[RETIRED] Build a Serverless App with AWS Lambda - Hands On!
What you'll learn
- Build a chat application entirely with AWS services, and no stand-alone servers at all
- Architect and design serverless applications
- Serve static resources to browsers using AWS's S3 (Simple Storage Service)
- Use Javascript to dynamically modify web pages
- Manage permissions and access policies using IAM (Identity and Access Management)
- Manipulate and vend data in the cloud using AWS Lambda
- Use CORS to manage client-side security in serverless apps
- Store and retrieve data with DynamoDB
- Model API's and create SDK's with API Gateway
- Create a user login system with Cognito
- Speed up your web app with a CloudFront CDN
Requirements
- You'll need a desktop PC with Internet access
- Basic familiarity with HTML, Javascript, and AJAX will be helpful
Description
PLEASE NOTE: Amazon made some changes in 2025 that break this course. You may still find watching the videos to be helpful, but you won't be able to follow along hands-on successfully. As such we are retiring this course and discourage new enrollments.
The original course description follows:
Immerse yourself in Amazon Web Services (AWS) with this hands-on, project-based course - and truly internalize some highly valuable skills in the world of technology. We'll walk you through building your own chat website using nothing but AWS services - and no standalone services or server instances at all!
Building a "serverless app" using AWS and its Lambda service is a great introduction to the core services AWS offers. As you create your chat application, you'll learn and use the following AWS services:
S3 (Simple Storage Service) - For storing static HTML and vending it to your users' browsers
Lambda - For executing logic in the cloud for storing and retrieving data in your application
IAM (Identity and Access Management) - For securing access to your services
API Gateway - For presenting a well-modeled API to your clients and automatically generating client-side code to communicate with it
DynamoDB - For quickly storing and retrieving data at scale
Cognito - For managing users, account creation, and logins securely
CloudFront - For accelerating the delivery of your site to end users with a CDN
We'll tie it all together by learning and practicing Javascript, and we'll learn about CORS to grant browsers the permissions they need to run a serverless application.
Even if you're familiar with AWS, you'll learn valuable techniques on how to build a fully functional, dynamic website without maintaining any servers at all - not even via EC2!
Your highly experienced guides through this project are Frank Kane, formerly a senior manager at Amazon, and Brian Tajuddin, a principal engineer also formerly working at Amazon. You'll be learning AWS from people who were there when it was being created. You'll join over 700,000 other students of the Sundog Education team who have leveled up their careers with hot technical skills.
Although this course isn't targeting any specific AWS certification exam, you'll leave it with a great foundation of AWS knowledge that will begin to prepare you for them.
Who this course is for:
- Technologists curious about Amazon Web Services and how to build web applications entirely in the cloud
- People seeking basic AWS skills as a start in working toward certifications
- People who learn best by doing, with a concrete example.
- Engineers tasked with building a web app who want to minimize ongoing maintenance
Featured review
Instructors
- 4.6 Instructor Rating
- 175,465 Reviews
- 989,833 Students
- 38 Courses
Sundog Education's mission is to make highly valuable career skills in data engineering, data science, generative AI, AWS, and machine learning accessible to everyone in the world. Our consortium of expert instructors shares our knowledge in these emerging fields with you, at prices anyone can afford.
Sundog Education is led by Frank Kane and owned by Frank's company, Sundog Software LLC. Frank spent 9 years at Amazon and IMDb, developing and managing the technology that automatically delivers product and movie recommendations to hundreds of millions of customers, all the time. As an Amazon “bar raiser,” he held veto authority over hiring decisions across the company, interviewed over 1,000 candidates, and hired and managed hundreds. He holds 26 issued patents in the fields of distributed computing, data mining, and machine learning. In 2012, Frank left to start his own company, Sundog Software, which has taught over one million students around the world about machine learning, data engineering, and managing engineers.
- 4.5 Instructor Rating
- 3,037 Reviews
- 24,712 Students
- 1 Course
I am a professional software engineer specializing in high-scale enterprise systems. In my career, I've worked on enterprise content integration, customer-facing ecommerce, machine learning, service frameworks, and business tooling. I've spent 17 years working at Amazon and Salesforce, so I've both used and helped build some of the biggest cloud services in the world.
- 4.6 Instructor Rating
- 164,512 Reviews
- 928,657 Students
- 29 Courses
Frank spent 9 years at Amazon and IMDb, developing and managing the technology that automatically delivers product and movie recommendations to hundreds of millions of customers, all the time. As an Amazon “bar raiser,” he held veto authority over hiring decisions across the company, interviewed over 1,000 candidates, and hired and managed hundreds. He holds 17 issued patents in the fields of distributed computing, data mining, and machine learning. In 2012, Frank left to start his own company, Sundog Software, which has taught over one million students around the world about machine learning, data engineering, and managing engineers.
Due to our volume of students, I am unable to respond to private messages; please post your questions within the Q&A of your course. Thanks for understanding.
- 4.6 Instructor Rating
- 153,088 Reviews
- 911,698 Students
- 21 Courses
Our mission is to make highly valuable skills in machine learning, big data, AI, and data science accessible at prices anyone in the world can afford. Our current online courses have reached over 500,000 students worldwide. Sundog Education CEO, Frank Kane, spent 9 years at Amazon and IMDb, developing and managing the technology that automatically delivers product and movie recommendations to hundreds of millions of customers, all the time. Frank holds 17 issued patents in the fields of distributed computing, data mining, and machine learning. In 2012, Frank left to start his own successful company, Sundog Software, which focuses on virtual reality environment technology and teaching others about big data analysis.