Running Serverless: Introduction to AWS Lambda and the Serverless Application Model

I don't rightly know what to do with this one.On one hand, it's obviously just an introductory material to the world of cloud functions and serverless and should be judged as such, meaning one shouldn't expect advanced topics and considerations within. Taken like that, Running Serverless is a resounding success - it starts from the simplest hello world example and proceeds to incrementally build a tiny website that, while still extremely simple, actually does something you may really see in practice. Step by step, you are shown the basic concepts behind AWS Lambda and SAM and taught not to make typical rookie mistakes.On the other hand, Gojko Adžić is a prominent voice in IT, and the book also promised to showcase emergent serverless patterns, best practices and pitfalls - on that aspect, unfortunately, it barely gets a passing grade. I know I can sometimes be a bit of a pedantic (yes, an understatement) but there's plenty of things that would have irked a lesser nitpicker as well. First, the frequent unguarded advice, much of which would present a horrible idea to most mid-sized to large systems - the absolute worst of these being the promotion of a pattern that breaks database encapsulation in order to cut operational costs without much discussion of the dangers and tradeoffs of doing so. Second, the claims made without any data or references to back them up; for instance, saying that an AWS system X is better than Y for such and such use case - maybe true but it would have been nice to see the arguments and data behind those assertions. Or saying that not loading an image into memory within your Lambda function saves money - true in some cases but probably not in all of them given the fact that AWS and other cloud providers use fairly coarse granularity for memory use - it used to be 64MB for AWS, meaning a function that uses 65MB costs the same as the one that uses 127MB. Granted, the final chapter does go back and review some of the recommendations but to me that felt too little, too late.And finally, one more thing bothered me - among the listed drawbacks, dos and don'ts of Lambda, not a single mention was made of the fact that Lambdas tend to bind you to AWS almost completely, which makes building large, multi-provider, resilient systems harder since you can't just port the code over with just minor changes. And, perhaps more importantly given the cost-saving obsession of the book - being bound to AWS prevents you from cutting your costs by moving to another cloud provider, just like Zoom did with Oracle Cloud (for a reportedly 5-10x reduction of operational costs). Just sayin'.

In progress of reading.Not a BIG book, but ... its's good & easy reading.Nice explanations and informative step by step workflow.

Relevant and practical hands-on, just go ahead.

Before reading this book, I had only done small tests of serverless applications. But following along with Running Serverless, I was able to get an application up and running that was real and realistic in only a few days.Gojko has made this introduction to serverless and AWS Lambda that is easy to follow yet very detailed as well. The book works as a book length tutorial that led me step-by-step through the details of setting up accounts, installing development software of my local machine, creating basic services, connecting to data storage, and building an entire connected serverless system.If you are looking for a way to go deep into serverless architecture but are not sure where to start, I highly recommend this book.

This book oozes deep knowledge and shares it in a very entertaining, informative and detailed way.I'm not gonna lie: I'm a sucker for tutorials - and this book is basically a long, well-written tutorial. The best part of that is that once you are done you have built your own reference application and architecture.But what is better than that is the fact that this book goes beyond normal tutorial simplifications and teaches you good practices, and tells you why and when these practices are worth considering.Throughout the book, the wit and entertaining keep your attention and interest high.I would recommend this book to anyone doing AWS work and a first stop and continued reference literature to keep close and handy during development.

As always with Gojko's books, Running Serverless is written in a style that makes complicated topics easier to understand and follow.He demystifies the Serverless Application Model and presents good advice on designing, building, implementing and running applications to take advantage of the approach using AWS Lambda.He shares his experiences from implementing serverless products in the real world, this is expert advice from an experienced practitioner who also happens to be a great communicator. The supporting website includes a free download of the code used in the tutorials in the book.Highly recommended!

This book is much more than AWS Lambda and the Serverless Application Model (SAM) introduction. It will teach you how to make good Architectural decisions, avoid Serverless pitfalls... and how to “think serverless".Plus, I think it's a big deal when Gojko - the author of an alternative AWS Lambda deployment framework (ClaudiaJS), starts teaching AWS SAM too.

Nice explanations and howtos. I just didn't see anywhere on the product description that the runtime environment used was JavaScript (or perhaps I missed it). I was longing to see Python - but overall this book was a good reference for me as it touches around approach on how you'd implement Lambda with API Gateway from a different language perspectives.I'm still a little bit disappointed though.