Application of Amazon Web Services in software development

106 Pages·2017·1.64 MB·English

DEGREE PROJECT IN TECHNOLOGY,
FIRST CYCLE, 15 CREDITS
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN 2018
Application of Amazon Web
Services in software
development
EMELIE THAM
MARCUS WERLINDER
KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
SCHOOL OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE

Abstract
Duringtheselastrecentyearscloudcomputingandcloudservices
have started to gain traction, which has been most notable among
companies. Amazon have proven to be one of the powerhouses on
providing scalable and flexible cloud computing services. However,
cloud computing is still a relatively new area. From an outsider’s
point of view, the overwhelming information and available services
might prove to be difficult to familiarize with. The aim of this the-
sis is to explore how Amazon Web Services can be applied during
softwaredevelopmentandobservinghowdifficultitmightbetouse
theseservices.
Three test applications that utilized different Amazon Web Ser-
viceswereimplementedtogetaninsightintohowAmazonWebSer-
vicescanbeappliedfromacloudcomputingbeginner’spointofview.
These applications were developed in an iterative manner, where a
case study was performed on each application. At the start of each
new iteration a literature study was conducted, where sources were
reviewed to see if it provided essential information. In total, nine
differentAmazonWebServiceswereusedtoimplementandtestthe
three respective test applications. Results of the case study were in-
terpretedandevaluatedwithregardstothelearnabilityandappliance
of Amazon Web Services. Issues that were identified during the de-
velopmentprocessshowedthatAmazonWebServiceswerenotuser-
friendlyforusersthathavelittletonoexperiencewithcloudcomput-
ingservices.
Further research on other Amazon Web Services, such as Elastic
Cloud Computing, as well as other cloud computing platforms like
Google or IBM, may provide a deeper and more accurate insight on
theappliancesofcloudcomputing.
Keywords: Cloud computing; Amazon Alexa; Learnability; Amazon Web
Services;Software;Cloudcomputingservices
Abstrakt
Underdemsenasteårensåharmolntjänsterblivitettalltmerpop-
ulärtområde,specielltinomföretag.Ettavdemstörstautgivareinom
molntjänst branschen är Amazon som erbjuder skalbara och flexibla
molntjänster. Molntjänster är dock ett relativt nytt område, vilket
innebär att någon som inte är insatt i ämnet kan finna all tillgäng-
lig information överväldigande och svår att bekanta sig med. Målet
meddethärtesenärattutforskaolikaAmazonWebServicesomkan
användasinommjukvaruutvecklingochobserveraproblemsomkan
uppståmeddessatjänster.
Tre testapplikationer som använde sig av Amazon Web Services
var skapade för att få en fördjupad kunskap om hur dessa tjänster
fungerarochvadförmöjligheterdehar. Dessaapplikationerutveck-
lades iterativt och en fallstudie utfördes för varje applikation. I bör-
janavvarjenyiterationgenomfördesenlitteraturstudie,därkällorna
varkritisktgranskadeförattseifalldeminnehöllväsentliginforma-
tion för tesen. Sammanlagt användes nio olika Amazon Web Ser-
vices för att implementera och testa de tre olika testapplikationerna.
Resultatenfrånfallstudientolkadesochutvärderadesmedavseende
påAmazonWebServiceslärbarhetochtillämpningsbarhet. Problem
som samlades ihop under utvecklingsprocessen visade att Amazons
Web Services inte var särskilt användarvänligt för utvecklare med
litenelleringenerfarenhetinomAmazonWebServices.
YtterligareforskninginomandraAmazonWebServicessomElas-
ticCloudComputingochforskningsomundersökerandramolntjänst
plattformar som Google Cloud, skulle kunna bidra med en djupare
förståelseochmerexaktinblickkringtillämpningavmolntjänster.
Nyckelord: Cloudcomputing; AmazonAlexa; Learnability; AmazonWeb
Services;Molntjänster
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank our advisors at KTH Royal Institute of
Technology, Anders Sjögren and Fadil Galjic, for providing us with
their valuable insights and feedback throughout the course of this
wholethesiswork.

Contents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.4 Goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.5 Methodology/Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.6 Delimitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.7 Disposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2 TheoreticalBackground 5
2.1 CloudComputing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2 AmazonWebServices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2.1 AWSCloudcomputinginfrastructure . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2.2 AWSLambda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2.3 Alexa&AlexaSkill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2.4 AWSIdentityandAccessManagement . . . . . . . . 9
2.2.5 AWSRelationalDatabaseService . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2.6 AWSVirtualPrivateCloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2.7 AWSElasticComputeCloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.8 AWSSimpleStorageService . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.9 AWSCloudWatch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.10 AWSSimpleQueueService . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.11 AWSTranscribe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.12 AWSComprehend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3 AmazonWebServicesToolsandLibraries . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3.1 AmazonWebServicesSoftwareDevelopmentKit . . 16
2.3.2 Node.js . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3.3 NodePackageManager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3.4 JSONObjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3.5 AmazonWebServicesCommandLineInterface . . . 17
2.3.6 MySQL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3.7 AlexaSkillsKitSoftwareDevelopmentKit . . . . . . 17
2.3.8 AlexaSkillKitCommandLineInterface . . . . . . . . 17
2.4 DefinitionandMetricsofSoftwareLearnability . . . . . . . . 18
2.4.1 TaskMetrics: Metricsbasedontaskperformance . . 19
2.4.2 CommandMetrics: Metricsbasedoncommandusage 20
2.4.3 MentalMetrics: Metricsbasedoncognitiveprocesses 20
2.4.4 SubjectiveMetrics: Metricsbasedonuserfeedback . 21
2.4.5 DocumentationMetrics: Metricsbasedondocumen-
tationusage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.4.6 UsabilityMetrics: Metricsbasedonchangeinusability 21
2.4.7 RuleMetrics: Metricsbasedonspecificrules . . . . . 22
2.5 RelatedWorks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.5.1 ReportsonCloudServices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.5.2 ProjectsusingAmazonWebServices . . . . . . . . . 22
3 Method 25
3.1 ResearchMethodologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.1.1 Inductive&DeductiveApproach . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.1.2 Quantitative&QualitativeResearch . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.1.3 CaseStudy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.1.4 Bunge’smethod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.1.5 AppliedResearchMethodology . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.2 Sub-questionsoftheresearchquestion . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.3 ResearchMethod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.3.1 Understanding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.3.2 Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.3.3 DevelopingandTesting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.3.4 Evaluation,DiscussionandConclusion . . . . . . . . 29
3.4 Evaluationmethod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.5 DevelopmentTools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.5.1 DevelopmentEnvironments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.5.2 ProgrammingLanguages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.5.3 TestingandDebuggingTools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.5.4 ProjectModel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.6 DocumentationModel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4 PrerequisitesforapplyingAWSServicesandTools 33
4.1 PrerequisitesofapplyingAWSServices . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.1.1 LambdaPrerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.1.2 IAMPrerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.1.3 S3Prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.1.4 RDSPrerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.1.5 SQSPrerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.1.6 AmazonTranscribeandComprehendPrerequisites . 38
4.2 PrerequisitesofapplyingAWSTools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.2.1 ASKCLIPrerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.2.2 AWSSDKPrerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.2.3 AWSCLIPrerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5 CaseStudy: CreatingTestapplicationswithAWS 43
5.1 CaseStudy: FirstTestApplication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5.1.1 StructureoftheFirstTestApplication . . . . . . . . . 43
5.1.2 Creating an Alexa Skill and integrating it with AWS
Lambda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5.1.3 IntegratingtheskillwithiCal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5.1.4 IntegratingtheAlexaSkillwithAWSRDS . . . . . . 46
5.1.5 TestingandRunningtheApplication . . . . . . . . . 47
5.2 CaseStudy: SecondTestApplication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5.2.1 StructureoftheSecondTestApplication . . . . . . . 49
5.2.2 ImplementationandConfigurationofAmazonS3Buck-
ets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
5.2.3 DeploymentPackageofAWSLambdaFunction . . . 51
5.2.4 ImplementationandConfigurationofIAMExecution
Role. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
5.2.5 TestingandInvokingtheApplication . . . . . . . . . 56
5.2.6 ConfigurationofAmazonS3toPublishEvents . . . . 57
5.3 CaseStudy: ThirdTestApplication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5.3.1 StructureoftheThirdApplication . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5.3.2 UploadingtoS3andsendingmessagestoSQS . . . . 59
5.3.3 Retrieve message from SQS and execute Transcribe
andComprehend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
6 CaseStudy: ObservationsandMeasures 61
6.1 FeedbackandThoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
6.1.1 FeedbackandThoughts: FirstTestApplication . . . . 61
6.1.2 FeedbackandThoughts: ThesecondTestApplication 63
6.1.3 FeedbackandThoughts: ThethirdTestApplication . 66
6.2 LinesofCode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
6.3 WorkHours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
6.4 Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
7 AnsweringResearchQuestions 73
7.1 TheprerequisitesneededtouseAmazonWebServices . . . 73
7.2 The Amazon Web Services that were applied and how they
wereused . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
7.3 Issuesthatoccurredduringdevelopment . . . . . . . . . . . 75
7.4 TheCostofusingAmazonWebServices . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
7.5 SummaryofResults. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
8 Discussion 79
8.1 ValidityandReliabilityoftheResearchMethod. . . . . . . . 79
8.2 Lookingbackattheresults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
8.3 Benefits,EthicsandSustainability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
9 Summary 83
9.1 FutureResearch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83