Stephen Miracle

AWS Equivalent of Google Cloud Run: App Runner & Fargate

What is the Google Cloud Run Equivalent in AWS? AWS App Runner & Fargate + ECS is the closest equivalent to Google Cloud Run. All 3 of the services allow developers to deploy containerized applications without managing the underlying infrastructure. Google Cloud Run is more mature than App Runner, maintaining an easier-to-manage infrastructure than elastic container services. FeatureGoogle Cloud RunAWS App RunnerAWS Fargate + ECSManaged ServiceFully ManagedFully ManagedSemi-ManagedScalingAutomaticAutomaticManual and AutomaticPricing ModelPay-as-you-goPay-as-you-goPay for provisioned capacityIntegration with Other ServicesNative GCP IntegrationsNative AWS IntegrationsExtensive AWS IntegrationsDeployment SourceContainer ImageContainer Image or Code RepositoryContainer ImageNetworkingUses Google’s global networkUses AWS's networkCustomizable Networking OptionsUse CaseStateless ApplicationsWeb Apps and APIsVaried (Stateless, Stateful, and more) What is Google Cloud Run Google Cloud Run is a fully managed, serverless service for container applications provided by Google Cloud Platform. It allows developers to scale out container applications without worrying about the underlying infrastructure. The benefits include faster development times, Improved application…

Relational Databases in Web Development: Why Use Them Today?

Relational databases are a fundamental component of web development. They are used to store, organize, and manage data in a way that allows for efficient and effective information retrieval. In simple terms, a relational database is a type of database that stores data in tables, with each table containing related data items. The tables are connected by unique IDs or keys, allowing for easy information retrieval across multiple tables. Key Takeaways Relational databases are a type of database that stores data in tables and are used in a wide range of applications in web development. They offer several advantages over other types of databases, including the ability to handle large amounts of data, provide efficient data retrieval, and ensure data consistency and integrity. Understanding the key components of relational databases, their advantages and disadvantages, and their applications in various industries is essential for anyone working in web development. Understanding Relational…

PlanetScale Leaps Into AI: New Vector Searching Efforts in MySQL

PlanetScale is adding vector searching to MySQL. This will bring new AI/ML opportunities to technology teams that use the Oracle-owned database. Vectors provide new use cases, from geographic searching to AI applications. Other well-known databases have already made significant progress, while MySQL lacked development. PlanetScale saw the lack of progress from Oracle and saw an opportunity to contribute to the ecosystem. (source) PlanetScale Announces New Efforts to Bring Vector Searching to MySQL (more…)

What is a Monorepo: Intro Guide for App Development in 2024

What is a Monorepo A monorepo is a version-controlled code repository that holds many projects, often logically independent and run by different teams. A monorepo stores all of the code into a single repository instead of having multiple repositories for each responsibility. The benefits include simpler organization, deployment, onboarding, and efficiency. The idea of a monorepo is not new, but it has gained popularity recently with the rise of tools like Git. The benefits of using a monorepo include improved code sharing, simplified dependency management, and atomic commits. However, there are also some challenges to using a monorepo, such as scalability issues and lack of access control. Key Takeaways A monorepo is a version-controlled code repository that holds many projects in one place. Monorepos offer benefits such as improved code sharing and simplified dependency management but also face scalability issues and a lack of access control. Using a monorepo can…

Deploy a Monorepo in App Runner: AWS New Repository Support

Deploy a monorepo in AWS App Runner. AWS announced this new feature for source code repos on October 28th. This new feature allows developers to manage several web & microservice applications from a single code repository. (source) Using AWS App Runner to Deploy an App from a Monorepo Do you want to stop maintaining dozens of repositories and migrate to a single monorepo? Many app development teams want to migrate to this style of operation. Instead of managing access, pipelines, etc for X amount of individual repos, all services & applications are managed in a single repository. But that is a pipedream for most app organizations without expertise in platform dev. Most of the platform as a service provider only allows for a single app per repo. Push the code to the repo, and the provider deploys the code to a single app. Simple, but limiting. AWS is trying to…

Automate MSK Topics to S3 Data Lake: New AWS Delivery Service

Automate AWS MSK Kafka topics from MSK into your S3 Data Lake. AWS announced a new managed delivery service from MSK to your S3 data lake on Oct. 27 2023. This new managed service can pull topics from Kafka and dump them into S3 buckets via Kinesis Firehouse. There are no additional pipes, functions or code required. (source) Are you tired of building pipes and serverless functions to move data around? AWS's new fully managed delivery stream will handle the pipes from your topics into your S3 data lake via Kinesis. You don't have to write and manage additional code. There are also no additional costs for this managed pipeline as it is built into the output of your MSK cluster. The new feature is designed to ease data flow from MSK to S3 Data Lake, leveraging Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose for the Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) tasks. This noteworthy…

Using AWS SQS for App Development: Simple Queue Service Intro

AWS Simple Queue Service (SQS) is a fully managed message queuing service provided by Amazon Web Services. It enables the decoupling and scaling of microservices, distributed systems, and serverless applications. It provides a reliable and scalable infrastructure for asynchronous communication between system components, allowing for better fault tolerance and improved performance. With SQS, you can send, store, and receive messages between software components without worrying about the underlying infrastructure. Key Takeaways AWS Simple Queue Service (SQS) is a managed message queuing service that enables asynchronous communication between software components. Understanding the basic concepts and terminology of SQS is essential to start with it. With SQS, you can create and manage queues, send and receive messages, and process messages using Lambda functions or other services. Understanding What is AWS SQS As I dive into AWS SQS, I realize it is a fully managed message queuing service that enables you to decouple…

AWS for App Development: Amazon Web Services Getting Started Guide

Amazon Web Services is a cloud computing platform that provides on-demand access to a wide range of computing resources, including storage, processing power, and networking infrastructure. With AWS, businesses can quickly and easily scale their IT infrastructure up or down as needed without worrying about the costs and complexities of managing their data centers. AWS is also highly secure, with various tools and features that help businesses protect their data and applications from cyber threats. Using AWS for Web Application Development I have used Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a web application developer for over a decade. It is the lead provider of cloud computing platforms. AWS provides a comprehensive suite of services that can help businesses of all sizes lower costs, become more agile, and innovate faster. In this article, I will provide an overview of AWS, explain how it works, and discuss its benefits. Key Takeaways AWS is…

What is Azure Service Bus & When to Use it in Your Applications

Azure Service Bus is a cloud-based messaging service that helps address this challenge by providing a platform for decoupling applications and services from each other provided by Microsoft. The Microsoft Azure platform provides this service for better scalability, reliability, and flexibility in application development and deployment. Azure Service Bus is a fully managed enterprise message broker that provides message queues and publish-subscribe topics in a namespace. It enables asynchronous messaging between different applications and services, meaning messages can be sent and received simultaneously without the sender and receiver being active. This decoupling of applications and services allows for better load-balancing work across competing workers and helps prevent system failures due to high traffic. By using Azure Service Bus, businesses can simplify their application architecture and reduce the complexity of integrating different systems. It provides a reliable and scalable platform for messaging and enables developers to focus on building their applications…

AWS App Runner Default Auto-Scaling Configurations + Versions

AWS App Runner now offers default and versioned auto-scaling configurations as first-class citizens as of September 22, 2023. This update will help improve managing infrastructure environments in the service, yet the journey to becoming a seasoned tool for web application developers continues(source) AWS App Runner Default Auto-Scaling Configurations (ASC) with Versions My journey with AWS App Runner has been akin to watching a prodigy mature, showcasing flashes of brilliance while stumbling through inherent adolescent hiccups. As a web application developer, I've found solace in App Runner's ease of deploying containerized web applications and APIs. The allure of offloading the infrastructure management burden while sailing the waters of automatic scaling based on traffic dynamics is hard to resist. Yet, like any evolving tool, it had its share of teething problems, particularly in the realm of Auto-Scaling Configuration (ASC) management. The dawn of September 22, 2023, brought with it a breeze of…