The cloud offers immense possibilities for delivering software innovations at speed. Amazon Web Services provides a rich portfolio of services tailor-made for enabling DevOps workflows – from code commits to automated deployments.
This guide covers AWS capabilities for turbocharging development and deployment velocity, including:
- Adopting Infrastructure as Code Practices
- Enabling Rapid Experimentation
- Shifting Left on Security
- Automating Provisioning with CloudFormation
- Streamlining Build and Release Pipelines
- Monitoring and Managing AWS Environments
- Optimizing Costs and Usage
- Choosing AWS Developer Tools
- FAQs on DevOps with AWS
Read on to understand how AWS empowers developers to focus on writing code rather than configuring infrastructure.
Adopting Infrastructure as Code Practices
Treat infrastructure as disposable by adopting templatized, automated approaches to environment builds so they can be recreated instantly and immutably through code:
CloudFormation: Orchestrate AWS resources as code through JSON or YAML definition files to achieve consistent, auditable deployments.
Terraform: Declarative IaC tool for building infrastructure safely and efficiently using HCL or JSON. Supports configuring services across multiple cloud platforms.
CDK: Define cloud application resources using familiar languages like JavaScript, Python, Java etc. Accelerates IaC through higher level constructs.
Enabling Rapid Experimentation
Developers need sandboxes for quick experiments. Streamline this by:
AWS Cloud Development Kit: Script local AWS development environments fast using CDK.
Cloud9: Browser-based IDE eliminating local tool installation for building apps on AWS with preloaded templates.
AppRunner: Fully managed service to quickly deploy containerized applications without managing servers.
Shifting Left on Security
Build security earlier into development lifecycles by:
Static Code Analysis: Scan source code for vulnerabilities and compliance issues before deployment using tools like SonarQube on CodeBuild.
Infrastructure as Code Scans: Scan CloudFormation and Terraform templates for potential misconfigurations using tools like Checkov.
Embedded Alerting: Set CloudWatch alarms on various thresholds for resources and environments through code.
Automating Provisioning with CloudFormation
CloudFormation allows treating entire environments as code for consistent deployments by:
● Templatizing infrastructure and services through JSON or YAML
● Version controlling templates like any other code
● Rolling back stacks in case of failures
● Enforcing standards and compliance at scale
● Preventing configuration drift across environments
Streamlining Build and Release Pipelines
Automate compiling code, running tests and releasing software changes by chaining together managed services:
CodeCommit: Host Git repositories with full version control capabilities to centrally manage code.
CodeBuild: Fully managed build service runs tasks like compiling source code, running tests and producing packages ready for deployment.
CodeDeploy: Automate application deployments to EC2 instances or serverless environments. Handles load balancing, blue/green deployments etc.
CodePipeline: Orchestrate build, test and deployment workflows connecting to disparate source tools and environments.
Monitoring and Managing AWS Environments
Essential aspects for understanding system health and taking actions:
CloudWatch Metrics: Monitor key operational metrics across AWS environments like application traffic, resource utilization, request errors etc.
CloudWatch Logs: Aggregate and route all system and application logs to a central location for analysis and alerting.
CloudTrail: Capture a complete audit trail of API calls and user activity across AWS accounts for security, compliance and operational analytics.
Optimizing Costs and Usage
Keep cloud costs in check through:
AWS Budgets: Set custom budgets linked directly to cloud usage with alerting on cost or usage anomalies.
Cost & Usage Reports: Detailed visibility into expenses by service, resource tags, user etc.
Reserved Instances: Prepay select instance workloads for up to 3 years to enjoy discounts over on-demand usage.
Choosing AWS Developer Tools
Beyond core infrastructure, AWS offers higher level services like:
Amplify: Frontend framework for building full stack web and mobile apps with integrated backend provisioning.
AppSync: Managed GraphQL service providing real time data aggregation from multiple sources like Apps, IoT devices etc.
Lambda: Enable serverless applications by writing code snippets that execute on demand without managing servers.
FAQs on DevOps with AWS
Here are some common questions around this:
How can I practice DevOps workflows locally?
Set up a local development environment using the AWS CDK and simulate cloud resources and interactions through tooling like LocalStack and DynamoDB Local.
What security measures should be implemented for DevOps?
Shift left on security starting from scanning IaC templates, automating vulnerability management in the pipeline, restricting user permissions following principle of least privilege and embedding alerts among other measures.
How do I choose between CloudFormation vs Terraform?
CloudFormation provides deepest integration natively into AWS services while Terraform supports multiple cloud platforms. Use CloudFormation for AWS-only environments and Terraform for multi-cloud or hybrid clouds.
Conclusion
AWS offers robust capabilities tailored for high velocity software teams to improve developer experience and compress delivery timelines through automation.
Adopting modern approaches like infrastructure as code, immutable infrastructure, policy driven governance and shift left security unlocks innovation while managing operational risks.
The future of software engineering is being written in the cloud. Through serverless offerings, AWS provides virtually unlimited capacity to power developers imagination.
