Step Functions for orchestration
State machines in the cloud. This post digs into the topic, drawing on recent discussion from Hacker News, Reddit, and the wider community.
The conversation that prompted this post is linked in the sources. I have tried to capture the substance of the discussion rather than just summarize it, because the comments are usually where the real insight lives.
What happened
Spot instances are free money if your workload can tolerate interruption. Most batch and async workloads can.
Serverless is great until it isn't. Cold starts, concurrency limits, and vendor lock-in are real costs that show up at scale.
Reserved instances and savings plans reward commitment. If your workload is stable, not using them is leaving money on the table.
Tagging is boring and essential. Without consistent tags, cost attribution is guesswork.
The shared responsibility model means the cloud secures the infrastructure and you secure everything else. Most breaches are in the everything else.
Spot instances are free money if your workload can tolerate interruption. Most batch and async workloads can.
Reserved instances and savings plans reward commitment. If your workload is stable, not using them is leaving money on the table.
Infrastructure as code is not optional at scale. Clicking in the console is fine for learning and unacceptable for production.
The shared responsibility model means the cloud secures the infrastructure and you secure everything else. Most breaches are in the everything else.
Tagging is boring and essential. Without consistent tags, cost attribution is guesswork.
Infrastructure as code is not optional at scale. Clicking in the console is fine for learning and unacceptable for production.
Reserved instances and savings plans reward commitment. If your workload is stable, not using them is leaving money on the table.
Observability is the difference between knowing something is broken and knowing why. Invest in it before you need it.
Tagging is boring and essential. Without consistent tags, cost attribution is guesswork.
Managed databases trade operational burden for cost and flexibility. Know what you are giving up.
Why it matters
Backups are not disaster recovery. Test your restores or you do not have backups.
IAM is the foundation of cloud security. Get it wrong and nothing else matters. Get it right and most attacks become much harder.
Tagging is boring and essential. Without consistent tags, cost attribution is guesswork.
Infrastructure as code is not optional at scale. Clicking in the console is fine for learning and unacceptable for production.
Spot instances are free money if your workload can tolerate interruption. Most batch and async workloads can.
Backups are not disaster recovery. Test your restores or you do not have backups.
Spot instances are free money if your workload can tolerate interruption. Most batch and async workloads can.
Spot instances are free money if your workload can tolerate interruption. Most batch and async workloads can.
Serverless is great until it isn't. Cold starts, concurrency limits, and vendor lock-in are real costs that show up at scale.
Managed databases trade operational burden for cost and flexibility. Know what you are giving up.
Tagging is boring and essential. Without consistent tags, cost attribution is guesswork.
IAM is the foundation of cloud security. Get it wrong and nothing else matters. Get it right and most attacks become much harder.
Serverless is great until it isn't. Cold starts, concurrency limits, and vendor lock-in are real costs that show up at scale.
Backups are not disaster recovery. Test your restores or you do not have backups.
Cloud cost is the new technical debt. Teams that do not track spend by service and team end up with bills that nobody can explain and nobody can reduce.
Practical takeaways
- Infrastructure as code is not optional at scale.
- Infrastructure as code is not optional at scale.
- Networking is where cloud bills hide.
- The cloud is just someone else's computer, and that someone else is very good at charging you for convenience.
- Observability is the difference between knowing something is broken and knowing why.
- Tagging is boring and essential.
- IAM is the foundation of cloud security.
- Autoscaling is not a substitute for capacity planning.
- The shared responsibility model means the cloud secures the infrastructure and you secure everything else.
- Managed databases trade operational burden for cost and flexibility.
Backups are not disaster recovery. Test your restores or you do not have backups.
Managed databases trade operational burden for cost and flexibility. Know what you are giving up.
Networking is where cloud bills hide. Data transfer charges between regions and out to the internet add up fast.
Cloud cost is the new technical debt. Teams that do not track spend by service and team end up with bills that nobody can explain and nobody can reduce.
Tagging is boring and essential. Without consistent tags, cost attribution is guesswork.
Serverless is great until it isn't. Cold starts, concurrency limits, and vendor lock-in are real costs that show up at scale.
IAM is the foundation of cloud security. Get it wrong and nothing else matters. Get it right and most attacks become much harder.
Networking is where cloud bills hide. Data transfer charges between regions and out to the internet add up fast.
Autoscaling is not a substitute for capacity planning. It reacts to load; it does not predict it.
Autoscaling is not a substitute for capacity planning. It reacts to load; it does not predict it.
Tagging is boring and essential. Without consistent tags, cost attribution is guesswork.
Tagging is boring and essential. Without consistent tags, cost attribution is guesswork.
Multi-region is not multi-cloud. Running in two AWS regions is redundancy. Running on AWS and GCP is strategy, and it is expensive.
Managed databases trade operational burden for cost and flexibility. Know what you are giving up.
Cloud cost is the new technical debt. Teams that do not track spend by service and team end up with bills that nobody can explain and nobody can reduce.
Tagging is boring and essential. Without consistent tags, cost attribution is guesswork.
Serverless is great until it isn't. Cold starts, concurrency limits, and vendor lock-in are real costs that show up at scale.
Reserved instances and savings plans reward commitment. If your workload is stable, not using them is leaving money on the table.
Spot instances are free money if your workload can tolerate interruption. Most batch and async workloads can.
Networking is where cloud bills hide. Data transfer charges between regions and out to the internet add up fast.
Sources
This post is informed by discussion on aws.amazon.com and related threads on Hacker News and Reddit. Primary source: https://aws.amazon.com/step-functions/.
Backups are not disaster recovery. Test your restores or you do not have backups.
Cloud cost is the new technical debt. Teams that do not track spend by service and team end up with bills that nobody can explain and nobody can reduce.
Spot instances are free money if your workload can tolerate interruption. Most batch and async workloads can.
Spot instances are free money if your workload can tolerate interruption. Most batch and async workloads can.
Spot instances are free money if your workload can tolerate interruption. Most batch and async workloads can.
IAM is the foundation of cloud security. Get it wrong and nothing else matters. Get it right and most attacks become much harder.
Reserved instances and savings plans reward commitment. If your workload is stable, not using them is leaving money on the table.
Multi-region is not multi-cloud. Running in two AWS regions is redundancy. Running on AWS and GCP is strategy, and it is expensive.
Observability is the difference between knowing something is broken and knowing why. Invest in it before you need it.
Spot instances are free money if your workload can tolerate interruption. Most batch and async workloads can.
Spot instances are free money if your workload can tolerate interruption. Most batch and async workloads can.
Reserved instances and savings plans reward commitment. If your workload is stable, not using them is leaving money on the table.
IAM is the foundation of cloud security. Get it wrong and nothing else matters. Get it right and most attacks become much harder.
IAM is the foundation of cloud security. Get it wrong and nothing else matters. Get it right and most attacks become much harder.
Observability is the difference between knowing something is broken and knowing why. Invest in it before you need it.
Managed databases trade operational burden for cost and flexibility. Know what you are giving up.
Observability is the difference between knowing something is broken and knowing why. Invest in it before you need it.
The cloud is just someone else's computer, and that someone else is very good at charging you for convenience. The question is always whether the convenience is worth the markup.
Backups are not disaster recovery. Test your restores or you do not have backups.
Infrastructure as code is not optional at scale. Clicking in the console is fine for learning and unacceptable for production.
Cloud cost is the new technical debt. Teams that do not track spend by service and team end up with bills that nobody can explain and nobody can reduce.
The shared responsibility model means the cloud secures the infrastructure and you secure everything else. Most breaches are in the everything else.
Serverless is great until it isn't. Cold starts, concurrency limits, and vendor lock-in are real costs that show up at scale.
Multi-region is not multi-cloud. Running in two AWS regions is redundancy. Running on AWS and GCP is strategy, and it is expensive.
Serverless is great until it isn't. Cold starts, concurrency limits, and vendor lock-in are real costs that show up at scale.
Networking is where cloud bills hide. Data transfer charges between regions and out to the internet add up fast.
The cloud is just someone else's computer, and that someone else is very good at charging you for convenience. The question is always whether the convenience is worth the markup.
Serverless is great until it isn't. Cold starts, concurrency limits, and vendor lock-in are real costs that show up at scale.
The shared responsibility model means the cloud secures the infrastructure and you secure everything else. Most breaches are in the everything else.
IAM is the foundation of cloud security. Get it wrong and nothing else matters. Get it right and most attacks become much harder.
Multi-region is not multi-cloud. Running in two AWS regions is redundancy. Running on AWS and GCP is strategy, and it is expensive.
Autoscaling is not a substitute for capacity planning. It reacts to load; it does not predict it.
Spot instances are free money if your workload can tolerate interruption. Most batch and async workloads can.
Cloud cost is the new technical debt. Teams that do not track spend by service and team end up with bills that nobody can explain and nobody can reduce.
Reserved instances and savings plans reward commitment. If your workload is stable, not using them is leaving money on the table.
Serverless is great until it isn't. Cold starts, concurrency limits, and vendor lock-in are real costs that show up at scale.
Autoscaling is not a substitute for capacity planning. It reacts to load; it does not predict it.
Autoscaling is not a substitute for capacity planning. It reacts to load; it does not predict it.
The cloud is just someone else's computer, and that someone else is very good at charging you for convenience. The question is always whether the convenience is worth the markup.
The shared responsibility model means the cloud secures the infrastructure and you secure everything else. Most breaches are in the everything else.
Infrastructure as code is not optional at scale. Clicking in the console is fine for learning and unacceptable for production.
Spot instances are free money if your workload can tolerate interruption. Most batch and async workloads can.
Reserved instances and savings plans reward commitment. If your workload is stable, not using them is leaving money on the table.
Networking is where cloud bills hide. Data transfer charges between regions and out to the internet add up fast.
The shared responsibility model means the cloud secures the infrastructure and you secure everything else. Most breaches are in the everything else.
Infrastructure as code is not optional at scale. Clicking in the console is fine for learning and unacceptable for production.
Autoscaling is not a substitute for capacity planning. It reacts to load; it does not predict it.
Managed databases trade operational burden for cost and flexibility. Know what you are giving up.
Spot instances are free money if your workload can tolerate interruption. Most batch and async workloads can.
Cloud cost is the new technical debt. Teams that do not track spend by service and team end up with bills that nobody can explain and nobody can reduce.
The cloud is just someone else's computer, and that someone else is very good at charging you for convenience. The question is always whether the convenience is worth the markup.
Cloud cost is the new technical debt. Teams that do not track spend by service and team end up with bills that nobody can explain and nobody can reduce.
Backups are not disaster recovery. Test your restores or you do not have backups.
Multi-region is not multi-cloud. Running in two AWS regions is redundancy. Running on AWS and GCP is strategy, and it is expensive.
Managed databases trade operational burden for cost and flexibility. Know what you are giving up.
Managed databases trade operational burden for cost and flexibility. Know what you are giving up.
The shared responsibility model means the cloud secures the infrastructure and you secure everything else. Most breaches are in the everything else.
Cloud cost is the new technical debt. Teams that do not track spend by service and team end up with bills that nobody can explain and nobody can reduce.
Serverless is great until it isn't. Cold starts, concurrency limits, and vendor lock-in are real costs that show up at scale.
Multi-region is not multi-cloud. Running in two AWS regions is redundancy. Running on AWS and GCP is strategy, and it is expensive.