Real World Serverless with theburningmonk

In this episode, I spoke with Dax Raad to talk about SST and the challenges of building an open-source community. Honestly, I think AWS can learn a thing or two from Dax's approach towards open-source, an approach that puts the needs of the customers first at the cost of the convenience of the maintainers.

We talked about some shortcomings of CDK, the origin of SST and what problems it's supposed to solve; who are the intended users; and how SST differs from other simpler products on the market.

We talked about  Dax's journey into serverless, via Kubernetes. And the self-realization that deep down, behind all the arguments about "vendor lock-in", he was pushing back on serverless because he was trying to avoid learning another thing.

And we reminisced about learning programming languages and our shared appreciation for Erlang and the actor model!

Links from the episode:

• Check out SST here

In this episode, I spoke with Kirk Kirkconnell to talk about his experience with database technologies and serverless. Kirk had been involved with databases his whole career, including recently with the DynamoDB and Momento teams.

We talked about single table design with DynamoDB - when to use it and some common drawbacks to consider. We discussed the strength and weaknesses of DynamoDB DAX and when to use it vs a general-purpose caching solution like Momento.

But the big discussion was about the rise of faux serverless services and the important, yet often underrated role of scale to zero. And why there needs to be a litmus test for serverless storage services so people have a better idea of what they're getting themselves into!

Links from the episode:

• Litmus for serverless (blog post)
• Jobs at Momento
• Getting started with Momento

This episode is sponsored by Momento. Get all the benefits of database caching and none of the operational headache with Momento Serverless Cache. Start free at gomomento.co/realworld.

For more stories about real-world use of serverless technologies, please follow me on Twitter as @theburningmonk and subscribe to this podcast.

Want to step up your AWS game and learn how to build production-ready serverless applications? Check out my upcoming workshops and I will teach you everything I know.

Opening theme song:
Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

In this episode, I spoke with Vijai Ramcharan to talk about his experience with introducing serverless at NN, a 175 years-old financial services company based in the Netherlands.

We touched on many topics, from changing existing mindsets and training engineers about AWS and serverless, to vendor lock-in and challenges with adopting serverless at the enterprise scale.

Links from the episode:

• Vacancies at NN
• Vijai's article on kickstarting serverless adoption at NN
• Werner Vogel's keynote at re:invent 2022
• Gregor Hophe's talk on Modern cloud applications: Do they lock you in?

This episode is sponsored by Momento. Get all the benefits of database caching and none of the operational headache with Momento Serverless Cache. Start free at gomomento.co/realworld.

For more stories about real-world use of serverless technologies, please follow us on Twitter as @RealWorldSls and subscribe to this podcast.

Want to step up your AWS game and learn how to build production-ready serverless applications? Check out my upcoming workshops and I will teach you everything I know.

Opening theme song:
Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

In this episode, I caught up with Rowan Udell to talk about his book The Practical AWS IAM Guide and get his takes on IAM best practices.

Links from the episode:

• AWS IAM Analyzer
• Cloudsplaining
• IAM live
• Permissions.Cloud
• TrackIAM
• AWS services that work with IAM

This episode is sponsored by Momento. Get all the benefits of database caching and none of the operational headache with Momento Serverless Cache. Start free at gomomento.co/realworld.

For more stories about real-world use of serverless technologies, please follow us on Twitter as @RealWorldSls and subscribe to this podcast.

Want to step up your AWS game and learn how to build production-ready serverless applications? Check out my upcoming workshops and I will teach you everything I know.

Opening theme song:
Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

In this episode, I caught up with Ben Bridts, who is an AWS Community Hero and consultant at Cloudar in Belgium.

We talked about many topics, including common mistakes companies make in AWS; the problems with AWS Organizations; pitfalls with platform teams; and some success stories from his work as a consultant.

Links from the episode:

• Alex DeBrie's post on GraphQL and Single-table design

For more stories about real-world use of serverless technologies, please follow us on Twitter as @RealWorldSls and subscribe to this podcast.

Want to step up your AWS game and learn how to build production-ready serverless applications? Check out my upcoming workshops and I will teach you everything I know.

Opening theme song:
Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

In this episode, I caught up with Sarah Hamilton, who is an AWS Community Builder and a software engineer at LEGO.

We talked about her journey into serverless and LEGO's serverless adoption has changed since I spoke with Sheen and Nicole on this podcast. In the two years since they have grown from 6 features teams to over 25, all focused on serverless technologies. We also talked about some of Sarah's previous work, especially a project where she used Step Functions, and her approach towards testing Step Functions.

Links from the episode:

• Sarah's talk on advanced event-driven architectures at LEGO group
• Episode 12: Serverless at LEGO with Nicole Yip and Sheen Brisals

For more stories about real-world use of serverless technologies, please follow us on Twitter as @RealWorldSls and subscribe to this podcast.

Want to step up your AWS game and learn how to build production-ready serverless applications? Check out my upcoming workshops and I will teach you everything I know.

Opening theme song:
Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

In this episode, I spoke with Sam Williams, who runs the Complete Coding YouTube channel where he teaches about AWS and Serverless. He recently published a new video course called "Master AWS Serverless with 7 Real World Projects" and shared some helpful tips on picking the right course and how you can get the most from these courses.

Sam is also a serverless consultant and has helped many startups adopt serverless technologies successfully. We also discussed why it's a no-brainer for startups to choose serverless over containers nowadays!

Links from the episode:

• Sam's new video course, "Master AWS Serverless with 7 Real World Projects", get 20% OFF with the code YAN
• Sam's YouTube channel
• Sam's video using his homemade lightboard
• My "AppSync Masterclass" video course

For more stories about real-world use of serverless technologies, please follow us on Twitter as @RealWorldSls and subscribe to this podcast.

Want to step up your AWS game and learn how to build production-ready serverless applications? Check out my upcoming workshops and I will teach you everything I know.

Opening theme song:
Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

In this episode, I spoke with AWS Serverless Hero Luc van Donkersgoed about how PostNL is using serverless technologies and discussed the challenges of building event-driven architectures and how PostNL tackles problems such as schema validation and testing.

Links from the episode:

• Build cloud-native apps with Serverless interaction testing
• IT vacancies at PostNL
• AWS Distro for OpenTelemtry
• AWS X-Ray vs Lumigo
• My upcoming Testing Serverless Architectures video course

For more stories about real-world use of serverless technologies, please follow us on Twitter as @RealWorldSls and subscribe to this podcast.

Want to step up your AWS game and learn how to build production-ready serverless applications? Check out my upcoming workshops and I will teach you everything I know.

Opening theme song:
Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

In this episode, I caught up with Eoin Shanaghy to talk about his work at FourTheorem, a boutique consultancy based out of Ireland. We touched on many topics, including the challenges for serverless adoption at enterprises and a super interesting client project he worked on, which involved using serverless at scale in a high-performance computing environment.

Links from the episode:

• FourRheorem website
• AWS Bites
• #39: Fighting COVID with serverless with Denis Bauer

For more stories about real-world use of serverless technologies, please follow us on Twitter as @RealWorldSls and subscribe to this podcast.

Want to step up your AWS game and learn how to build production-ready serverless applications? Check out my upcoming workshops and I will teach you everything I know.

Opening theme song:
Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

In this episode, I spoke with Nick Tune and Kacper Gunia to talk about Team Topologies, i.e. how to structure businesses and teams so that you can get stuff done faster. Companies often struggle to adopt modern software development practices and technologies because their team structures are misaligned with the practices they're trying to adopt. In this conversation, we will discuss what is team topologies, having the right incentives and funding models for teams, common anti-patterns, the problems with scrum and so much more! 

Links from the episode:

• London DDD meetup group
• Independent Value Streams with Domain-Driven Design (3h video course)
• teamtopologies.com

For more stories about real-world use of serverless technologies, please follow us on Twitter as @RealWorldSls and subscribe to this podcast.

Want to step up your AWS game and learn how to build production-ready serverless applications? Check out my upcoming workshops and I will teach you everything I know.

Opening theme song:
Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0