profile

AWS for the Real World

We teach AWS for the real world - not for certifications. Join more than 10,500 developers learning how to build real-world applications on AWS.

Featured Post

I always go Lambda-first. Except for this.

AWS FOR THE REAL WORLD ⏱️ Reading time: 8 minutes 🎯 Main Learning: How to pause Step Function workflows for human approval using the callback pattern πŸ“ Blog Post πŸ’» GitHub Repository 🎬 Watch on YouTube Hey Reader πŸ‘‹πŸ½ I've used this pattern in almost every project I've built. Whenever you need a human in the loop - approvals, reviews, manual checks - and you still want to see what's happening, Step Functions are perfect. Lambda is my go-to for almost everything. APIs S3 triggers event consumers...

AWS FOR THE REAL WORLD ⏱️ Reading time: 5 minutes 🎯 Main Learning: How to make Claude write production-ready Terraform instead of technical debt 🎬 Watch on YouTube πŸ“ Blog Post πŸ’» GitHub Repository Hey Reader πŸ‘‹πŸ½ We've been heads-down the past weeks. Preparing the live AMA workshops from Black Friday (sorry for the delay!) and recording new YouTube videos. It's been a lot of fun. Speaking of videos - this week Tobi recorded one you'll want to watch. Here's the problem: LLMs want to close the...

AWS FOR THE REAL WORLD ⏱️ Reading time: 8 minutes 🎯 Main Learning: 5 practical techniques to cut Lambda costs (memory, timeouts, ARM, batching, caching) πŸ“ Blog Post 🎬 Watch on YouTube Hey Reader πŸ‘‹πŸ½ Lambda bills can sneak up on you. One function is often not expensive. But then you scale it up and πŸ’₯ it costs you $5,000. Sounds familiar? We had this exact problem with our Shopify fraud detection app. Orders coming in via EventBridge, each triggering its own Lambda.And the bill was $150/month...

AWS FOR THE REAL WORLD ⏱️ Reading time: 8 minutes 🎯 Main Learning: Generate AWS architecture diagrams using AI with Kiro and MCP servers - skip the hours of dragging boxes in Lucidchart. πŸ“ Blog Post 🎬 Watch on YouTube Hey Reader πŸ‘‹πŸ½ Big news: We launched our YouTube channel! 🎬 We've published 7 videos so far and are almost at 800 subscribers. Our goal is to keep a weekly rhythm, so expect fresh content every week. If you haven't subscribed yet, here's the link. No exciting AWS news this week....

AWS FOR THE REAL WORLD ⏱️ Reading time: 10 minutes 🎯 Main Learning: Building and testing Lambda@Edge functions with CloudFront is complicated, as deployments can take up to 10 minutes. With LocalStack, you can build, test, and debug your Lambda@Edge functions locally! πŸ“ Blog Post πŸ’» GitHub Repository 🎬 Watch on YouTube Hey Reader πŸ‘‹πŸ½ Happy new year! We hope you had a great time with your families and loved ones 😊 We took some time off. Sandro is bridging the cold winter in Thailand (say hi if...

AWS FOR THE REAL WORLD ⏱️ Reading time: 7 minutes 🎯 Main Learning: Learn how to securely connect to your RDS database in a private subnet using an EC2 jumphost and AWS Session Manager. No SSH keys needed. πŸ“ Blog Post πŸ’» GitHub Repository 🎬 Watch on YouTube Hey Reader πŸ‘‹πŸ½ Hope you had a great Christmas with your loved ones πŸŽ„ Tobi and I spent a few days in Berlin consulting with a startup, then caught the last sunny days in Munich before winter really hits. This week: how to actually connect to...

AWS FOR THE REAL WORLD ⏱️ Reading time: 6 minutes 🎯 Main Learning: Build a central alerting approach with CloudWatch, Lambda, EventBridge, and CDK across your AWS Organization. πŸ“ Blog Post πŸ’» GitHub Repository 🎬 Watch on YouTube Hey Reader πŸ‘‹πŸ½ Welcome to the first issue after re:Invent. For everybody who was out there, I hope you came home safe & healthy. I heard re:Invent cold is a thing like Oktoberfest cold in Munich 🍻 πŸ“° This Week in AWS ⏸️AWS Lambda Durable Functions Lambda launched Durable...

AWS FOR THE REAL WORLD ⏱️ Reading time: 6 minutes 🎯 Main Learning: Learn how to securely connect GitHub Actions to your AWS account using OIDC authentication without storing access keys. Step-by-step guide with IAM role setup, trust policy configuration, and workflow examples for safe CI/CD deployments. πŸ“ Blog Post Hey Reader πŸ‘‹πŸ½, welcome to another week of AWS for the Real World We are right in the middle of pre:invent. Re:Invent starts next week! We are both not present, but we will give you...

AWS FOR THE REAL WORLD ⏱️ Reading time: 4 minutes 🎯 Main Learning: AWS CloudWatch log centralization makes cross-account logging simple. Learn how to set it up, avoid gotchas, and query logs across your organization. πŸ“ Blog Post Hey Reader πŸ‘‹πŸ½ another week, another newsletter about CloudWatch. This time we're talking about a rather new feature: Log Centralization. But quick question before we dive into this week’s CloudWatch deep dive… We’re 6 weeks out from 2025 (wild, right?) and I’m...

AWS FOR THE REAL WORLD ⏱️ Reading time: 20 minutes 🎯 Main Learning: How to achieve end-to-end observability by integrating CloudWatch Application Signals with OpenTelemetry for automatic service discovery and cross-service request tracing in AWS. πŸ“ Blog Post πŸ’» GitHub Repository Hey Reader πŸ‘‹πŸ½ Welcome to this week’s AWS Fundamentals Newsletter. Pre:Invent season is starting slowly with new launches like: Bigger payload sizes for Kinesis and async Lambda invocations CloudWatch’s interactive...