Amazon API Gateway is a managed service that allows developers to define the HTTP endpoints of a REST API or a WebSocket API and connect those endpoints with the corresponding backend business logic. It also handles authentication, access control, monitoring, and tracing of API requests.
Why is Amazon API Gateway an important part of the Serverless ecosystem?
Within the Serverless ecosystem, API Gateway is the piece that ties together Serverless functions and API definitions. Being able to trigger the execution of a Serverless function directly in response to an HTTP request is the key reason why API Gateway is so valuable in Serverless setups: it enables a truly serverless architecture for web applications.
How does API Gateway integrate with other AWS services?
Many AWS services support integration with Amazon API Gateway, including:
AWS Lambda: run Lambda functions to generate HTTP API responses.
AWS SNS: publish SNS notifications when an HTTP API endpoint is accessed.
Amazon Cognito: provide authentication and authorization for your HTTP APIs.
API Gateway supports direct integrations that can be configured in the API Gateway user interface (or via the API Gateway’s own API) for the following actions:
Invoking an AWS Lambda function.
Invoking another HTTP endpoint, with or without VPC Link.
Making an HTTP call against the API of any AWS service that provides an HTTP API.
Returning a mock response generated within API Gateway without calling out to other services.
DynamoDB is a hosted NoSQL database offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It offers:
reliable performance even as it scales;
a managed experience, so you won’t be SSH-ing into servers to upgrade the crypto libraries;
a small, simple API allowing for simple key-value access as well as more advanced query patterns.
Under what circumstances would you recommend DynamoDB over MongoDB?
For applications with large amounts of data and strict latency requirements, for serverless applications using AWS Lambda, or with data sets with simple, known access patterns
Explain to a non-technical friend how DynamoDB works.
Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed, serverless, key-value NoSQL database designed to run high-performance applications at any scale. DynamoDB offers built-in security, continuous backups, automated multi-Region replication, in-memory caching, and data import and export tools.