Thumbnail generator

Thumbnail generator App deployed in AWS using Terraform and Github Actions.

We have found a time machine and went back in time! The year is 2000 and social media is just taking off. The hottest thing is a thumbnail generator: you input a big picture and get a small picture as output.

Description

This is a simple app that generates a thumbnail from a given image. The app is deployed in AWS using the following services:

• Lambda
• API Gateway

Requirements

• Terraform
• AWS CLI
• Poetry

Other Recommended tools

• tfswitch
• aws-vault or acp

How to run

A MAKEFILE is provided to simplify the process. The following commands are available:

Available targets: setup Setup project create-virtualenv Create virtual environment create-target-dir Delete and create target directory generate-lambda-zip Generate Lambda function ZIP archive init Initialize Terraform fmt Format Terraform files validate Validate Terraform files plan-dev Plan Dev Terraform changes apply-dev Apply Dev Terraform changes destroy-dev Destroy Dev Terraform resources plan-prod Plan Prod Terraform changes apply-prod Apply Prod Terraform changes destroy-prod Destroy Prod Terraform resources clean Clean up Terraform workspace help Show this help.

How it works

The app is composed of 3 main components:

• API Gateway: This is the entry point of the app. It receives the image binary encoded.
• Lambda: This is the core of the app. It receives the image binary, generates the thumbnail and returns the small sized thumbnail binary.
• CloudWatch: This is used to monitor the app.

About the architecture

Strengths

• Simplicity: The app is simple. It is easy to understand and maintain.
• Cost: The app is cheap. It is easy to optimize for cost.
• Performance: The app is fast. It is easy to optimize for performance.
• Scalability: The app is easy to scale. It is easy to handle a large number of requests.
• Logging: The app is easy to monitor. It is easy to recover from failures.
• CI/CD: The app is easy to deploy, and to synchronize the infrastructure with the code.

Weaknesses

• User interface: This is simply an API service, no user interface is implemented.
• Security: No security is implemented. It is easy to add security features.
• Error handling: No error handling is implemented.
• Testing: Testing layer is very simple, and code coverage is not 100%.
• Documentation: Auto-generated documentation is not available. It would be very simple to add shpinx or mkdocs.