A Visual Workflow for Developers: Serverless Architecture with AWS Application Composer

Overview

Amazon Web Services recently announced the AWS application composer service that helps developers to build serverless applications using pre-built templates, drag-and-drop components, and a visual interface. If you are looking for an easy and visual way to build your AWS infrastructure, then AWS Application Composer is the service that will take over your hustle. Let’s look into the AWS application composer service overview, features, walkthrough, and how it helps developers.

Introduction

People say that some things in life are best described with a photograph or a picture, and Application Composer is one of those things.

Currently, only a subset of AWS services is available in this list. The most common ones are Amazon API gateway, Amazon Cognito user pools, and Amazon DynamoDB Lambda functions. It’s particularly aimed at serverless applications.

The center canvas area is where you’re going to drop in all your components and where you’re going to link everything together. The left-hand side blade is where you will drag in all the different components available to you using the Application Composer.

The architecture, configuration, and development of serverless apps can be streamlined and expedited with the aid of AWS Application Composer. The essential settings for deploying your application are built automatically using a straightforward drag-and-drop approach. The AWS Serverless Application Model and CloudFormation are the foundations of infrastructure-as-code. External CloudFormation templates can also be easily imported into the Application Composer to provide the required infrastructure. When there are existing CloudFormation templates, once imported into the Application Composer, developers can get a visual workflow of all the services that will be provisioned.

Features

• Paints out a visual workflow that presents a simplistic view of all selected AWS services
• Using an Application Composer eliminates the need to navigate through extensive documentation, contributing to its efficiency.
• Developers need to figure out what all resources are required instead of how those should be provisioned
• Generates CloudFormation template and SAM templates of selected AWS services
• The CloudFormation template generated by Application Composer can be synced with local files using the connected mode feature.

Drawbacks

As it was recently announced, the AWS application composer service is currently in preview, so there’s room for improvement. Let’s look into some drawbacks of this service.

• It is a visual workflow tool, but there’s no direct way to deploy resources.
• This service only offers a subset of AWS services on serverless architecture.
• It may be difficult to visualize complex architecture without having an existing template.
• While building the visual workflow, limited configuration settings for services are available.

Step-by-Step Guide

1. To get started with AWS Application Composer, sign in to the AWS management console using https://aws.amazon.com/console
2. Once singed-in into the console, search for the AWS Application Composer service. On the service’s Home page, click the Create Project

3. There will come up a prompt asking whether we want to create a new project or go with the existing one. Let’s go ahead and select the New blank project.

Note: The Connected mode will synchronize the files you generate in the Application Composer from your browser into the local folder selected in the Select folder option in the Project location. In Unconnected mode, we will need to download a CloudFormation file to save the project.

4. Now, click Create Upon blank project creation, you will see a blank canvas screen where we can drag and drop the required services for the workflow.

5. Let’s go ahead and add the Amazon S3 bucket to the canvas and check the configuration options present for the service.

6. Click the Template button to check the CloudFormation template generated per the selected services.

Conclusion

So far, in this article, we have discussed how AWS Application Composer makes it easier for developers to create a visual workflow for serverless architecture, features, and a walkthrough of the service for better use in real-world scenarios. There is still more to learn about AWS Application Composer, so I encourage you to check the official documentation from AWS.

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