AWS’ API Gateway allows you to directly connect it to/proxy many other AWS services. This article discusses doing this w

To me, the interesting parts for this whole thing really come down to how to do the VTL mapping template (i.e. take an incoming HTTP request’s payload and transform it to what DynamoDB needs to do an insert, and how to get the Cognito user ID and include that in the data (since all the authentication is happening “automatically” for you via API Gateway’s Cognito integration). Well, and of course how to do this all in code/Serverless instead of via the AWS console.,Specialists say that this was actually used as a stamp on letters with wax in order to form a seal, however, history tells us that this is too advanced for the time. It is not just that, but the exquisite details on this rock of a human body and what is considered to be the Griffin warrior. Next to the artifact, researchers also found a skeleton which they think it might actually be the skeleton of the Griffin warrior.,First up is Cognito (line 51). If you do not need authentication on your API, you can skip this. There is a fair bit of setup, at the beginning of the resources section to configure a user pool and the policies needed for this.,In 2015 an expedition was carried out in a 3,500-year-old Bronze Age Warrior’s Tomb in Pylos, Greece. The intent of the expedition was to find some valuable treasures from the Bronze Age as many heroes at the time stored their treasures in their tombs. After a whole year of careful digging, they found this sort of rock that had a very detailed design etched on it, surprisingly detailed considering its prehistoric age.,The use case I have is an authenticated web API that takes in a potentially significant volume of events from mobile devices. This data will be stored in DynamoDB. As an additional constraint, the mobile app is sending via regular HTTP web calls, and doesn’t have the ability to use GraphQL (i.e. AppSync isn’t a possibility for this case). Finally, I want this particular API to be simple and very fast, and all the (time consuming) processing of the data will be done async. Thus, we can simply have the data come in via API Gateway and get injected directly into DynamoDB (with some basic data transformation, and integration of the user’s ID).,Besides these great findings, the tomb was full of treasures from the bronze age such as gold and silver jewelry which defines the skeleton’s status as a warrior as only they had the privilege to wear gold rings.,Researcher Jack Davis says that the most fascinating part about the artifact is the very detailed sculpture, such attention to sculptures were way ahead of their time, only seeing such attention being paid to them about 1,000 years later. This brings many questions as you would need technology that is way ahead of it’s time for such sculpture to be designed. Besides a very small and fine pick, you will probably need a magnifying glass that will allow the eye to carefully work on the details.,A full serverless.yml config file for this can be found in this gist. Ultimately, the bulk of this is CloudFormation within Serverless Framework config (if there’s a plugin I missed, or some more direct Serverless way to do it, let me know!). I refer to line numbers from this gist below. The key parts are:,A key thing to note is that we use batch writes for Dynamo. These are limited to 25 items at a time. As such, our mobile clients are limited to sending events in batches of 25. But, the key is that it’s batch, even if it’s a batch with just one event. You’ll see more on this below with the VTL template iterating the incoming events.,This is standard, and you can find plenty of docs in Serverless or CloudFormation for creating a DynamoDB table (line 170). I recommend checking out the Serverless DynamodB Local plugin as well, which makes it easy to use a local DynamoDB for testing. You’ll see the table creation under the “DynamoDB events table” comment. This is a very simple one with just a single PK (UserID) and SK (TimeUTC), but sufficient for this example. You’ll note that it is configured in full serverless mode via the BillingMode: PAY_PER_REQUEST line.,A quick update since I originally published this story. Ben Duong pointed out a Serverless Framework plugin Serverless Apigateway Service Proxy. However, it doesn’t support DynamoDB’s batch updates, so cannot be used in this case. I’m also not sure on how it handles auth needs. However, if you are simply taking a single event/record into your API, it should cover it.,This alleviates the need for a Lambda, and avoids the cost of that. Not that Lambda is that expensive, but if this does wind up scaling to say millions (or hundreds of millions) of events per day, then that will be a meaningful savings. Furthermore, this is more maintainable and a simpler architecture, as it’s one less component to build and maintain.,Next, if you look in the “API Gateway VTL template to put events into above DynamoDB table” section (line 193), you’ll see a YourProductAPIAuthorizer section. This sets up the use of Cognito user authentication for the API Gateway API.,This is because the rock is only 3.6 centimeters long (1.4 inches), that is why historians are now questioning ancient Greek history, as they seem to be very much ahead of time. This also contradicts some other empirical evidence found in recent years.,As the blurb from the publisher claims, “exuberance and dread, attachment and estrangement: in this novel, Jhumpa Lahiri stretches her themes to the limit.” Anyone who has read Lahiri’s writing knows she’s an expert in bringing out a range of human emotions. When I start reading this book, I’ll make sure I have a box of tissues nearby for how the story threatens to tear me apart in the most wonderful ways possible. Can’t wait to read this one soon.