AWS Tech Talk: Infrastructure is Code with the AWS CDK

If you missed the Infrastructure is Code with the AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) Tech Talk last week, you can now watch it online on the AWS Online Tech Talks channel. Elad and I had a ton of fun building this little URL shortener sample app to demo the AWS CDK for Python. If you aren’t a Python developer, don’t worry! The Python code we use is easy to understand and translates directly to other languages. Plus, you can learn a lot about the AWS CDK and get a tour of the AWS Construct Library.

Specifically, in this tech talk, you can see us:

• Build a URL shortener service using AWS Constructs for AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway and Amazon DynamoDB.
• Demonstrate the concept of shared infrastructure through a base CDK stack class that includes APIs for accessing shared resources such as a domain name and a VPC.
• Use AWS Fargate to create a custom construct for a traffic generator.
• Use a 3rd party construct library which automatically defines a monitoring dashboard and alarms for supported resources.

If you’re hungry for more after watching the Tech Talk, check out these resources to learn more about the AWS CDK:

• https://cdkworkshop.com — This fun, online workshop takes an hour or two to complete and is available in both TypeScript and Python. You learn how to work with the AWS CDK by building an application using AWS Lambda, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon API Gateway.
• https://www.github.com/aws-samples/aws-cdk-examples — After you know the basics of the AWS CDK, you’re ready to jump into the AWS CDK Examples repo! Learn more about the Constructs available in the AWS Construct Library. There are examples available for TypeScript, Python, C#, and Java. You can find the URL shortener sample app from our Tech Talk here, too.

I hope you enjoy learning about the AWS CDK. Let us know what other types of examples, apps, or construct libraries you want to see us build in demos or sample code!

Happy constructing!

Jason and Elad