From Zero to Serverless:

Building a Real-Time Leaderboard with AWS SAM

Calvin Hendryx-Parker, CTO

Six Feet Up

Why AWS SAM?

Simplifying Serverless Development

What is AWS SAM?

Serverless Application Model
Open-source framework for building serverless applications
Extension of AWS CloudFormation
Provides simplified syntax for defining serverless resources

Key Benefits of AWS SAM

Developer Productivity

Write less boilerplate
Built-in best practices
Local testing and debugging

Infrastructure as Code

Version control your infrastructure
Consistent deployments
Easy rollbacks

Local Development

Test Lambda functions locally
Simulate API Gateway endpoints
Debug step-by-step

Real World Use Cases

API Development
- REST APIs with Lambda + API Gateway
- Simplified API definitions

Real World Use Cases (cont.)

Event Processing
- S3 event handlers
- SQS/SNS processors
- CloudWatch Events

Real World Use Cases (cont.)

Web Applications
- Serverless backends
- Static website hosting
- Authentication flows

SAM vs Raw CloudFormation

# Traditional CloudFormation
Resources:
  MyFunction:
    Type: AWS::Lambda::Function
    Properties:
      Handler: index.handler
      Role: !GetAtt LambdaExecutionRole.Arn
      Code:
        S3Bucket: my-bucket
        S3Key: my-function.zip
      Runtime: nodejs18.x

# SAM Equivalent
Resources:
  MyFunction:
    Type: AWS::Serverless::Function
    Properties:
      Handler: index.handler
      Runtime: nodejs18.x

Getting Started

Install SAM CLI
```
brew install aws-sam-cli
```
Initialize a Project
```
sam init
```
Local Development
```
sam local start-api
```
Deploy
```
sam deploy --guided
```

Hello World

Why Choose SAM?

✅ Simplified Resource Definitions
✅ Local Testing Capabilities
✅ AWS Best Practices Built-in
✅ Free and Open Source
✅ Native AWS Integration
✅ Active Community

Scaf Leaderboard Example

Resources

Talk To Me

📩 calvin@sixfeetup.com
🤝 https://linkedin.com/in/calvinhp
✖️ @calvinhp
🐘 @calvinhp@fosstodon.org
🦋 @calvinhp.com