AWS Serverless Multi-Tier Architectures with Amazon API Gateway and AWS Lambda

4 minute read | Last updated 4-Nov-2021 | An icon depicting a retail tag with a heart for 'favourite' AWS, Cloud

AWS has a huge library of fantastic resources. This post highlights the recently released whitepaper talking about serverless multi-tier architectures.

“AWS Serverless Multi-Tier Architectures with Amazon API Gateway and AWS Lambda”, walks through how the class 3-tier—presentation, logic, data—design pattern works in a serverless world.

I call out a few more details in the Twitter thread below…

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next up in the @awscloud white paper 🧵 series, "AWS Serverless Multi-Tier Architectures with Amazon API Gateway and AWS Lambda"

yes, horrible title. thankfully, a good paper

available at : https://docs.aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/latest/serverless-multi-tier-architectures-api-gateway-lambda/welcome.html

🧵☁️ #cloud #serverless

marknca @marknca tweeted at 04-Nov-2021, 12:07

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you can read this unrolled at https://t.co/4GKVQwcume

yesterday's thread on @nistcyber & @awscloud is unrolled at https://markn.ca/2021/nist-cybersecurity-framework/

🧵☁️ #cloud #serverless

marknca @marknca tweeted at 04-Nov-2021, 12:07

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ok, first things first. yikes. what a title.

it's a marketing/SEO title that probably hinder the paper more than help it. could've easily stopped at, "AWS Serverless Multi-Tier Architectures"

that would've gotten the point across

🧵☁️ #cloud #serverless

marknca @marknca tweeted at 04-Nov-2021, 12:07

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multi-tier or n-tier architectures are pretty standard. you have three-ish layers with a specific intention:

1. presentation 2. logic 3. data

the aim is keep the bits required the goal of each layer in that layer. more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multitier_architecture

🧵☁️ #cloud #serverless

marknca @marknca tweeted at 04-Nov-2021, 12:07

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the goal of this paper is to show you how to adapt those designs into a #serverless design. so no idle resources in an event-driven system

lots of @awscloud serverless resources are up at https://aws.amazon.com/serverless/

🧵☁️ #cloud #serverless

marknca @marknca tweeted at 04-Nov-2021, 12:07

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right in the intro, the paper calls out a big reason to move these designs to #serverless ones: there's a lot of "boilerplate" components required in n-tier apps to make the connections between layers

that transitions to API calls in a serverless world

🧵☁️ #cloud #serverless

marknca @marknca tweeted at 04-Nov-2021, 12:07

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right out of the gate:

- CloudFront + S3 for presentation - @awscloud API Gateway + Lambda for logic - DynamoDB for data

is a very sweet #serverless toolkit for n-tier apps. if you're migrating an existing app, sub Lambda for Fargate

🧵☁️ #cloud #serverless

marknca @marknca tweeted at 04-Nov-2021, 12:07

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the paper itself focuses on the classic 3-tier app. mainly because n != 3 is pretty rare and a stretch most of the time 🤣

🧵☁️ #cloud #serverless

marknca @marknca tweeted at 04-Nov-2021, 12:07

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they start w/the logic layer and the paper does a good job at highlighting the advantages of that @awscloud API Gateway + Lambda combo

summed up nicely as, "Your business logic goes here, no servers necessary"

🧵☁️ #cloud #serverless

marknca @marknca tweeted at 04-Nov-2021, 12:07

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the 📑 has a nice, quick call out for security, performance, and deployment for this layer. it links out to some handy resources to help you dig deeper in these areas

🧵☁️ #cloud #serverless

marknca @marknca tweeted at 04-Nov-2021, 12:07

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. @awscloud API Gateway section does a nice job of heading off most of the questions that builders ask when using the service. where appropriate, it links out to other resources

...though more links to examples & documentation would be appreciated here

🧵☁️ #cloud #serverless

marknca @marknca tweeted at 04-Nov-2021, 12:07

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the data tier is a bit of a dodge, though that's ok. it's basically a list of @awscloud data services and whether or not they are "serverless"

not much to add here because service choice depends entirely on the data & it's use...but default DynamoDB 😉

🧵☁️ #cloud #serverless

marknca @marknca tweeted at 04-Nov-2021, 12:07

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the presentation is a bit thin. it calls out Cognito (identity & data sync), CloudFront (serving up content), & Amplify (a middle glue-y framework)

Amplify deserves more attention. learn more at https://aws.amazon.com/amplify/

🧵☁️ #cloud #serverless

marknca @marknca tweeted at 04-Nov-2021, 12:07

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...but I would've liked to see more description about the challenges at the presentation layer and some of the potential solutions. if they authors didn't want to go deeper, linking out to some blog posts or public code repos would've helped readers

🧵☁️ #cloud #serverless

marknca @marknca tweeted at 04-Nov-2021, 12:07

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the 📑 wraps with some sample architectures. this is excellent and more papers need this. it really drives the key points home

mobile backend, single-page apps, web apps, & microservices are all discussed

🧵☁️ #cloud #serverless

marknca @marknca tweeted at 04-Nov-2021, 12:07

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all-in-all, this is a solid paper with—again—a terrible name. look past that and take a few minutes to read this one through. it'll give you a great overview of how to adapt these classic designs to a serverless world

/🧵☁️ #cloud #serverless

marknca @marknca tweeted at 04-Nov-2021, 12:07

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AWS Serverless Multi-Tier Architectures with Amazon API Gateway and AWS Lambda

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