ICYMI: Serverless-First Function

On May 21 and May 28, AWS hosted the first-ever serverless-focused virtual event, the AWS Serverless-First Function. These two free virtual events covered important aspects of a successful serverless approach: Serverless for your Organization and Serverless for your Application.

Serverless for your Organization, on May 21, focused on real-world tactics for transforming your organization to get the most out of the cloud. Serverless for your Application on May 28 was a builder’s guide to serverless applications for end-to-end best practices. See the following recap of the sessions, including recordings and slides.

Serverless for your organization [Recording]

Day one offered best practices and key takeaways for organizations looking to adopt a serverless-first mindset. Throughout the day, thought leaders, analysts, and customer discussed real-world examples about the benefits and process of bringing serverless to your organization. The following sessions are geared towards business leaders and developers who are looking to influence organization-wide technical decisions to unlock the fullest benefits of the cloud.

Introduction by Amazon CTO, Dr. Werner Vogels [Recording] [Slides]

The day starts with an introduction by Amazon CTO, Dr. Werner Vogels. He expands on his popular article, Modern Applications at AWS.

How operations change as your organization embraces event-driven architectures with AWS VP of Serverless, David Richardson [Recording] [Slides]

AWS VP of Serverless David Richardson’s session complements Dr. Vogels’ introduction with an overview of operational changes that occur when modernizing with event-driven architectures.

Eliminating busywork at the organizational level: Tips for using serverless to its fullest potential with AWS Sr. Principal Engineer, David Yanacek [Recording] [Slides]

David Yanacek discusses important ways to unlock the full benefits of serverless. He shows how to build services around APIs and use service-oriented architectures built on serverless systems.

Built Serverless-First: How Workgrid Software transformed from a Liberty Mutual project to its own global startup with Workgrid Software Head of Cloud Engineering, Gillian McCann and AWS Principal Serverless Solutions Architect, Sam Dengler [Recording] [Slides]

Connected through a central IT team, Liberty Mutual has embraced serverless since AWS Lambda’s inception in 2014. In this session, Gillian McCann discusses Workgrid’s serverless journey—from internal microservices project within Liberty Mutual to independent business entity. It’s all built serverless-first.

Move fast and ship things: Using serverless to increase speed and agility within your organization with AWS VP of Cloud Architecture Strategy, Adrian Cockcroft [Recording] [Slides]

Adrian Cockcroft demonstrates how you can use serverless to build modern applications faster than ever. Adrian uses real-life examples and customer stories to debunk common misconceptions about serverless.

Market insights: A conversation with Forrester VP and Principal Analyst Jeffrey Hammond & AWS Director of Product for Lambda Ajay Nair [Recording]

Guest speaker Jeffrey Hammond and Director of Product for AWS Lambda, Ajay Nair, discuss the state of serverless. They cover Lambda-based architectural approaches, Functions-as-a-Service platforms, and more. They also talk through the high-level and enduring enterprise patterns and advancements that analysts see as market drivers both today and in the future.

Closing statements with Jeff Barr, AWS VP and Chief Evangelist [Recording]

In his closing remarks, Jeff Barr recaps what he learned during the event, his favorite takeaways, and next steps you can take to keep learning.

Serverless for your Application [Recording]

The second day of the function was a developer-focused track centered around an application called FreshTracks. These sessions show end-to-end best practices when designing a serverless web application. Serverless subject matter experts led each session and covered topics like automation, observability, security, and more.

Navigating the new world of serverless: VP of Application Integration Jesse Dougherty interviews Charlie Bell, AWS SVP [Recording]

AWS VP of Application Integration Jesse Dougherty interviews AWS SVP Charlie Bell about serverless operations today. They discuss how AWS uses serverless and the benefits AWS teams get from adopting serverless-first.

Building serverless web applications with Sr. Developer Advocate, Ben Smith [Recording] [Slides]

Ben Smith demonstrates how to build and deploy a completely serverless web application from scratch. The application includes a mobile friendly front end to complex business logic on the backend.

Automating serverless application development workflows with Sr. Developer Advocate, Eric Johnson [Recording] [Slides]

Eric Johnson breaks down how to think about CI/CD when building serverless applications with AWS Lambda and Amazon API Gateway. This session covers how to use technologies like AWS SAM to build CI/CD pipelines for serverless application back ends.

Observability for your serverless applications with Sr. Developer Advocate, Julian Wood [Recording] [Slides]

Julian Wood demonstrates how to add monitoring, logging, and distributed tracing to your serverless applications. He covers how to track platform and business metrics, and visualize the performance and operations of your application. He shows how to decide which services should be optimized to improve your customers’ experience.

Serverless application security with Sr. Developer Advocate, Rob Sutter [Recording] [Slides]

Rob Sutter discusses how to think about security for a serverless web application from front to back. The session introduces several controls available to you and the best practices for configuring them. He highlights ways to build more secure applications for an event-driven model.

Performance tuning for serverless web applications with Sr. Developer Advocate, James Beswick [Recording] [Slides]

James Beswick demonstrates how to get the most from your serverless backend. He shows how to reduce and eliminate cold starts and how to identify bottlenecks and areas for improvement. He covers advanced approaches to measuring application performance.

Closing statements with Sr. Manager of Developer Advocacy, Chris Munns and Sr. Developer Advocate, Eric Johnson [Recording]

Chris Munns and Eric Johnson close the function with their final remarks and takeaways on the two days of sessions.