Process DynamoDB events - Amazon Serverless Application Model
Before you beginStep 1: Initialize the applicationStep 2: Test the application locallyStep 3: Package the application Step 4: Deploy the application Next steps
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Process DynamoDB events

With this example application, you build on what you learned in the overview and the Quick Start guide, and install another example application. This application consists of a Lambda function that's invoked by a DynamoDB table event source. The Lambda function is very simple—it logs data that was passed in through the event source message.

This exercise shows you how to mimic event source messages that are passed to Lambda functions when they're invoked.

Before you begin

Make sure that you've completed the required setup in the Installing the Amazon SAM CLI.

Step 1: Initialize the application

In this section, you download the application package, which consists of an Amazon SAM template and application code.

To initialize the application

  1. Run the following command at an Amazon SAM CLI command prompt.

    sam init \
--location gh:aws-samples/cookiecutter-aws-sam-dynamodb-python \
--no-input

    Note that gh: in the command above gets expanded to the GitHub url https://github.com/.

  2. Review the contents of the directory that the command created (dynamodb_event_reader/):

    • template.yaml – Defines two Amazon resources that the Read DynamoDB application needs: a Lambda function and a DynamoDB table. The template also defines mapping between the two resources.

    • read_dynamodb_event/ directory – Contains the DynamoDB application code.

Step 2: Test the application locally

For local testing, use the Amazon SAM CLI to generate a sample DynamoDB event and invoke the Lambda function:

sam local generate-event dynamodb update | sam local invoke --event - ReadDynamoDBEvent

The generate-event command creates a test event source message like the messages that are created when all components are deployed to the Amazon Cloud. This event source message is piped to the Lambda function ReadDynamoDBEvent.

Verify that the expected messages are printed to the console, based on the source code in app.py.

Step 3: Package the application

After testing your application locally, you use the Amazon SAM CLI to create a deployment package, which you use to deploy the application to the Amazon Cloud.

To create a Lambda deployment package

  1. Create an S3 bucket in the location where you want to save the packaged code. If you want to use an existing S3 bucket, skip this step.

    aws s3 mb s3://bucketname

  2. Create the deployment package by running the following package CLI command at the command prompt. 

    sam package \
    --template-file template.yaml \
    --output-template-file packaged.yaml \
    --s3-bucket bucketname

    You specify the new template file, packaged.yaml, when you deploy the application in the next step.

Step 4: Deploy the application

Now that you've created the deployment package, you use it to deploy the application to the Amazon Cloud. You then test the application.

To deploy the serverless application to the Amazon Cloud

  • In the Amazon SAM CLI, use the deploy CLI command to deploy all of the resources that you defined in the template. 

    sam deploy \
    --template-file packaged.yaml \
    --stack-name sam-app \
    --capabilities CAPABILITY_IAM \
    --region us-east-1

    In the command, the --capabilities parameter allows Amazon CloudFormation to create an IAM role.

    Amazon CloudFormation creates the Amazon resources that are defined in the template. You can access the names of these resources in the Amazon CloudFormation console.

To test the serverless application in the Amazon Cloud

  1. Open the DynamoDB console.

  2. Insert a record into the table that you just created.

  3. Go to the Metrics tab of the table, and choose View all CloudWatch metrics. In the CloudWatch console, choose Logs to be able to view the log output.

Next steps

The Amazon SAM GitHub repository contains additional example applications for you to download and experiment with. To access this repository, see Amazon SAM example applications.