Serverless & Containers

July 2026: EdTech serverless on AWS — exam-day spikes, SQS grading buffers, CloudFront video egress, and a readiness checklist so load tests match Monday 9am reality.

ECS is "AWS-native containers." EKS is "Kubernetes, but you're still on the hook for everything Kubernetes." A decision guide for picking between ECS and EKS based on team Kubernetes experience, operational complexity, and the cost gap at production scale.

Step Functions is the AWS service most teams under-use until they need it badly. Patterns for sequential pipelines, parallel fan-out, error handling, human approval workflows, and the cost optimisations that keep state-transition bills predictable.

Single-table design is either DynamoDB's superpower or a six-month rewrite waiting to happen. SaaS access patterns, tenant isolation, GSI strategies, and the patterns that make DynamoDB the right serverless database for multi-tenant apps — plus the patterns that get teams in trouble.

Silo, pool, or bridge isolation isn't an architecture decision — it's a unit-economics decision you'll spend three years living with. A comparison framework for SaaS multi-tenancy on AWS, with the per-tenant cost trade-offs across scale tiers and the migration path for teams who picked wrong the first time.