3.5. Reflection Checkpoint

If any of these concepts feel unclear, revisit them now — without solid security, monitoring, and deployment foundations, the integration patterns in Phase 4 will lack the context needed to make sense.

Key Takeaways

Before proceeding, ensure you can:

• Implement least-privilege IAM policies for Lambda functions
• Choose between Cognito User Pools and Identity Pools for different auth scenarios
• Use CloudWatch Metrics, Logs, and X-Ray for the right observability tasks
• Select the correct deployment strategy (blue/green, canary, rolling) for a given scenario
• Optimize Lambda performance by adjusting memory, package size, and connection reuse

Connecting Forward

Phase 4 covers integration patterns (SQS, SNS, EventBridge, Step Functions) and specialized services that complete your DVA-C02 preparation.

Self-Check Questions

1. A developer needs to alert the on-call team when Lambda errors exceed 5% over a 5-minute window. Which CloudWatch features are needed, and in what order?
2. What's the difference between blue/green deployment for EC2 versus Lambda, and how does CodeDeploy handle each?