Serverless architecture for cost-effective image processing

Publication date: June 2017 (last update: May 2021)

The Serverless Image Handler solution helps you embed images on your websites and mobile applications to drive user engagement. It uses Sharp to provide high-speed image processing wihout sacrificing image quality. To minimize your costs of image optimization, manipulation, and processing, this solution automates version control and provides flexible storage and compute options for file reprocessing.

This solution automatically deploys and configures a serverless architecture optimized for dynamic image manipulation. Images can be rendered and returned spontaneously. For example, an image can be resized based on different screen sizes by adding code on your website that leverages this solution to resize the image before being sent to the screen using the image. It uses Amazon CloudFront for global content delivery and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) for reliable and durable cloud storage.

This implementation guide is intended for IT infrastructure architects, administrators, and DevOps professionals who have practical experience architecting web applications in the AWS Cloud. It discusses architectural considerations and provides configuration steps for deploying this solution. This guide includes links to an AWS CloudFormation template to launch and configure all services required to deploy this solution on AWS, using AWS best practices for security and availability.