@tpschmidt
89 articles by Tobias Schmidt
NAT Gateways charge $0.045 for every GB they process, and CI runners, image pulls and package installs add up fast. Learn how to find NAT traffic in Cost Explorer and Flow Logs, move egress-only workloads like GitHub Actions runners to the Internet Gateway, and cut the rest with VPC endpoints, ECR pull-through cache and IPv6.
Elastic Beanstalk Cluster Mode runs your app on shared EKS infrastructure. We created both environments with CloudFormation, watched buildpack builds, deploy and rollback, and hit the sharp edges: undocumented option namespaces, a provider that rejects the tier, no Spot knob, and a $73/month floor.
ECS CLI, Fargate CLI, Copilot CLI, Proton, App Runner: AWS keeps building convenience layers on top of ECS, and keeps killing them. ECS itself has barely changed since 2014. Here's the rule that follows from that.
Same dashboard built twice: once on Kinesis, S3, Glue and Athena, once on Tinybird. Query latency, a live schema change, and what the Glue crawler costs.
A look at a full year of AWS regional outages (StatusGator data plus the early 2026 incidents) and why multi-AZ and multi-region architecture is still one of the hardest things to get right, AI tooling or not.
A Kubernetes cluster can quietly move itself into other availability zones when Spot capacity runs out, and the cross-AZ traffic that follows shows up on the bill with no health signal at all. Here's how it happens and what to change.
Developers keep shipping s3:* and AdministratorAccess, and it is not laziness. The deploy loop, indirect permissions, policy size limits, and Access Analyzer gaps all push you toward wildcards. Here is what breaks and the account-level setup that works instead.
Most teams should stay on Lambda and Fargate. At scale, with many teams and a platform org, EKS with Flux, Helm, and Karpenter becomes the right call. Here's the GitOps starter blueprint and the mental model behind it.
A point-by-point response to the viral Hacker News post about leaving AWS. Most of the complaints are skill issues, but a few are fair. Here is my honest take from someone who has run AWS at scale for years.
The AgentCore harness preview pairs a managed runtime, server-side conversation memory, per-session microVMs, multi-provider model support, and streamed observability so you can ship an agent on AWS without writing the orchestration loop.
A walkthrough of the AWS Fundamentals Organization built with Terraform. Service Control Policies, Resource Control Policies, CloudTrail audit pipeline, email and Slack alerts, and a budget-driven kill switch for sandbox accounts.
AWS DevOps Agent is an AI-powered SRE that investigates incidents autonomously. Here's how it works, what it can do, where it falls short, and whether you should try it.
AWS S3 Files brings a managed POSIX file system at a fraction of EFS costs. Learn how it works, where the 60-second write-back delay bites you, and how to set it up with Lambda using AWS SAM.
You handed out AWS and Azure credentials for a 3-week sprint. That was months ago. Here is how to build a self-service access portal that provisions temporary credentials and cleans them up automatically.
The best AWS releases from the past 12 months that actually matter for developers — Lambda Durable Functions, ECS Express Mode, Database Savings Plans, SQS Fair Queues, and more. No AI hype.
Run OpenClaw on AWS Lightsail for $7/month (or $5 nano) with zero open ports, SSM Session Manager access, GitHub version control for agent memory, and Slack integration. A secure, always-on personal AI agent setup using Terraform.
Learn how to use the Terraform Claude Skill by Anton Babenko to transform Claude into a senior DevOps architect. Prevent technical debt and generate secure, modular Terraform code.
Lost in the complexity of AWS costs? Let's cut through the noise of Compute Savings Plans and the latest Database options to help you minimize your cloud costs.
Discover the most important AWS pre:Invent 2025 announcements ranked by real-world impact, from CloudFront flat-rate pricing to S3 ABAC and new Lambda features.
Learn how to securely connect GitHub Actions to your AWS account using OIDC authentication without storing access keys. Step-by-step guide with IAM role setup, trust policy configuration, and workflow examples for safe CI/CD deployments.
Learn how to create CloudWatch dashboards using Pulumi infrastructure as code. Step-by-step tutorial for building production-ready AWS monitoring dashboards with reusable components and best practices.
This guide shows how to connect CloudWatch Application Signals with OpenTelemetry. See simple steps for ECS Fargate and Lambda. Example code included. Get clear metrics and traces fast.
Learn how to build a secure AWS landing zone with AWS Organizations, Service Control Policies, and Identity Center. Complete setup guide for enterprise AWS environments, including Terraform snippets!
Learn the key principles for cost optimization on AWS, including cost allocation, cost tracking, and cost optimization strategies.
Skip the hours of dragging boxes in Lucidchart. Learn how to automatically generate professional AWS architecture diagrams using Amazon Q AI, including setup, prompts, and real examples.
With Render, starting and building a new project in the cloud never have been easier.
Learn how to get started with AWS in 2025 with the best practices and tools.
Building and testing Lambda@Edge functions with CloudFront is complicated, as deployments can take up to 10 minutes. With LocalStack, you can build, test, and debug your Lambda@Edge functions locally!
Learn about the differences between using gateway endpoints and internet routing for S3 access, including security implications, performance considerations, and best practices.
Master Pulumi, the modern Infrastructure as Code platform that lets you define, deploy, and manage cloud resources using familiar programming languages like Python, TypeScript, and Go.
Learn how to create collaborative AI agents with Amazon Bedrock that work together to solve complex tasks, with a practical example of a story-writing system.
Guide to set up Google as a federated identity provider with Amazon Cognito for authentication
How Amazon CloudFront saved my Azure project from major disruption after Edgio's unexpected shutdown announcement
Run serverless applications with AWS Fargate and ECS for scalable container orchestration, focusing on setup, management, and automation
Discover Aurora DSQL, a fully-managed serverless SQL database that offers a pay-per-use charging model, similar to NoSQL in DynamoDB
AWS AppConfig provides you with real-time feature toggles for safe deployments and simple A/B testing
Learn the differences between Polling and WebSockets in web applications and how to effectively use Amazon API Gateway for real-time communication
DynamoDB Global Tables replicate data across AWS regions, reducing latency and availability for multi-region applications
Learn how we built a Serverless video platform for the CloudWatch Book with SST, Next.js, ConvertKit, LemonSqueezy, and Vimeo
Compare AWS Step Functions' Express and Standard workflows. Learn their differences and benefits to choose the best for your application needs
Learn how to deploy and monitor your websites using Astro, SST Ion and AWS Synthetic Canaries for proactive detection of unwanted changes
Learn to build a serverless chat app using Amazon Bedrock, OpenAI API, and SST, with a step-by-step guide on deployment and API integration
Building observability to increase resilience with CloudWatch: monitor, alert, trace. Insights by Amazon's David Yanacek
Discover the power of the Amazon CloudWatch Agent for EC2. Monitor system-level metrics, logs, and custom metrics with ease and optimize performance.
Master AWS S3 LS: a comprehensive guide on basics, advanced usage, troubleshooting, and other essential S3 commands for efficient resource management
Learn how VPC Endpoints provide a seamless and secure way to access AWS services and enabling efficient communication within your infrastructure
Learn how Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering dynamically adjusts storage tiers based on usage, saving you money and ensuring data availability.
Discover the critical factors affecting CloudFront pricing and implement cost optimization strategies for efficient resource allocation.
Master DynamoDB CLI with a complete guide on installation, configuration, commands, and practical examples for smooth database management
Discover key factors that influence your monthly expenses in Amazon DynamoDB and learn how to optimize your usage to reduce costs
ECS on Fargate: a scalable containerized app solution with high availability and zero-to-none infrastructure management burdens.
Take control of your Amazon ECS costs with our in-depth guide to pricing and optimization strategies for containerized applications.
Explore AWS IAM Users, grasp long-term credential risks, and boost security with AWS Identity Center, Organizations, and identity federation
Learn how to connect Amazon SNS to SQS so you can fan out SNS topics to SQS queues to reliably store messages for later processing.
Learn how to keep costs low when using Amazon SQS with this guide to pricing, optimization strategies, and cost monitoring.
Master the AWS CLI to safely delete S3 buckets and folders with S3 RM, avoiding data loss and accidental file deletion.
A comparison of ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, and AWS Policy Generator for IAM policy creation. Learn how to use them efficiently.
An IAM role deep dive, covering trust policies, service-linked roles, service roles, and permission boundaries, and how to apply them in the real world.
Discover AWS Lambda timeout reasons and best practices for avoiding, minimizing, preventing, and troubleshooting them.
Explore AWS Lambda language support and learn about the pros and cons of different programming languages, including cold and warm start performances.
Learn how to make the most of AWS Lambda while navigating its limitations for better results with this guide.
Discover the game-changing benefits of Terraform for automating infrastructure management. Learn how it works and why it's a must-have tool in your toolkit.
AWS Organizations can streamline your cloud infrastructure and simplify managing multiple AWS accounts. Learn about benefits, setup, and best practices.
Discover how to utilize environment variables in AWS Lambda to achieve secure, resource-friendly configurations via best practices.
Protect your AWS account with Multi-Factor Authentication. Learn about the importance of MFA and how to set up MFA for your root and IAM users.
Learn how to effectively manage your AWS Lambda functions with the AWS CLI. Streamline deployment, configuration, and logging with this comprehensive guide.
Learn about the compute services by AWS and their benefits and limitations, covering EC2, Fargate, Lambda, App Runner, Beanstalk LightSail, and many more.
Learn how to choose the best-fitting routing policy for your domain names with Amazon Route 53.
Secure identities & resources with AWS IAM Permission Boundaries. Restrict max permissions & ensure least privilege for your team.
Set up latency-based routing & region failover on AWS with Route53 for serverless applications. Extend application to span multiple regions.
Stream logs to your Terminal and never angrily mumble about the poor usability of CloudWatch's Console
Securing your customer's data is essential. Learn how to protect, audit and backup your DynamoDB tables with AWS IAM, CloudTrail and S3.
AWS Step Functions for Lambda executions: creating delayed notifications, triggering state machines, adding metrics & alerts.
Combining Serverless Framework and Terraform to create powerful serverless apps. Use Parameter Store to expose infrastructure to Lambda functions.
Secure your serverless app with self-signed JWTs & AWS HTTP Gateway. Protect your data.
A detailed article on understanding and handling race conditions in DynamoDB. Learn about common approaches to avoiding inconsistent data and transactions.
Discover how to use AWS Lambda-Backed CloudFormation resources to create limitless stacks and get immediate notifications of serverless applications.
Display your latest blog articles or your most recent followers with Lambda and EventBridge
DynamoDB changes can now be tracked in CloudTrail with Data Events. Easily monitor changes done to items, roles, and identities with a Lambda function.
Learn all about AWS S3 sync - covering download, upload, synchronize buckets, file selection patterns, dry-run, and more - examples included.
Utilize AWS Chatbot to monitor and manage your CodePipelines with Slack notifications. Learn how to set up CloudFormation, SNS, and EventBridge.
A single view dashboard that's customizable, powered by Lambda, S3, CloudFront, and API Gateway.
The fundamentals of AWS' reliable, secure & serverless continuous integration and delivery services
Learn how to auto-create block lists for bounced emails with Lambda, SQS, SNS, and DynamoDB.
Almost everything you need to know to pass one of the most fundamental AWS certifications out there.
Build your own minimalistic Social Media Dashboard on AWS that runs at $0 per month.
Learn fundamentals, deep knowledge, best practices, hands-on labs, and more from newsletters, official training sites, edX, AWS' YouTube channel and more.
Our Most Loved AWS Developer Tools & Resources: Get a better understanding of the tools and resources I use while working with AWS.
Get started with AWS Lambda: a serverless computing platform to run code without provisioning or managing servers.