#86: Serverless Testing

This week, we're diving deep into the world of serverless and exploring the latest techniques for testing and cost optimization. Are you tired of mocking AWS SDK calls when testing your serverless functions? We've got you covered with a new approach to serverless testing that doesn't require mocking. Plus, we'll show you how to keep your costs in check with serverless MongoDB Atlas.

But that's not all, have you ever wondered how a hacker can waste $13000 on your AWS account? We'll take a look at a real-life example and share the steps you can take to prevent this from happening to you.

We'll also explore some of the latest developments in Kubernetes, including a deep dive into DNS and service discovery and tips on how to detect insecure VSCode extensions. Additionally, we'll share some of our favorite open-source DevOps tools of the week and discuss the ongoing debate around Platform Engineering vs DevOps is Dead. Don't miss out on our coverage of finding active resources in your AWS account, building AWS Lambda layers with AWS CDK, and how to fix common issues in Kubernetes clusters.

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter! Share it with a friend or colleague if you find it helpful, drop me an email or send me a DM on Twitter about topics you’d like to hear about in future editions.

📖 POSTS OF THE WEEK

Serverless testing: simplify testing with SOLID architecture
Article on Testing Serverless architectures using SOLID and Hexagonal software architecture principles without needing to mock AWS SDK calls at all!
Read more »

"Avoid becoming bankrupt while using serverless MongoDB Atlas" - The author suggests several best practices to avoid financial issues such as: setting up an alert system to monitor usage, properly configuring the data storage, and using the MongoDB Atlas's auto-scaling feature - Read more »

"It happened to me: how I suddenly owed AWS $13,000…" - The hack could have been avoided if they had set up Multi-factor Authentication (MFA), CloudTrail and Budgets from the start - Read more »

"A debugging story: a bug in the S3 API" - The AWS S3 API has a bug in it where if the configuration is modified on create, the API responds with 404 for those attributes - Read more »

"The life of a DNS query in Kubernetes" - Understanding how DNS and service discovery work in Kubernetes can be helpful for debugging issues - Read more »

"Can you trust your VSCode extensions?" - The post covers how to detect and mitigate risks associated with malicious extensions and how to secure your development environment - Read more »

"Komiser vs AWS Resource Explorer" - Finding resources within the AWS Console has been a tedious and often frustrating task, particularly for those who have a large number of resources and use multiple AWS regions. This has been the case for a long time ... until the release of AWS Resource Explorer - Read more »

"Build AWS Lambda layers with AWS CDK" - This blog post covers AWS Lambda layers basics and how to build them with Docker & AWS CDK in Python - Read more »

"Platform Engineering as a startup" - This article discusses the importance of internal tools, the evolution of the term "platform engineering," and the challenges of aligning vendor and customer incentives in this space - Read more »

🛠 PROJECTS OF THE WEEK

Basti is a CLI tool for accessing DB instances and other AWS resources in private networks almost at no cost. You can securely connect to your RDS/Aurora/Elasticache/EC2 instances in private VPC subnets from a local machine or CI/CD pipeline - Learn more »

Adrenaline is an open-source debugger powered by the OpenAI Codex. It not only fixes your code, but teaches you along the way - Learn more »

Copacetic is a CLI tool for directly patching container images using reports from popular vulnerability scanners like Trivy - Learn more »

AWS Terraform Dev Container is a VScode extension with tools to help you build and manage AWS infrastructure with Terraform - Learn more »

A Chrome extension that enables real-time sync between StepFunctions Workflow Studio and your local file system - Learn more »

Convox Rack is an open-source private PaaS that runs in your AWS account - Learn more »

📰 NEWSWORTHY STORIES

"CircleCI says hackers stole encryption keys and customers’ secrets" - Read more »

"Amazon S3 now automatically encrypts all new objects" - Read more »

"How Docker 2.0 went from $11M to $135M in 2 years" - Read more »

"Security state of the Azure DevOps Marketplace" - Read more »

📕 BOOK OF THE WEEK

The book is based on the premise that teams, whether in a business or other organization, often struggle with five key dysfunctions: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results. Lencioni provides a model and actionable steps that can be taken to overcome these dysfunctions and build a cohesive, high-performing team.

🎧 PODCAST/WEBINAR OF THE WEEK

What if these Kubernetes clusters were intentionally broken by members of the Kubernetes community, tasked with making your chances of fixing said clusters as slim as possible? Watch this hands-on video to learn the key methods, tools, and takeaways David has learnt fixing over 50 Kubernetes 🔥

💼 OPEN JOBS OF THE WEEK