Nuts and Bolts

Today, we’ll learn about lono helpers. Lono helpers allow you to extend and add to the Lono DSL as a first-class citizen. This particularly makes Lono powerful because you can write methods specific to your needs.

The Lono DSL is powerful because it allows you to use the Ruby programming language to generate CloudFormation templates. You can use conditional logic constructs that you’re used to: loops, variables, if statements, methods, etc. However, the Lono DSL tries not to impose itself and take over CloudFormation’s declarative nature. Instead, Lono’s approach is to add programming “sprinkles” on top of CloudFormation. Ultimately, you get the best of both worlds.

When working with CloudFormation, you usually configure parameters for the template. The lono seed command helps with this step by generating a starter param file. It evaluates the template itself to generate the starter example values. We’ll use the demo blueprint we created in Lono CloudFormation Framework Introduction Part 1: EC2 Instance.

Some of my favorite lono commands are lono code convert and lono code import. They literally write Ruby code for you. In both cases, the lono code subcommands allow you to take JSON or YAML templates and convert them to the Lono DSL Ruby code.

Cody is a AWS CodeBuild management tool. It simplifies creating and managing AWS CodeBuild projects with a powerful DSL. It has quickly grown to one of my favorite tools since creating it.

In this post, we’ll cover Lono Layering. Layering can be used to build separate environments like a development and production environment. For example, the production environment might have different instance sizes. This can be accomplished with Lono layering.

Today we’ll learn about Lono Configs. Lono has 2 types of configs: Params and Variables. Params allow you to affect the templates at run-time. Variables configs allow you to affect the templates at compile-time. We’ll cover both.

In the last article, we launched a security group and instance. In this post, we’ll add an Elastic IP address and associate it with the instance. Add the following code:

This is the first part of a series of posts that provides an introduction to the Lono CloudFormation Framework. I’ve already provided an introduction to raw CloudFormation in the Simple Introduction to AWS CloudFormation Series. This series will focus on Lono.

Today, I’m happy to introduce BoltOps Pro. BoltOps Pro makes building AWS infrastructure much easier and more fun.

In this video tutorial, we’ll cover CloudWatch Event Rules and how to connect them up to AWS Lambda Functions with Ruby on Jets. We’ll explain what CloudWatch Event Rules are. Then we’ll build a Jets project from scratch with the rule_event declaration. We’ll deploy the application and test the rule event. We’ll show you how simple it is to get started with Ruby on Jets and CloudWatch Event Rules.

In this video tutorial, we’ll cover CloudWatch Log Events and how to connect them up to AWS Lambda Functions with Ruby on Jets. We’ll build a Jets project from scratch with the log_event declaration. We’ll deploy the application and test the CloudWatch Log event. We’ll show you how simple it is to get started with Ruby on Jets and CloudWatch Log Events.

In this video tutorial, we’ll cover DynamoDB Stream Events and how to connect them up to AWS Lambda Functions with Ruby on Jets. We’ll build a Jets project from scratch with the dynamodb_event declaration. We’ll deploy the application and test the DynamoDB event. We’ll show you how simple it is to get started with Ruby on Jets and DynamoDB Stream Events.

In this video tutorial, we’ll cover Kinesis Events and how to connect them up to AWS Lambda Functions with Ruby on Jets. We’ll build a Jets project from scratch with the kinesis_event declaration. We’ll deploy the application and test the Kinesis event. We’ll show you how simple it is to get started with Ruby on Jets and Kinesis Events.

In this video tutorial, we’ll cover SNS Events and how to connect them up to AWS Lambda Functions with Ruby on Jets. We’ll explain what SNS Event are. Then we’ll build a Jets project from scratch with the sns_event declaration. We’ll deploy the application and test the SNS event. We’ll show you how simple it is to get started with Ruby on Jets and SNS Events.

In this video tutorial, we’ll cover SQS Events and how to connect them up to AWS Lambda Functions with Ruby on Jets. We’ll build a Jets project from scratch with the sqs_event declaration. Essentially creating an autoscaling worker processing tier. We’ll deploy the application and test the SQS event. We’ll show you how simple it is to get started with Ruby on Jets and SQS Events.

In this video tutorial, we’ll cover S3 Events and how to connect them up to AWS Lambda Functions with Ruby on Jets. We’ll explain what S3 Events are. We’ll discuss the design approach that Jets took by adding an SNS topic to the flow. Then we’ll build a Jets project from scratch with the s3_event declaration. We’ll deploy the application and test the s3 event. We’ll show you how simple it is to get started with Ruby on Jets and S3 Events.

In this video tutorial, we’ll cover IoT Events and how to connect them up to AWS Lambda Functions with Ruby on Jets. We’ll explain what IoT Events are and then build a Jets project from scratch and add a Jets iot_event declaration. We’ll use a real physical AWS IoT Button and have the button send a text message to a phone. We’ll show you how simple it is to get started with Jets and IoT Event rules.

In this video, we’ll create several hello world examples with Jets code. We’ll create a simple function, controller function, and a job function. We’ll also walk through the Lambda console and test each one by invoking it. This post is a part of an introductory series for people who are new to AWS Lambda and Serverless.

In this video, we’ll walk through creating a CloudWatch Event Rule with the CloudWatch console. Simply getting familiar with the CloudWatch console is a really good way to learn how simple it is for those who are new to CloudWatch and are trying it out for the first time. We talk about how a Jets Job essentially creates the CloudWatch even rule for you. This post is a part of an introductory series for people who are new to CloudWatch, AWS Lambda, and Serverless.

In this video, we’ll walk through creating an API Gateway REST API from scratch manually. Just getting familiar with the API Gateway console is an excellent way to learn how simple it is for those who are new to API Gateway and trying it out for the first time. We talk a little bit about Jets and how config/routes.rb essentially maps to API Gateway resources, but the focus is really on API Gateway console. This simple exercise will help understand what Jets does for you. This post is a part of an introductory series for people who are new to API Gateway and Serverless.

In this video, we’ll walk through creating a Lambda Function with the Lambda console. Simply getting familiar with the AWS Lambda console is an excellent way to learn how simple AWS Lambda is for those who are new to AWS Lambda and trying it out for the first time. We do not talk much about Jets in this video, but this simple Lambda Console exercise will help understand what Jets does for you. This post is a part of an introductory series for people who are new to AWS Lambda and Serverless.

In this blog post, I’ll cover how to build a simple API service on AWS Lambda with the Jets Ruby Serverless Framework.

A great use case for AWS Lambda is running Cron Jobs. Instead of setting up a special one-off Cron server to run a simple task, we can just run the task on serverless nowadays. In this blog post, we’ll go over how to build a simple Cron Job with Jets, the Ruby Serverless Framework. As a useful practical example, we’ll create a job that backs up route53 records. This is quite handy when if you ever need it!

I created Jets, the Ruby Serverless Framework, over a year ago – way before AWS officially released Ruby Support for AWS Lambda. Although it would have been nice to have official Ruby support back then, it was all for the best because I was forced to learn a lot about AWS Lambda and Serverless in general – its strengths, weaknesses, and the challenges that one typically encounters.