How and Why Prime Video Tech Switched From Serverless to "Monolith"

A recent prime video article has gotten a LOT of attention regarding the Serverless vs Monolith debate. In this video, walk you through the problem the Prime Video Tech Team was facing with their Serverless architecture and why it was the right choice to switch off of serverless technology.
Prime Video Article: www.primevideotech.com/video-...
Sign up for my Newsletter to receive regular AWS updates mailinglist.beabetterdev.com
📚 My Courses 📚
AWS Lambda - A Practical Guide - www.udemy.com/course/aws-lamb...
AWS Learning Accelerator - courses.beabetterdev.com/
🎉SUPPORT BE A BETTER DEV🎉
Become a Patron: / beabetterdev
📚 MY RECOMMENDED READING LIST FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS📚
Clean Code - amzn.to/37T7xdP
Clean Architecture - amzn.to/3sCEGCe
Head First Design Patterns - amzn.to/37WXAMy
Domain Driven Design - amzn.to/3aWSW2W
Code Complete - amzn.to/3ksQDrB
The Pragmatic Programmer - amzn.to/3uH4kaQ
Algorithms - amzn.to/3syvyP5
Working Effectively with Legacy Code - amzn.to/3kvMza7
Refactoring - amzn.to/3r6FQ8U
🎙 MY RECORDING EQUIPMENT 🎙
Shure SM58 Microphone - amzn.to/3r5Hrf9
Behringer UM2 Audio Interface - amzn.to/2MuEllM
XLR Cable - amzn.to/3uGyZFx
Acoustic Sound Absorbing Foam Panels - amzn.to/3ktIrY6
Desk Microphone Mount - amzn.to/3qXMVIO
Logitech C920s Webcam - amzn.to/303zGu9
Fujilm XS10 Camera - amzn.to/3uGa30E
Fujifilm XF 35mm F2 Lens - amzn.to/3rentPe
Neewer 2 Piece Studio Lights - amzn.to/3uyoa8p
💻 MY DESKTOP EQUIPMENT 💻
Dell 34 inch Ultrawide Monitor - amzn.to/2NJwph6
Autonomous ErgoChair 2 - bit.ly/2YzomEm
Autonomous SmartDesk 2 Standing Desk - bit.ly/2YzomEm
MX Master 3 Productivity Mouse - amzn.to/3aYwKVZ
Das Keyboard Prime 13 MX Brown Mechanical- amzn.to/3uH6VBF
Veikk A15 Drawing Tablet - amzn.to/3uBRWsN
🌎 Find me here:
Twitter - / beabetterdevv
Instagram - / beabetterdevv
Patreon - Donations help fund additional content - / beabetterdev
#aws
#cloudcomputing
#serverless
#monolith

[@jacklinhart7957]

Good to know Amazon is no longer spending so much money on Amazon

[@JovenAlbarida]

Lol

[@KA6WKE]

Cost optimization is a tenant within AWS for its customers. I don't see any problem with AWS using the same cost saving approach with its own services. This doesn't mean serverless is crap, don't use serverless, etc. It means cost savings and only that. AWS analyzed their tech stack and came up with the same performance at less cost. Nothing more to see here... Great explanation!

[@ahah86]

Great video. I really don't get when people try to force others into trashing completely an approach. I think in the tech world, the right answer is always "it depends". There is always a trade off in every solution. A good architect is the one who find the trade off that is more convenient for that specific customer, in that specific scenario, in that specific use case.

[@LiveType]

At the pareto front, there is no such thing as best. Only better at the expense of something else.

[@BeABetterDev]

Very well said.

[@LucasBarbosa-mu1ju]

100% spot on

[@krisnrg]

Agreed, but in this case their approach sucked. Like they used the tool wrong and their structure was not good. So yes not the fault of lambda functions

[@ahah86]

@@krisnrgtrue, it was odd to start with. Would be interesting to know which factors drove them towards the first solution.

[@Martin-jt4ys]

Good video, I personally like these architectural deep dives Firstly, the use of S3 as a malformed in-memory cache confused me when I first read the article. Personally, something like EFS seems like itd be better suited for the job but who knows Secondly, it seems like they just re-architected as the problem space changed. They realised the solution they had before couldn't handle large amounts of streams and, thus, they rearchitected. The idea that we have to be "team serverless" or "team monolith" always struck me as a misguided argument when it should be "team best-tech-for-the-problem-at-the-moment"

[@neociber24]

Yeah, people forget isn't about being on team X or Y but using the correct tool

[@BeABetterDev]

Thanks Martin! If others like this type of content please upvote so I know to make more!

[@ryanquinn1257]

Yea this is my approach. The golden rule of cloud architecture. There aren’t solutions only pros and cons to each approach.

[@lehandro69]

Thank you for doing this video and exposing the reality. A bunch of youtubers needing attention grabbing headlines have completely distorted the message.

[@gustavemuhoza4212]

I had been waiting for your take and was wondering why it took so long 😁 .Thank you. Excellent

[@BeABetterDev]

Thanks Gustave and hope you enjoyed!

[@franklinroaguerrero4284]

Thank you! I've been waiting for this video 🙌🏼

[@BeABetterDev]

Hope you enjoyed!

[@abdul1275]

Great video. Really only the 2nd video I've seen that isn't misrepresenting what the article actually says to support some "monoliths are back" or "amazon went back to monoliths" narrative. It was very disappointing seeing some distinguished/notable software developers misrepresenting what actually happened (at the same time, I was also confused if I missed something).

[@drissallaki]

Good explanation, Wise analysis of the case study. Totally agree with your opinion (even before watching the video). However, the red color sucks in the black background 😅 (yellowor orange could be better)

[@BeABetterDev]

Thanks Driss! I know the red was so bad! For some reason the pen width was smaller and I didn't realize it until afterwards :( Live and learn.

[@rickharold7884]

Right on!! Awesome video

[@pemessh]

As always, great video. Thank you. BTW, what is the tool that you are using for the handwritten note?

[@BeABetterDev]

Thanks Pramesh! I'm using OneNote.

[@pemessh]

@@BeABetterDev OneNote!! Wow !! You have a great handwriting !!

[@BeABetterDev]

Thank you!

[@luiscarlosjayk]

Thanks a lot! You might want to improve the colors used to write, red is not that clearly visible.

[@BeABetterDev]

Thanks Luis! Definitely will fix for next time.

[@alexrusin]

Great breakdown. Thank you. Reminded me of Khan Academy. What do you use to draw on the screen like that?

[@BeABetterDev]

Hi Alex, I used OneNote and a drawing tablet.

[@henryvaneyk3769]

Many of the issues are caused by CTOs that forces a specific technology on all of their backend systems, when they should in stead use the right technology and implementation for each of the use cases.

[@sunny_legend]

Red colour is not clearly visible

[@joanale609]

i see it good in a ultrawide screen

[@dev2594]

Lol, felt like I’m watching khan academy for Aws. Really like the format!

[@BeABetterDev]

Thank you for the feedback!

[@zw3941]

Step function is a bad product. Amazon prime team just chose wrong service and it doesn't mean serverless is bad and monolithic is good in terms of cost.

[@josephalan31]

Yeah half of those shiny services and dev tools from all the cloud providers are dog shit except the traditional services

[@TPITEOTG]

Nevertheless, it is not monolith since it uses separate services for partners’ upload and customer download ;) *nonsense*: it is same as discussing “why Windows is monolith”. Both terms, “monolith” and “serverless”, are not applicable to the platform providing these design patterns out of the box.

[@diegovgn]

Senior engineer at Amazon here. I generally dislike comments that may be perceived as negative, but I do believe we are using the wrong terminology here. This service didn’t switch from “serverless to monolith”. They switched from distributed microservices to monolith which isn’t the same thing. In fact, many of the components of the current infrastructure of this service (S3, SNS, CloudWatch, IAM, etc) are serverless. Others are not. Just like you can have self-hosted microservices, you can also have a monolith built on serverless technologies. E.g: using Fargate on top of ECS. This is a hosted monolith that uses some serverless components. It’s also important to highlight that the tradeoffs for using these technologies internally are somewhat different from using them externally. Side note: the description is linking to the wrong article.

[@KevinBoutin]

Yeah, the redesign is not a monolith. The whole argument is absurd.

[@waytospergtherebro]

I hope they lay off whatever's left of the Amplify team and let that trash heap die.

[@CosasCotidianas]

First, title is a huge click bait. Second, they still use serverless for several operations. Third, serverless is not the only way to implement microservices. Fourth, they turned a solution based on distributed serverless functions into a service, which can perfectly be considered as a microservice itself.