Resume Website on AWS Pt. 2 - Reflections

Introduction

This blog is a continuation to the cloud resume project that I started. So far I had built a website and hosted it on AWS. In this part I created an API to keep track of how many visitors my website gets.

Lambda & DynamoDB

• Created a lambda function using python that retrieves viewer count on dynamodb and increases it by 1

• Utilized boto3 library to create lambda function

• Created IAM role for lambda function to update dynamodb table

• Learned how to use CORs on lambda function to make it so only my website can use the function

• Learned how to use the debugging console on lambda to debug my function

API

• Utilized Javascript to create a function that calls on my lambda function everytime my website is loaded

• Displays viewer count from fetched data

• Learned how to call APIs using javascript and also how to alter html using javascript

Github Actions CICD Frontend

• Utilized Github Actions to create a CICD pipeline that automatically updates my website once new code is commited to my repository

• Found a bug that my website was not updating even though S3 bucket was updated

  • Learned that I needed to invalidate cloudfront distribution to make changes appear immediately

• Added cloudfront invalidation to cicd pipeline

• Learned how to trigger CICD only when files I want are modified

Terraform

• Utilized terraform to rebuild dynamodb and lambda infrastructure

• Created roles and policies for lambda to modify dynamodb table

• Applied terraform changes using my local environment

• Learned terraform's syntax and how to initialize, plan, and apply terraform plans

Github Actions CICD Backend

• Utilized Github Actions to create a CICD pipeline for my terraform files whenever they are modified

• Learned how to validate aws credentials in github actions

• Learned that github actions does not save the state of terraform files, therefore I need to create a backend to save the state

• Learned how to trigger CICD only when terraform files are modified

Areas of Improvement

• I worked off the main branch in github and committed my changes without making pull requests

  • That's why I have some failed deployments on my github repository

  • Pull requests would have fixed this issue

• In this project I did not use unit tests

  • By creating unit tests I would have been able to detect bugs easier

• For the terraform files, I could have created a backend using an s3 bucket to save the state and dynamodb table to lock the state

  • However, I just deleted the table and lambda function to make the deployment easier

  • Adding this backend will make it easier to add changes to my terraform files and deploy them use them github actions