real world serverless

Real World ServerlessJustin Wood

Presentation title[To edit, click View > Slide Master > Slide Master]

© 2016. For information, contact Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited. 2

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

- Winston Churchill



AWS Lambda is a zero-administration compute platform …

- AWS Lambda Documentation

Real World Serverless© 2017. For information, contact Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited. 4

Traditional Current Emerging

How

What

Where

Changes in the way we work


Infrastructure Infrastructure as Code No Infrastructure

Changes in the way we work


Traditional Old Current

How

What

Where

ZeroOps

Functions

Serverless Computing Network Operating System

Emerging

Changes in the way we workWe rewrite this ... because we like the bleeding edge


Yay!It’s Simple and Works


Man, that was actually hard!It’s Sophisticated and works


Man, I should have thought that through!

I wasn’t that clever


Simple enoughLogshippers for APIs


The explosion of eleganceLogshippers for APIs (2)

1 API1 Lambda1 Trigger2 Buckets

When you deploy an API DevOps some lambdas to go with it!

APIs Functions Triggers BucketsStart 1 1 1 2


The explosion of eleganceLogshippers for APIs (3)

That was easy lets ramp up:

APIs Lambdas Triggers BucketsStart 1 1 1 2Add CPU log shipper 2 2 2 4Add 6 more APIs 14 14 14 28Deploy to Pre-prod 28 28 28 56Other API’s are in build 34 34 34 68



Tip:

Less is more.



Tip:

Serverless is still maturing be prepared for change.


• Environment variables• Serverless Application Model (use Cloud Formation it only took 2 years)• Step Functions• Dead letter queue• X-Ray• C#• Lambda Edge • Lots of integrations to other AWS services e.g. Lex• Will run on devices! i.e. push to IOT• Serverless micro frameworks• 3rd party tool innovations• Heaps of other stuff …

It’s a long listSome BIG changes in Lambda this year

All in the last 3 months!



Tip:

Rethink using Java for Lambda … seriously.


Lots of BIG java codeLots of Lambdas

e.g. 40 * 25MB

~1 GB! of ‘Uber’ Jars



Tip:

Start with a serverless DevOps framework that’s integrated with your infrastructure as code


• What is your Infrastructure as Code Approach?

• Dockerised builds?• Potentially working across clouds?• Using AWS DevOps?• Do you need support for shims i.e.

‘non-standard’ code?• Per environment configuration?

Carefully …Choose a serverless famework

VIP


•DevOps friendly•Has shims so I could write Lambda in Go• Integrates with Terraform

I’m moving to ApexServerless Framework

$ curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/apex/apex/master/install.sh | sh$ apex deploy$ echo ‘{“api_name”,”battleships”}’ | apex deploy aplog



Tip:

More on DevOps … make your functions independently manageable.



Tip (probably the most important one) :

Remember serverless is an event driven / message based architecture


Lambda App ExampleMessage Flow

https://devpost.com/software/clive-a-serverless-slack-bot-for-aws


Lambda App ExampleMessage Flow

https://aws.amazon.com/step-functions/

• Design appropriately• Respond to events• ‘Think async’ • Always return a message• Issue events• Orchestrate with Step Functions• Always throw errors and use the DLQ• Monitor across the flow



Tip:

Think about security early


Function security

More SecureBut More ‘AppOpps’

• Typical AWS resource style security all environments in one place … no tagging :-(• Think carefully about Downstream services


Questions

?

real world serverless

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