In The Works – Amazon Aurora Serverless

When you create an Aurora Database Instance, you choose the desired instance size and have the option to increase read throughput using read replicas. If your processing needs or your query rate changes you have the option to modify the instance size or to alter the number of read replicas as needed. This model works really well in an environment where the workload is predictable, with bounds on the request rate and processing requirement.

In some cases the workloads can be intermittent and/or unpredictable, with bursts of requests that might span just a few minutes or hours per day or per week. Flash sales, infrequent or one-time events, online gaming, reporting workloads (hourly or daily), dev/test, and brand-new applications all fit the bill. Arranging to have just the right amount of capacity can be a lot work; paying for it on steady-state basis might not be sensible.

Get Ready for Amazon Aurora Serverless
Today we are launching a preview (sign up now) of Amazon Aurora Serverless. Designed for workloads that are highly variable and subject to rapid change, this new configuration allows you to pay for the database resources you use, on a second-by-second basis.

This serverless model builds on the clean separation of processing and storage that’s an intrinsic part of the Aurora architecture (read Design Considerations for High-Throughput Cloud-Native Relational Databases to learn more). Instead of choosing your database instance size up front, you create an endpoint, set the desired minimum and maximum capacity if you like, and issue queries to the endpoint. The endpoint is a simple proxy that routes your queries to a rapidly scaled fleet of database resources. This allows your connections to remain intact even as scaling operations take place behind the scenes. Scaling is rapid, with new resources coming online within 5 seconds. Here’s how it all fits together:

Accessing Amazon CloudWatch Logs for AWS Lambda

AWS Lambda automatically monitors Lambda functions on your behalf, reporting metrics through Amazon CloudWatch. To help you troubleshoot failures in a function, Lambda logs all requests handled by your function and also automatically stores logs generated by your code through Amazon CloudWatch Logs.

You can insert logging statements into your code to help you validate that your code is working as expected. Lambda automatically integrates with CloudWatch Logs and pushes all logs from your code to a CloudWatch Logs group associated with a Lambda function, which is named /aws/lambda/<span style="color: #ff0000;"><function name></span>.

AWS Summit: Scaling Up to Your First 10 Million Users

Cloud computing gives you a number of advantages, such as the ability to scale your web application or website on demand. If you have a new web application and want to use cloud computing, you might be asking yourself, “Where do I start?” Join us in this session to understand best practices for scaling your resources from zero to millions of users. We show you how to best combine different AWS services, how to make smarter decisions for architecting your application, and how to scale your infrastructure in the cloud.