AWS has introduced specialized Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers for Amazon ECS, EKS, and AWS Serverless, enhancing AI-assisted development by providing real-time contextual responses and service-specific guidance. These open-source solutions streamline application development, enabling faster deployments and more accurate interactions with AWS services through natural language commands. The MCP servers aid in managing deployments, troubleshooting, and leveraging the latest AWS features effectively.

Firecracker, an open-source software developed by AWS, enables the creation and management of lightweight virtual machines that enhance the performance and security of serverless applications like AWS Lambda. The article discusses its applications in Amazon Bedrock AgentCore for AI agents and the Aurora DSQL serverless relational database, highlighting the benefits of session isolation, fast VM cloning, and efficient memory management.

Amazon DocumentDB Serverless is now generally available, providing a configuration that automatically scales compute and memory based on application demand, leading to significant cost savings. It supports existing MongoDB-compatible APIs and allows for easy transitions from provisioned instances without data migration, making it ideal for variable, multi-tenant, and mixed-use workloads. Users can manage capacity effectively and only pay for what they use in terms of DocumentDB Capacity Units (DCUs).

AWS Step Functions now support JSONata, a powerful query and transformation language that simplifies data manipulation within state machines. The article demonstrates various use cases for filtering, sorting, and transforming JSON data, emphasizing the ease and maintainability JSONata brings compared to the previous JSONPath syntax. It also highlights the importance of adhering to software engineering best practices when integrating orchestration and business logic.

Ownstats allows users to host their own privacy-focused website analytics on AWS using a serverless architecture. It includes backend infrastructure for data processing, a frontend React application, and a JavaScript client library for sending analytics data, all while requiring specific local installations and AWS permissions. Documentation for the project is available online.

Migrating from the Serverless Framework to the Cloud Development Kit (CDK) involves a manual process of preserving resources, recreating them in the CDK, and importing them to maintain functionality. The author shares insights from their own migration experience, including steps to prevent resource deletion, compare CloudFormation outputs, and deploy a sample application that demonstrates the migration techniques.

AWS has introduced a new feature that allows for the deployment of AWS Lambda functions directly through GitHub Actions, simplifying the CI/CD process with a declarative YAML configuration. This improvement eliminates the need for manual packaging and configuration steps, enhancing developer experience and security through seamless IAM integration. Users can easily set up a workflow to automatically deploy their functions with minimal effort.

Dacadoo successfully transformed its API service from a virtual machine to a Kubernetes-based architecture and finally to a fully serverless solution on AWS, achieving a remarkable 78% reduction in cloud costs and significantly lowering operational maintenance efforts. The transition enhanced scalability, availability, and automation, while complying with regulatory requirements for sensitive health data. This journey highlights the benefits of adopting managed services and modern cloud technologies.

AWS Lambda offers best practices for handling billions of asynchronous invocations, emphasizing the importance of scalability and reliability in serverless applications. The article outlines techniques such as simple queueing, consistent hashing, and shuffle-sharding to mitigate issues like noisy neighbors and traffic spikes, ensuring efficient load distribution and fault tolerance. Additionally, it highlights proactive monitoring and resilience strategies to maintain service quality during high-demand periods.