Posts

Solve: How to Use FinalizationRegistry in Cloudflare Workers Without Missteps

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Solve: How to Use FinalizationRegistry in Cloudflare Workers Without Missteps Understanding the Challenge: Manual Memory in Wasm In Cloudflare Workers, combining JavaScript with WebAssembly (Wasm) brings high-performance possibilities—but also complicates memory management. JavaScript employs automatic garbage collection, freeing developers from manual memory concerns. Wasm, however, uses a linear memory buffer that must be explicitly managed—allocating and deallocating memory manually to avoid leaks. For example, consider this Rust-based Wasm snippet compiled for Workers: rust #[no_mangle] pub extern "C" fn make_buffer(out_len: *mut usize) -> *mut u8 { let mut data = b"Hello from Rust".to_vec(); let ptr = data.as_mut_ptr(); let len = data.len(); unsafe { *out_len = len }; std::mem::forget(data); // JS must free this later ptr } #[no_mangle] pub unsafe extern "C" fn free_buffer(ptr: *mut u8, len: usize) { let _ = Vec::from_r...

Solve: Defining Arrays of Structs in AWS Glue with CDK's aws_glue_alpha...A Cleaner Approach

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Solve: Defining Arrays of Structs in AWS Glue with CDK's aws_glue_alpha...A Cleaner Approach Introduction AWS Glue is a powerful tool for defining data pipelines and transformations, and with the AWS CDK's experimental aws_glue_alpha module, developers can now define Glue tables directly in Python or TypeScript code. However, not all features are ergonomic yet—especially when working with nested types like arrays of structs. If you've ever tried to define a column as an array of structs with a well-formed schema, you may have run into a frustrating limitation. Clarifying the Pain Point Imagine you're working with semi-structured data that includes an array of JSON objects, such as: json [ { "color": "blue", "hex": "#0000FF" }, { "color": "green", "hex": "#00FF00" } ] You'd naturally want to express this in CDK like so:  python glue.Schema.a...

New Article on Medium: An AWS Migration Competency Journey

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New Article on Medium: An AWS Migration Competency Journey I just published a companion piece to my recent AWS competency analysis - but this time, told through the eyes of Sarah Chen, a fictional consultant navigating the Migration Competency process. Sarah's journey captures the emotional reality of competency applications that the technical articles miss: the initial overconfidence, the unexpected rejection, the gradual understanding of what AWS actually evaluates, and the transformation from project-focused consultant to business transformation expert. What Sarah's story reveals: Why technical excellence isn't enough for approval How customer relationships must evolve beyond project delivery The documentation transformation required for competency success What "business transformation" actually means to AWS reviewers Read Sarah's complete journey on Medium This fictionalized approach brings the competency process to life while maintaining complete accuracy...

Solving EventBridge Cross-Account Event Challenges in AWS Organizations

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Solving EventBridge Cross-Account Event Challenges in AWS Organizations TL;DR : Cross-account EventBridge event delivery in AWS Organizations requires careful configuration of permissions, resource policies, and understanding of organizational trails vs. EventBridge capabilities. This deep dive explains common issues and provides practical solutions for enterprise multi-account architectures. The Challenge: When EventBridge Events Don't Cross Account Boundaries A common scenario many AWS architects encounter involves setting up event-driven architectures across multiple accounts within an AWS Organization. Picture this: you have several organizational units (OUs), some using AWS Control Tower while others were dropped from centralized management. You're trying to get EventBridge to read events from all accounts within the organization using a centralized rule in a management account, but events seem to get lost in transit. This challenge touches on a f...

Insight: Aurora DSQL vs. Aurora PostgreSQL—A Quick Explainer on What’s Changed and Why It Matters

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Insight: Aurora DSQL vs. Aurora PostgreSQL—A Quick Explainer on What’s Changed and Why It Matters If you’ve spent years building on Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL, the arrival of Aurora DSQL might look like a natural progression. Same AWS branding, same PostgreSQL heritage—so how different could it be? As it turns out?  It's very different. Aurora DSQL is a new engine built to scale horizontally and simplify operations. But that simplicity comes at the cost of compatibility. It’s not a superset of PostgreSQL—it’s a smaller, faster-moving target. This post walks through the key differences so you can make clear, informed decisions. Feature Aurora DSQL Aurora PostgreSQL PostgreSQL Compatibility ❌ Partial (subset only) ✅ Full JSON/JSONB Support ❌ Not supported ✅ Fully supported Foreign Keys ❌ Defined but not enforced ✅ Fully enforced User-Defined Functions (UDFs) ❌ Not supported ✅ Supported in SQL/PL languages Triggers ❌ Not supported ✅ Fully supported Scaling Model ✅ Serverless, auto-sca...

Insight: A Clear-Eyed Look at Aurora DSQL—What Amazon's New Database Engine Gives Us...and What It Leaves Behind

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Insight: A Clear-Eyed Look at Aurora DSQL—What Amazon's New Database Engine Gives Us...and What It Leaves Behind The call came in late on a Friday. A lead architect had just been told that her team would be migrating their backend to Amazon Aurora DSQL—effective immediately. No negotiation. No pilot phase. Just a quiet directive from above: "This is what our cloud partner recommends." She opened the documentation, scanned for jsonb support, and felt her stomach drop. That story is becoming more common. Amazon Aurora DSQL arrived with a quiet splash in June 2025. If you only read the press release, you’d think we just got a drop-in, auto-scaling, serverless version of PostgreSQL, purpose-built for modern distributed applications. But as anyone who has worked on the ground with new AWS offerings knows, the truth lives in the edge cases. The truth lives in the constraints. And Aurora DSQL, for all its architectural ambition, carries real and lasting limitations that develope...

New Article on Medium: The Real Story Behind AWS Competencies

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New Article on Medium: The Real Story Behind AWS Competencies I just published a deep dive on Medium that's aimed at helping the AWS consulting community: "The Real Story Behind AWS Competencies." If you've ever wondered why experienced consultants with successful track records get rejected for AWS competencies, this article reveals the disconnect between what most people think AWS evaluates and what actually determines approval. Key insights covered: Why technical excellence isn't enough for competency approval The customer relationship depth requirements most consultants miss How to document business transformation (not just technical implementation) The systematic approach that separates successful applications This piece fills a real gap in AWS competency guidance. Most content focuses on technical requirements, but the actual evaluation criteria are far more nuanced and business-focused. Read the full article on Medium The article also links to a comprehensi...