AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway, MySQL, PHP - it’s LAMP but not as you know it. In this session, Ben will show why there has never been a better time to build serverless applications with PHP. Using this new LAMP stack to build serverless applications allows PHP developers to benefit from the agility and scalability enabled by the serverless paradigm, all without needing to manage servers. He’ll demo how to get started running your PHP code using functions as a service. You’ll learn how to connect to databases at scale with spiky workloads, and continue to use your favourite libraries and tools, without impacting performance or availability. Learn how to become a serverless PHP developer, and use the world’s most popular web runtime to build scalable, agile apps without the server management.

1. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Ben Smith, AWS Serverless
September, 2020
The Serverless LAMP Stack
© 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.

2. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
About Me
• Ben Smith
• Twitter: @benjamin_l_s
• PHP Web developer ~ 15 years
• Serverless geek
• Senior Developer Advocate – AWS Serverless
• Previously:
• Principal Web dev @ CA Technologies
• Principal Program manager @ Broadcom
• Workflow Automation & Service orchestration

3. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
The challenges with traditional PHP
applications

4. Traditional
server
Traditional
server
Traditional
server
Traditional
server
Classic Load BalancerInternet
User
+
Database
Server
VPC
Clone DB
Traditional
LAMP doesn’t
scale well
+

5. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Improved VPC
networking for
LambdaAWS Lambda
Amazon API
Gateway
Amazon RDS
Proxy
Layers & Custom
Runtime API
Jul 2015
Nov 2014 Nov 2017
Nov 2018
Sep 2019
Nov 2019
Amazon Aurora
Serverless
Why Now?

6. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Lambda
API Gateway PHP
MySQL
The Serverless LAMP stack

7. Lambda
Lambda
A
M
P

8. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
What is serverless?
No infrastructure provisioning,
no management
Automatic scaling
Pay for value Highly available and secure
© 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
© 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.

9. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.© 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Event-driven compute
Functions as a service
Serverless FaaS
© 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All
rights reserved.

10. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Serverless Applications
Event source Services
(anything)
Changes in
data state
Requests to
endpoints
Changes in
Resource state
Function
Node.js
Python
Java
Go
Ruby
.Net (C#/Powershell)
Custom Runtime API
© 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
© 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.

11. Anatomy of an AWS Lambda function
Handler () function
Function to be executed
upon invocation
Event object
Data sent during Lambda
function Invocation
Context object
Methods available to
interact with runtime
information (request ID, log
group, more)
© 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.

12. Anatomy of
an AWS
Lambda
function
Your function
Language
runtime
Execution
environment
Lambda service
Compute
substrate

13. L
API Gateway
M
P
API Gateway

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APIs are the front
door to your
backend services

15. Amazon API Gateway
Websites
Services
Amazon API Gateway
API Gateway
Cache
Public
Endpoints on
Amazon EC2
Amazon
CloudWatch
Monitoring
All publicly
accessible
endpoints
Lambda
Functions
Endpoints
in VPC
Applications
& Services
in VPC
Any other
AWS service
Fully-managed
CloudFront
Distribution
Edge-OptimizedRegionalPrivate
Applications
& Services
in the same
AWS Region AWS Direct
Connect
On-premises
HTTPS
Mobile client
Customer-managed
CloudFront Distribution

16. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Amazon API Gateway
Create a unified
API frontend for
multiple micro-
services
Authenticate and
authorize
requests to a
backend
DDoS protection
and throttling for
your backend
Throttle, meter,
and monetize API
usage by third-
party developers

17. MySQL
L
A
MySQL +
P
Amazon Aurora
Amazon RDS Proxy

18. Amazon Aurora
• MySQL and PostgreSQL compatible relational database built for the cloud
• Performance and availability of commercial-grade databases at 1/10th the
cost
Performance
& scalability
5x throughput of standard
MySQL and 3x of standard
PostgreSQL; scale-out up
to15 read replicas
Availability
& durability
Fault-tolerant, self-healing
storage; six copies of
data across three AZs;
continuous backup to S3
Highly
secure
Network isolation,
encryption at
rest/transit
Fully
managed
Managed by RDS: no
hardware provisioning,
software patching, setup,
configuration, or backups
70,369 Gigabytes

19. Pool and share
application
scaling
availability
DB failover times
data
security
access controls
Fully managed
compatible
Amazon RDS Proxy
Fully managed, highly available database proxy feature for Amazon RDS.
Pools and shares DB connections to make applications more scalable, resilient to
database failures, and secure.

20. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Amazon RDS
Proxy
AWS Lambda AWS Identity and Access
Management
AWS Secrets Manager Amazon Aurora
Use Trust Policy
Create Token
Get DB Credentials
Open Connection
Return Token
Use Connection Pool
Return Connection ID

21. PHP
L
A
M
PHP on AWS Lambda

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AWS Lambda wants to
make it easy for developers
build applications.
Managing the language
runtimes for our customers
helps make it easier to do
this!

23. Currently supported languages and versions
Node.js 12.x
Node.js 10.x
Python 2.7
Python 3.8
Python 3.7
Python 3.7
Python 2.7
Ruby 2.7
Ruby 2.5
Java 11
Java 8
.Net Core 3.1 (C#)
.Net Core 2.
Go 1.x
These represent the majority of what our
customers are writing applications in today...

24. ~ 80% of the
web runs on PHP
. https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/programming_language

25. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Lambda Custom Runtimes
Bring any Linux compatible language runtime
Powered by the Runtime API
Custom runtimes distributed as “layers” Rule
Stack

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Lambda Layers
Lets functions easily share code: Upload layer
once, reference within any function
Layer can be anything: dependencies, training
data, configuration files, etc
Promote separation of responsibilities, lets
developers iterate faster on writing business logic
Built in support for secure sharing by ecosystem

27. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Lambda Runtime API
You can select a custom runtime in the console (provided in the
API/SDKs/CLI) as the runtime of a Lambda function
With this selection, the function must include (in its code or in a
layer) an executable file called bootstrap
• The runtime bootstrap is responsible for the communication between
your code and the Lambda environment
• Your code can use any programming language

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Lambda Environment
Execute
Bootstrap
Execute
handler code
Download
your code
Start new
Execution
environment
Event source
The bootstrap executable acts as a
bridge between the Runtime HTTP API
and the Function to be executed
Bootstrap.php
Lambda Runtime API
Lambda Function

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Lambda Environment
Bootstrap.php
Process events/headers
Clean up
Initialize & Invoke function
Response/Error handling
Bootstrap needs to manage
response/error handling, context
creation and function execution
Execute
Bootstrap
Execute
handler code
Download
your code
Start new
Execution
environment
Event source
Lambda Runtime API
Lambda Function

30. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Information on the bootstrap
file and the function handler
are shared as environment
variables
The host and port of the runtime API.
The handler location configured on the function.
The directory that contains the function code
$_ENV[‘AWS_LAMBDA_RUNTIME_API’]
$_ENV[‘_HANDLER’]
$_ENV[‘LAMBDA_TASK_ROOT’]
Lambda Environment
Execute
Bootstrap
Execute
handler code
Download
your code
Start new
Execution
environment
Event source
Bootstrap.php
Lambda Runtime API
Lambda Function

31. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Bootstrap File
Process next request
Handler Function name from $_ENV
Return response/error
Interact with runtime API

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PHP versions, modules and
package dependencies

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Compile the required version of PHP in an
Amazon Linux environment
Include any extensions with the PHP
configuration
PHP versions and extensions
Package the PHP binary
and bootstrap file
together into a file
Publish the file to a layer Add the Layer to your Lambda
function

34. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Libraries & dependencies
Install Composer, Install any additional
libraries, Package the dependencies into a
binary.
Use the AWS CLI to publish a layer from
the binary.
Add the vendor Layer to your Lambda
function

35. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Libraries & dependencies in your Lambda code
use statement imports
Classes before the function
Handler
Use the imported library
inside the function handler

36. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Libraries & dependencies in your Lambda code
use statement imports
Classes before the function
Handler
Use the imported library
inside the function handler

37. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Open Source Runtimes for PHP
Can find more here: https://github.com/mthenw/awesome-layers !
Open source,
production-ready
PHP runtimes for AWS
Lambda
Deploy as a layer with
Serverless Application Model
(SAM) or Serverless Framework

38. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Bref’s php-fpm layer
PHP-FPM is a server implementing the FastCGI protocol, developed by
the PHP core team.
It is traditionally used with HTTP servers like Apache or NGINX to
manage inbound HTTP requests for PHP applications at high loads.
Single process per HTTP request Returning HTTP responses
OPcode cache optimizations
Memory cache optimizations Database persistent connections
$_GET
$_POST $_ENV $_SERVER$_REQUEST
$_GLOBALS
Bref’s implementation of php-FPM handles:

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AWS Lambda environment
Amazon API
Gateway
</> bootstrap
PHP-FPM
Index.php
FastCGI request
FastCGI response
API Gateway request
API Gateway response
AWS Cloud
HTTP Gateway request
HTTP Gateway response
Website.com
API Gateway receives the HTTP request
and invokes AWS Lambda.

40. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
AWS Lambda environment
Amazon API
Gateway
</> bootstrap
PHP-FPM
Index.php
FastCGI request
FastCGI response
API Gateway request
API Gateway response
AWS Cloud
HTTP Gateway request
HTTP Gateway response
Website.com
Bref bootstrap executes.

41. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
AWS Lambda environment
Amazon API
Gateway
</> bootstrap
PHP-FPM
Index.php
FastCGI request
FastCGI response
API Gateway request
API Gateway response
AWS Cloud
HTTP Gateway request
HTTP Gateway response
Website.com
Bootstrap converts API gateway format
to FastCGI

42. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
AWS Lambda environment
Amazon API
Gateway
</> bootstrap
PHP-FPM
Index.php
FastCGI request
FastCGI response
API Gateway request
API Gateway response
AWS Cloud
HTTP Gateway request
HTTP Gateway response
Website.com
Boostrap calls PHP-FPM

43. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
AWS Lambda environment
Amazon API
Gateway
</> bootstrap
PHP-FPM
Index.php
FastCGI request
FastCGI response
API Gateway request
API Gateway response
AWS Cloud
HTTP Gateway request
HTTP Gateway response
Website.com
Function handler returns response

44. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
AWS Lambda environment
Amazon API
Gateway
</> bootstrap
PHP-FPM
Index.php
FastCGI request
FastCGI response
API Gateway request
API Gateway response
AWS Cloud
HTTP Gateway request
HTTP Gateway response
Website.com
Response format converted

45. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
AWS Lambda environment
Amazon API
Gateway
</> bootstrap
PHP-FPM
Index.php
FastCGI request
FastCGI response
API Gateway request
API Gateway response
AWS Cloud
HTTP Gateway request
HTTP Gateway response
Website.com
Bref returns the response to API
Gateway, which returns the HTTP
response to the client.

46. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Lambda
API Gateway PHP
MySQL

47. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
MySQL
API Gateway
Lambda
PHP
AWS Lambda
Amazon Aurora
AWS Cloud

48. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Amazon API
Gateway
AWS Lambda Amazon Aurora
Amazon CloudFront
AWS Cloud
Amazon Simple Storage
Service
/assets/*
/*
website.com/*
VPC
Lambda as a scalable web server

49. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Amazon API
Gateway
AWS Lambda Amazon Aurora
Amazon CloudFront
AWS Cloud
Amazon S3
/assets/*
/*
website.com/*
VPC
Lambda as a scalable web server

50. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
API Gateway acts as the HTTP router
The Lambda function handler is invoked when an
HTTP request comes in - Similar to the traditional
index.php
Catch All routing
API Gateway to catch all requests
Amazon API
Gateway
/
/*
AWS Lambda

51. Amazon API
Gateway
/
/*
API Gateway Rule config
apache2 config file
public/.htaccess
API Gateway
routing
{
AWS Lambda
.

52. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Amazon Cloud Front CDN to
Cache Assets and web pages
CloudFront forwards HTTP requests to
"Origins" (API Gateway/Lambda, S3,
etc.) based on "Cache Behaviours".
A cache behaviour can match a
specific URL pattern, and can have a
specific caching configuration
Run popular frameworks on Bref in
this way.
Add Caching for static assets
Amazon API
Gateway
AWS Lambda
/assets/*
Amazon CloudFront

53. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Amazon API
Gateway
Amazon Aurora
AWS Cloud
/*
/api/*
website.com/*
AWS Amplify
Console
VPC
Multiple Lambda functions for event driven microservices
/auth
/activity
/delete
/search
/update
/view
/user
/purchase
/users
/map
.html
.css
.js
.jpg .mov .mp4 .png
Amazon
RDS Proxy

54. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Lambda as anonymous functions for event driven microservices
Amazon API
Gateway
Amazon Aurora
AWS Cloud
/*
/api/*
website.com/*
AWS Amplify
Console
VPC
/auth
/activity
/delete
/search
/update
/view
/user
/purchase
/users
/map
.html
.css
.js
.jpg .mov .mp4 .png Front end application makes requests to
a resource generated by API Gateway
Amazon
RDS Proxy

55. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Lambda as anonymous functions for event driven microservices
Amazon API
Gateway
Amazon Aurora
AWS Cloud
/*
/api/*
website.com/*
AWS Amplify
Console
VPC
/auth
/activity
/delete
/search
/update
/view
/user
/purchase
/users
/map
.html
.css
.js
.jpg .mov .mp4 .png API Gateway routes the request and
invokes Lambda function
Amazon
RDS Proxy

56. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Lambda as anonymous functions for event driven microservices
Amazon API
Gateway
Amazon Aurora
AWS Cloud
/*
/api/*
website.com/*
AWS Amplify
Console
VPC
/auth
/activity
/delete
/search
/update
/view
/user
/purchase
/users
/map
.html
.css
.js
.jpg .mov .mp4 .png Lambda function processes request using
PHP custom runtime.
Amazon
RDS Proxy

57. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Lambda as anonymous functions for event driven microservices
Amazon API
Gateway
Amazon Aurora
AWS Cloud
/*
/api/*
website.com/*
AWS Amplify
Console
VPC
/auth
/activity
/delete
/search
/update
/view
/user
/purchase
/users
/map
.html
.css
.js
.jpg .mov .mp4 .png
Amazon
RDS Proxy
Lambda Uses RDS Proxy to pool and
manage DB connections

58. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Lambda as anonymous functions for event driven microservices
Amazon API
Gateway
Amazon Aurora
AWS Cloud
/*
/api/*
website.com/*
AWS Amplify
Console
VPC
/auth
/activity
/delete
/search
/update
/view
/user
/purchase
/users
/map
.html
.css
.js
.jpg .mov .mp4 .png Amazon Aurora Runs MySQL query and
returns results to Lambda
Amazon
RDS Proxy

59. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Lambda as anonymous functions for event driven microservices
Amazon API
Gateway
AWS Cloud
/*
/api/*
website.com/*
AWS Amplify
Console
/auth
/activity
/delete
/search
/update
/view
/user
/purchase
/users
/map
.html
.css
.js
.jpg .mov .mp4 .png
AWS Step Functions
Amazon EventBridge
Amazon SQS
Lambda functions send downstream to
AWS service or microservices
Amazon S3

60. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Lambda as anonymous functions for event driven microservices
Amazon API
Gateway
Amazon Aurora
AWS Cloud
/*
/api/*
website.com/*
AWS Amplify
Console
VPC
/auth
/activity
/delete
/search
/update
/view
/user
/purchase
/users
/map
.html
.css
.js
.jpg .mov .mp4 .png
Amazon
RDS Proxy
Scalable front end is hosted on Amplify
Console with CI/CD pipeline built in

61. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Lambda as anonymous functions for event driven microservices
Amazon API
Gateway
Amazon Aurora
AWS Cloud
/*
/api/*
website.com/*
AWS Amplify
Console
VPC
/auth
/activity
/delete
/search
/update
/view
/user
/purchase
/users
/map
.html
.css
.js
.jpg .mov .mp4 .png All services scale automatically as needed
to handle client requests.
Amazon
RDS Proxy

62. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Getting Started

63. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
STARTWITHAFRAMEWORK
START WITH A FRAMEWORK
START WITH A FRAMEWORK
START WITH A FRAMEWORK
START WITH A FRAMEWORK
STARTWITHA
FRAMEWORK
STARTWITHAFRAMEWORK
STARTWITHAFRAMEWORK
STARTWITHAFRAMEWORK
STARTWITHAFRAMEWORK
STARTWITHAFRAMEWORK
START WITH A FRAMEWORK
START WITH A
FRAMEWORK!
STARTWITHAFRAMEWORK
START WITH A FRAMEWORK START WITH A FRAME
WORK START WITH A FRAMEWORK START WITH
A FRAMEWORK START WITH A FRAMEWORK
START WITH A FRAMEWORK START WITH A FR
STARTWITHAFRAMEWORK
STARTWITHAFRAMEWORK
STARTWITHAFRAMEWORK
STARTWITHAFRAMEWORK
STARTWITHAFRAMEWORK
STARTWITHAFRAMEWORK
STARTWITHAFRAMEWORK
STARTWITHAFRAMEWORK
STARTWITHAFRAMEWORK
STARTWITHAFRAMEWORK
!

64. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
AWS Cloud Development Kit
CDK application AWS
CloudFormati
on template
Stack(s)
Construct Construct
Resources
AWS
CloudFormatio
n
Amazon SQS AWS Lambda Amazon S3
bucket
Amazon
DynamoDB

65. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Stack(s)
Serverless
Laravel
Serverless LAMP Stack Construct Library
CDK application AWS
CloudFormati
on template
Aurora RDS
Resources
AWS
CloudFormatio
n

66. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.

67. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
What do I do next?
AWS Serverless PHP code samples on GitHub
https://bit.ly/3i9k4gG
https://github.com/brefphp/bref
Open source PHP Layer for Lambda
Community curated resources
https://bit.ly/3ga6xnf

68. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Recap
The traditional LAMP Stack doesn’t scale well.
With serverless technologies, PHP developers can:
You can build serverless applications with PHP !
• Build scalable web applications without managing infrastructure
• Build decoupled microservices for backend applications
• Use mature, existing PHP Frameworks
• Move from prototype to production at speed.
• Compile their own custom runtime or use an open source layer

69. © 2020, Amazon Web Services, inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Thank you!
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