/aws-lambda-rust-runtime This show is also available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3WPpke5mzsbiij1zG...
Oct 01, 2021•10 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode Eoin and Luciano talk about static websites . What are the main requisites for a static website, where to host them and how to do it in AWS. Finally we touch on some common gotchas and tools that can make it easier for you to deploy static websites on AWS (spoiler: Amplify!). In this episode we mentioned the following resources: - SLIC Starter: https://github.com/fourTheorem/slic-starter - Netlify: https://www.netlify.com/ - Vercel: https://vercel.com/ - Amplify: https://aws.amaz...
Sep 24, 2021•8 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode Eoin and Luciano talk about whether you should go all in and build multi-cloud applications or stick to one cloud provider. But first of all we try to define what multi-cloud means for us and how it is different from hybrid-cloud and cloud-agnostic deployments. We also discuss the perils of cloud-agnostic and why you should rather consider having “only” a migration strategy. In this episode we mentioned the following resources: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/containers/introducing-...
Sep 16, 2021•10 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode Eoin and Luciano talk about what it means to adopt serverless, when you should use AWS Lambda, and when you should not use serverless.
Sep 09, 2021•7 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast Eoin and Luciano are excited to announce AWS Bites, a new weekly podcast on all things AWS. Every Friday morning, we will release a new episode where we try to answer interesting AWS questions. You can find AWS Bites on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and wherever else you get your podcasts. Don’t forget to subscribe and let us know if you have any questions you would like us to cover in a future episode. See you next Friday!
Sep 03, 2021•36 sec•Transcript available on Metacast 
