Serverless applied to my courses architecture; Blog updates

Serverless Architecture

You may have noticed my latest course (WordPress Security Fundamentals) that I published this month. To publish it, I wanted to at least gather the users who are interested in the course through an authentication and authorization process.

The problem is that I wanted it quickly, in a cost-effective way, and easy to maintain. Nothing seems better than a "Serverless" architecture.

"Serverless" is actually a technically incorrect concept because code always runs on a server. But "Serverless" refers to a perspective. A perspective that you, as a developer, won't need to manage that server. You can just consume a service from a provider, which in this case is authentication and authorization.

I've used Auth0 but could have used Firebase or any other alternative. The greatest thing, besides cost-saving, is that I am still able to keep my static files deployed on AWS S3. There is no need to develop an entire web application to process such tasks.

I also prepared the whole thing to support payments for future courses using services from Amazon Web Services, such as AWS Lambda and AWS API Gateway. This combination is great. Lambda is used to create arbitrary functions and pay for their processing, and AWS API Gateway is used to expose such functions to the internet.

I'd like to discuss in detail what I did. Actually, I can build a course to explain the entire process, but for now, I'll see if I can present that at a conference. Otherwise, I'll publish a full guide or course here. It's something worth sharing as the serverless concept is trendy and affects not only software engineering but software security as well.

Blog Updates

Despite the architecture, many people from Brazil engaged in the Portuguese version, so I decided to reactivate my Portuguese posts. As you can see now, there are two flags near my photo, which can be used to switch between the languages.

I also created a separate mailing list. The default remains in English, and a new one in Portuguese, which can be found on the Portuguese index page.

I'll keep posting in English as usual and will start posting in Portuguese. However, the content will be tailored for each audience. It won't be a mere translating process. Each audience has its own needs, and that's what I've found.

That's all, folks. The next posts will be more technical :)