Ask most developers why they like the CDK and they will say “It lets me write infrastructure in my favourite programming language”. That’s nice, but why should that be a consideration for an Infra-as-Code (IaC) tool? That’s like saying “I like Strepsils because it tastes like candy”. ps. if you…

Yesterday, I posted a tweet with an imaginary conversation that is sadly based on many real conversations I have had. The tweet received some interesting replies, and the point about spending limits came up multiple times. …

It’s coming up to 4 years since I left full-time employment to embark on a career as an independent consultant. By and large, things have gone to plan and I have enjoyed both the freedom and challenges that come with working for yourself. …

Managing and securing application secrets is a crucial part of any cloud-native application. AWS offers two primary services: the Systems Manager (SSM) Parameter Store and the more recent Secrets Manager. You might think Secrets Manager is the better choice for managing secrets because it’s a newer service and offers more…

Last week, we looked at implementing passwordless authentication using one-time passwords (OTPs) using Cognito. Another popular passwordless authentication method is magic links where: The user initiates the sign-in process by entering their email in your application. They receive an email with a time-limited URL. The user clicks on the URL…

Passwordless authentication is the future of online security. Let me show you how to implement it using Amazon Cognito — Password-based authentication has long been the norm for securing user accounts. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that password-based authentication has several drawbacks. Such as the risk of password theft, the need for users to remember complex passwords, and the time and effort required to reset forgotten passwords.

The launch of EventBridge Scheduler was one of the highlights for me for re:Invent 2022. Finally, we have a scalable service that lets us schedule ad-hoc, one-off tasks in a serverless way! For longtime followers of my work, you might have read “Serverless Architectures on AWS, 2nd Edition”. In the…

Many software engineering concepts show up in different contexts. Modularity, the single-responsibility principle and separation of concerns are just a few examples that come to mind. They are equally applicable to how we write code, architect our systems and organize our teams. Similarly, there are many parallels between multithreaded programming…

I’m a big fan of using ephemeral (or temporary) environments when I’m building serverless architectures. I have written about this practice before and I believe it’s one of the most important practices that have co-evolved with the rise of serverless technologies. It takes advantage of the pay-per-use pricing model offered…