Title: Issue #43: Lambda, Pipes, and Everything Nice Publication: Ready, Set, Cloud! Series: Ready, Set, Cloud Picks of the Week Author: Allen Helton Published: January 23, 2023 URL: https://www.readysetcloud.io/newsletter/43/ Get some amazing expert level advice on trending topics in serverless from last week. ### Serverless Superhero Our serverless superhero this week is [Michael Walmsley](https://twitter.com/walmsles), serverless application architect at [Accenture](https://twitter.com/Accenture) and AWS Community Builder. Michael is highly active in the serverless community and writes great content [on his blog](https://blog.walmsles.io/). He seems to know everybody in serverless, so if you haven't had the chance to meet him yet, be sure to reach out! Thank you Michael for everything you do for the community! ### Tutorials Lambda container images have been around for a while, but they still have a shroud of mystery around them. How do you build one? When do you need one? Can you deploy it via IaC? [Ran Isenberg](https://twitter.com/IsenbergRan) posted a great article last week [answering all those questions](https://www.ranthebuilder.cloud/post/build-aws-lambda-container-image-with-aws-cdk). He explains use cases for a Lambda container image and exactly how to build one in the CDK. It's the most concise article I've read about the topic. Great work! In part two of his series on [EventBridge pipes being the missing piece in your EDA puzzle](https://medium.com/@mbneto/is-eventbridge-pipes-the-missing-piece-in-your-event-driven-puzzle-part-ii-a06fdddfb0fa), [Mario Bittencourt](https://twitter.com/bicatu) covers the power of enrichments and transformations. He walks us through an example converting a DynamoDB stream record to a meaningful SNS message. He covers what happens when your enrichments fail and leaves us with a reminder that it's not a silver bullet. ### Interesting Reads You've probably heard me say it a few times already, but [2023 is the year of observability](https://readysetcloud.io/blog/allen.helton/serverless-in-2023-a-shift-in-focus). To help us in our adventure, I ([Allen Helton](https://twitter.com/allenheltondev)) released an article giving you [good news and bad news about your cloud metrics](https://readysetcloud.io/blog/allen.helton/good-news-and-bad-news-about-your-cloud-metrics). Many of us fall into the "just deploy the APM vendor stack to my environment and we're done" trap, thinking our observability game is on point. But I have some bad news.... that's not enough. In our [last issue](https://readysetcloud.io/newsletter/42), it was announced that AWS released a new feature to limit the maximum concurrency of SQS to Lambda. [Zac Charles](https://twitter.com/zaccharles) gave it a once over to answer the question "[does maximum concurrency solve the Lambda+SQS issue?](https://zaccharles.medium.com/does-maximum-concurrency-solve-the-lambda-sqs-issue-3c19701e6e75)" Along with his findings, he beautifully describes the *SQS overpull problem* which seems to still be an issue even with this new feature. ### New Releases Not much in the way of new serverless features came out last week. However, the videos from the Serverless Summit 2022 are now online! The videos are separated into [day one](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfBnFpZM3w6mtIXJ-IlSviLuyB6FS3zyj) and [day two](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfBnFpZM3w6kTeiI2TtZZZVP2j1X9Ztyg) playlists to help you easily find what you're looking for. ### Spotlight Those of you that [follow my blog](https://readysetcloud.io) probably know I'm a big *infrastructure from code* guy. I did an experiment a while back that compared a few IfC vendors against several categories. [Ala Shiban](https://twitter.com/AlaShiban) published a great article on [the current state of infrastructure from code](https://klo.dev/state-of-infrastructure-from-code-2023/) where he dissects the different ways 7 vendors approach the problem. It's a great way to gauge your options if you're looking to dip your toes into the space. ### Tip of the Week With serverless adoption rates skyrocketing, a portion of the current workforce has experience *only* with serverless development. [Boris Tane](https://twitter.com/BorisTane) ran across this last week when he was speaking to a new dev. Crazy to think how our paradigms are shifting and what some of the new de facto skills have become. ### Last Words Ready, Set, Cloud is growing! If you haven't [checked out the podcast](https://readysetcloud.io/podcast), episode 1 released last Friday. New episodes are coming every other week, so look for the next one this coming Friday, the 27th! If you'd like to make a recommendation for the serverless superhero or for an article you found especially useful, send me a message on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/allenheltondev), [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/allenheltondev/), or [email](mailto:allenheltondev@gmail.com). Happy Coding! Allen