serverless web framework for Node.js on AWS

Simone Lusenti
Co-founder & Dev @ plasticpanda
CTO @ GSO Company spa

twitter.com/Lanzone31
github.com/lusentis

Background

AWS Lambda

// index.js

exports.handler = function (event, context, callback) {
   console.log('Received event:', JSON.stringify(event, null, 2));

   // logic here...

   callback(null, {
     response: 'Awesome!'
   });
};

deploying single functions to the AWS cloud, without any server to manage

$ aws lambda create-function \
    --function-name XXX \
    --function-code fileb://index.zip

Amazon API Gateway

creating and managing HTTP(S) Endpoints

# Call an AWS Lambda Function via HTTP (REST)
POST http://abcdef123.execute-api.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/prod/weather

• each HTTP path can be connected to an AWS Lambda Function

• response can be text/html, application/json, text/plain, etc...

Creating the infrastructure

• Easy to replicate
  • failover
  • redundancy in other regions

• Tracking infrastructure changes
  • rolling back mistakes

Infrastructure-as-Code

Creating the infrastructure

• Defined as plain text files

AWS CloudFormation

an easy way to create and manage a collection of related AWS resources, provisioning and updating them in an orderly and predictable fashion.

AWS CloudFormation

AWS CloudFormation

      "Action": [
        "sts:AssumeRole"
      ]
    }
  ]
},
"Path": "/",
"Policies": [
  {
    "PolicyName": "dawson-policy",
    "PolicyDocument": {
      "Version": "2012-10-17",
      "Statement": [
        {
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Action": [
            "logs:CreateLogGroup",
            "logs:CreateLogStream",
            "logs:PutLogEvents"
          ],
          "Resource": {
            "Fn::Sub": "arn:aws:logs:\x24{AWS::Region}
            :\x24{AWS::AccountId}:*"
          }
        },
        {
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Action": [
            "cloudformation:DescribeStacks"
          ],
          "Resource": {
            "Fn::Join": [
              "",
              [
                "arn:aws:cloudformation:",
                {
                  "Ref": "AWS::Region"
                },
                ":",
                {
                  "Ref": "AWS::AccountId"
                },
                ":stack/",
                {
                  "Ref": "AWS::StackName"
                },
                "/*"
              ]
            ]
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  }
]
  }
},

serverless web framework for Node.js apps on AWS

dawson

0. Use cases

1. API / Backend
2. Single Page App + API
3. Server-rendered Pages 

dawson

• no boilerplate
• no configuration
• no runtime dependencies

// api.js

import upperFirst from 'lodash/upperFirst';

export function greet (event) {
    const name = event.params.path.name
    return `Hello ${upperFirst(name)}!`
}
greet.api = {
    path: 'greet/{name}'
}

$ npm install -g dawson
$ dawson deploy

    URL: https://d12345678.cloudfront.net

1. Easy to start with

dawson

automatic transpilation to Node.js 4.3 via babel &

built-in support for
async / await and Promise

// api.js

import fetch from 'node-fetch';

export async function greet (event) {
    const response = 
        await fetch('http://apis.weather.com/today')

    const data = await response.json()

    return `Today's weather: ${data.weather}`;
}
greet.api = {
    path: 'weather/today'
}

2. State-of-the-art JS

dawson

3. Built-in security

dawson

safe Stack Policy to prevent accidental deletions of S3 Buckets, DynamoDB Tables, ...

3. Built-in security

dawson

4. Out-of-the-box scalability

dawson

5. Easy to extend and opt-out

dawson

6. Pre-packaged basic infrastructure

// api.js

import pug from 'pug';
const templateFn = pug.compileFile('index.pug');

export function greet (event) {
    return templateFn({ now: Date.now() });
}
greet.api = {
    path: 'greet/{name}'
}

dawson

7. CLI integration with CloudWatch Logs

dawson

8. Awesome development experience

$ dawson dev

dawson

8. Awesome development experience

$ dawson dev

dawson

8. Awesome development experience

$ dawson dev

dawson

8. Awesome development experience

• runs functions with their own AWS permissions

• lambci/docker-lambda
  • almost-native AWS Lambda environment

• run app without deploying, via browser, curl, ...
  (functions & public assets)

• can run functions locally in response to AWS Events

$ dawson dev

dawson

9. Getting started

// api.js

import upperFirst from 'lodash/upperFirst';

export function greet (event) {
    const name = event.params.path.name
    return `Hello ${upperFirst(name)}, 
            you look awesome!`
}
greet.api = {
    path: 'greet/{name}'
}

$ npm install -g dawson
$ export AWS_REGION=eu-west-1 AWS_PROFILE=bar
$ dawson deploy

    URL: https://d12345678.cloudfront.net

dawson-org/dawson-cli

dawson

(semver starting with 1.0.0)

https://dawson.sh

twitter.com/Lanzone31

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.