The most visited AWS DevOps blog posts in 2023

As we kick off 2024, I wanted to take a moment to highlight the top posts from 2023. Without further ado, here are the top 10 AWS DevOps blog posts of 2023.

1. Unit Testing AWS Lambda with Python and Mock AWS Services – When building serverless event-driven applications using AWS Lambda, it is best practice to validate individual components.  Unit testing can quickly identify and isolate issues in AWS Lambda function code.  The techniques outlined in this blog demonstrates unit test techniques for Python-based AWS Lambda functions and interactions with AWS Services.
2. How to use Amazon CodeWhisperer using Okta as an external IdP – Customers using Amazon CodeWhisperer often want to enable their developers to sign in using existing identity providers (IdP), such as Okta. CodeWhisperer provides support for authentication either through AWS Builder Id or AWS IAM Identity Center. AWS Builder ID is a personal profile for builders. It is designed for individual developers, particularly when working on personal projects or in cases when organization does not authenticate to AWS using the IAM Identity Center. IAM Identity Center is better suited for enterprise developers who use CodeWhisperer as employees of organizations that have an AWS account. The IAM Identity Center authentication method expands the capabilities of IAM by centralizing user administration and access control. Many customers prefer using Okta as their external IdP for Single Sign-On (SSO). They aim to leverage their existing Okta credentials to seamlessly access CodeWhisperer. To achieve this, customers utilize the IAM Identity Center authentication method.
3. Introducing Amazon CodeWhisperer for command line – The command line is used by over thirty million engineers to write, build, run, debug, and deploy software. However, despite how critical it is to the software development process, the command line is notoriously hard to use. Its output is terse, its interface is from the 1970s, and it offers no hints about the ‘right way’ to use it. With tens of thousands of command line applications (called command-line interfaces or CLIs), it’s almost impossible to remember the correct input syntax. The command line’s lack of input validation also means typos can cause unnecessary errors, security risks, and even production outages. It’s no wonder that most software engineers find the command line an error-prone and often frustrating experience.
4. 10 ways to build applications faster with Amazon CodeWhisperer – Amazon CodeWhisperer is a powerful generative AI tool that gives me coding superpowers. Ever since I have incorporated CodeWhisperer into my workflow, I have become faster, smarter, and even more delighted when building applications. However, learning to use any generative AI tool effectively requires a beginner’s mindset and a willingness to embrace new ways of working.
5. Secure CDK deployments with IAM permission boundaries – The AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) accelerates cloud development by allowing developers to use common programming languages when modelling their applications. To take advantage of this speed, developers need to operate in an environment where permissions and security controls don’t slow things down, and in a tightly controlled environment this is not always the case. Of particular concern is the scenario where a developer has permission to create AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) entities (such as users or roles), as these could have permissions beyond that of the developer who created them, allowing for an escalation of privileges. This approach is typically controlled through the use of permission boundaries for IAM entities, and in this post you will learn how these boundaries can now be applied more effectively to CDK development – allowing developers to stay secure and move fast.
6. How to import existing resources into AWS CDK Stacks – Many customers have provisioned resources through the AWS Management Console or different Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools, and then started using AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) in a later stage. After introducing AWS CDK into the architecture, you might want to import some of the existing resources to avoid losing data or impacting availability.
7. Develop a serverless application in Python using Amazon CodeWhisperer – While writing code to develop applications, developers must keep up with multiple programming languages, frameworks, software libraries, and popular cloud services from providers such as AWS. Even though developers can find code snippets on developer communities, to either learn from them or repurpose the code, manually searching for the snippets with an exact or even similar use case is a distracting and time-consuming process. They have to do all of this while making sure that they’re following the correct programming syntax and best coding practices.
8. Optimize software development with Amazon CodeWhisperer – Businesses differentiate themselves by delivering new capabilities to their customers faster. They must leverage automation to accelerate their software development by optimizing code quality, improving performance, and ensuring their software meets security/compliance requirements. Trained on billions of lines of Amazon and open-source code, Amazon CodeWhisperer is an AI coding companion that helps developers write code by generating real-time whole-line and full-function code suggestions in their IDEs. Amazon CodeWhisperer has two tiers: the individual tier is free for individual use, and the professional tier provides administrative capabilities for organizations seeking to grant their developers access to CW. This blog provides a high-level overview of how developers can use CodeWhisperer.
9. How to write and execute integration tests for AWS CDK applications – Automated integration testing validates system components and boosts confidence for new software releases. Performing integration tests on resources deployed to the AWS cloud enables the validation of AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies, service limits, application configuration, and runtime code. For developers that are currently leveraging AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) as their Infrastructure as Code tool, there is a testing framework available that makes integration testing easier to implement in the software release.
10. Building NET 7 Applications with AWS CodeBuild – AWS CodeBuild is a fully managed DevOps service for building and testing your applications. As a fully managed service, there is no infrastructure to manage and you pay only for the resources that you use when you are building your applications. CodeBuild provides a default build image that contains the current Long Term Support (LTS) version of the .NET SDK.

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