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Presentation Layer

Route 53​

Amazon Route 53 fits into the Presentation Layer of an e-commerce application running on AWS. Here's how it functions within this layer:

Route 53 in the Presentation Layer​

  • Role: Route 53 acts as the Domain Name System (DNS) service, translating human-friendly domain names (e.g., www.myecommerce.com) into IP addresses that computers use to connect to servers hosting the application.
  • Use Cases:
    • Traffic Routing: Route 53 can direct users to different environments (e.g., production, staging) based on various routing policies (e.g., latency-based, weighted, geolocation).
    • Failover: Provides health checks and failover capabilities, automatically redirecting traffic to healthy endpoints if an issue is detected.
    • Global Edge Locations: Works seamlessly with Amazon CloudFront to optimize content delivery by routing users to the nearest edge location.

By being part of the Presentation Layer, Route 53 helps ensure users can easily access the application by directing them to the correct resources.

Amazon CloudFront​

Amazon CloudFront primarily fits into the Presentation Layer of an e-commerce application architecture. It also plays a role in enhancing security and performance at the edge. Here’s how CloudFront fits into this layer and its interactions with other layers:

Amazon CloudFront in the Presentation Layer​

  • Primary Role: CloudFront is a content delivery network (CDN) that caches and delivers content (static and dynamic) to users globally, reducing latency and improving load times. It serves as the public-facing entry point for an application, delivering web assets such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript files, images, videos, APIs, and dynamic content.
  • Key Features:
    • Caching: Caches static content at edge locations, reducing the load on origin servers (e.g., S3, EC2, or API Gateway) and speeding up content delivery to users.
    • Dynamic Content Delivery: Efficiently handles dynamic content by establishing optimized, persistent connections to origin servers, reducing latency.
    • Global Distribution: Uses a network of edge locations worldwide to deliver content closer to the end user, enhancing performance.

Interactions with Other Layers​

  • Application Layer: Routes API requests and web traffic to backend services through Application Load Balancer (ALB), API Gateway, or directly to EC2 instances. It can also work with Lambda@Edge for dynamic content personalization, enhancing user experience.
  • Security Layer: Integrates with AWS WAF to protect against common web exploits (SQL injection, XSS) and AWS Shield for DDoS protection. Works with Amazon Cognito to restrict access to specific content or APIs.
  • Data Layer: Often used to deliver media files stored in Amazon S3 and to distribute user-generated content, reducing direct load on the data storage services.

Summary​

  • Primary Fit: Presentation Layer, as it is responsible for delivering content to end users and handling user requests.
  • Enhancement: Enhances both security and performance by working with services in the security layer (WAF, Shield) and caching data to reduce latency.

By sitting at the edge of the application architecture, Amazon CloudFront optimizes content delivery and protects the application from potential security threats.

Lambda@Edge​

AWS Lambda@Edge fits primarily in the Presentation Layer of an e-commerce application architecture. Here’s how it functions within this layer:

Lambda@Edge in the Presentation Layer​

  • Primary Role: Lambda@Edge extends the capabilities of Amazon CloudFront by allowing you to run serverless code closer to users, improving response times and reducing latency.
  • Common Use Cases:
    • Content Personalization: Modify content at the edge based on user attributes, such as customizing recommendations or displaying local currency and language.
    • A/B Testing: Dynamically alter web content to perform A/B testing for different user groups.
    • Security: Perform additional security checks, such as validating tokens or headers before serving content.
    • SEO and Redirects: Handle redirects (e.g., HTTP to HTTPS) or manage URL rewrites for SEO optimization.

Interactions with Other Layers​

  • Application Layer: While it primarily resides in the presentation layer, Lambda@Edge can interact with backend services (like APIs) by modifying or directing requests based on logic executed at the edge.

By being part of the presentation layer, Lambda@Edge allows for dynamic content delivery and processing of requests with minimal latency, enhancing the user experience.

Amazon S3​

Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) primarily fits into the Data Layer of an e-commerce application architecture. However, it can also have secondary roles in the Presentation Layer when serving static content. Here's a detailed breakdown of its role:

Amazon S3 in the Data Layer​

  • Primary Role: Provides scalable object storage for various types of data, such as product images, user-uploaded files, backups, log files, and other static assets. In the data layer, S3 acts as a reliable and durable storage solution for both application-generated data and content that needs to be retrieved quickly.
  • Use Cases in the Data Layer:
    • Static Assets: Stores product images, videos, and documents, enabling retrieval when required.
    • Log Storage: Saves application logs and event data for later analysis and processing (e.g., via Amazon S3 data lakes).
    • Backups: Stores backups of databases and application states to ensure data resilience.
    • Data Export/Import: Acts as an intermediary for importing/exporting large data sets for processing by analytics tools (e.g., AWS Glue, Amazon Athena).

Amazon S3 in the Presentation Layer​

  • Secondary Role: When used to host static websites or store front-end assets (like HTML, CSS, JavaScript files), Amazon S3 becomes part of the presentation layer.
  • Use Cases in the Presentation Layer:
    • Static Website Hosting: Can host static websites directly, allowing users to access content over HTTP(S).
    • Content Delivery: Works with Amazon CloudFront to serve cached content from S3 buckets globally, improving user experience by reducing latency.

Interactions with Other Layers​

  • Application Layer: Application services (e.g., microservices in ECS, Lambda functions) interact with S3 for reading/writing data. This includes fetching product images, uploading user files, and retrieving static content.
  • Security Layer: Utilizes mechanisms like AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies, S3 bucket policies, encryption (SSE-S3, SSE-KMS), and S3 Access Points to secure data access.
  • Integration Layer: S3 can integrate with event-driven services (like Amazon S3 Event Notifications) to trigger workflows or send messages to services like Amazon SNS, SQS, or AWS Lambda.

Summary​

  • Primary Fit: Data Layer, as it stores and manages data objects needed by various application components.
  • Secondary Fit: Presentation Layer, when serving static content directly to users.

Amazon S3 is versatile, providing both reliable data storage in the data layer and efficient content delivery in the presentation layer, particularly when paired with services like Amazon CloudFront.