AWS AppSync - The Underrated Backbone of Modern & AI Application

AWS Tech Summit 2025
Deep Dive in AppSync

Transcript

1. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 1 © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Jerome Van Der Linden (he him) Senior Prototyping Architect AWS The Underrated Backbone of Modern & AI Applications AWS AppSync
2. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 2 - AppSync basics - AppSync with HTTP APIs - AppSync in Event-Driven Architectures - AppSync and Generative AI - AppSync for the Enterprise Agenda
3. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 3 AppSync: A GraphQL API AWS AppSync GraphQL schema
4. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 4 It all starts with a GraphQL Schema Schema Types Inputs Operations
5. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 5 AppSync: A GraphQL API serving different clients AWS AppSync GraphQL schema Enterprise apps Web & mobile apps Real-time dashboards IoT devices Request Response Offline/delta sync
6. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 6 AppSync: A GraphQL API exposing data and services AWS AppSync GraphQL schema Enterprise apps Web & mobile apps Real-time dashboards IoT devices Request Response Offline/delta sync Resolvers Amazon DynamoDB Amazon Aurora Amazon OpenSearch Service AWS Lambda Data sources VTL Other AWS services
7. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 7 JavaScript as the preferred resolver language… VTL
8. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 8 … and eventually TypeScript npx @aws-amplify/cli codegen
9. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 9 AppSync: A GraphQL API exposing HTTP APIs AWS AppSync GraphQL schema Enterprise apps Web & mobile apps Real-time dashboards IoT devices Request Response Offline/delta sync Resolvers Amazon DynamoDB Amazon Aurora Amazon OpenSearch Service AWS Lambda Data sources VTL Other AWS services HTTP Public HTTP APIs
10. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 10 AppSync integrates with any HTTP API… Direct Integration with HTTP Data source, no unnecessary hop, return only what you need 1. Define the GraphQL Schema 2. Define the data source pointing to an HTTP API
11. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 11 AppSync integrates with any HTTP API… Direct Integration with HTTP Data source, no unnecessary hop, return only what you need 3. Define the resolver Use data fetched from the first resolver (getUser), available in “source” Return only what you need
12. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 12 AppSync integrates with any HTTP API… Direct Integration with HTTP Data source, no unnecessary hop, return only what you need 4. Execute query
13. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 13 … any! AWS Step Functions AWS AppSync StartSyncExecution https://sync-states.<REGION>.amazonaws.com/
14. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 14 AppSync: A GraphQL API that composes data sources AWS AppSync GraphQL schema Enterprise apps Web & mobile apps Real-time dashboards IoT devices Request Response Offline/delta sync Amazon DynamoDB Amazon Aurora Amazon OpenSearch Service AWS Lambda Data sources VTL Other AWS services HTTP Public HTTP APIs Pipeline Resolvers
15. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 15 Use Pipeline Resolvers to compose data sources AWS AppSync Pipeline function Pipeline function Request Response Amazon DynamoDB Request Response Amazon Aurora { customerId: "123", minAmount: 100 } { id: "123", firstName: "John", lastName: "Doe”, email: ”john@doe.com", tier: "premium" }
16. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 16 AppSync enables BFF pattern Backend for Frontend (BFF) is • Tightly coupled to specific user experience (UX) • Maintained/defined by the frontend team • Easier to define and adapt to UX requirements BFF allows backend REST APIs to • Remain focused (clear, specific scope) • Remain simple, and easy to maintain • Evolve independently Direct integration, no unnecessary hop, return only what you need AWS AppSync API API API Backend For Frontend
17. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 17 AppSync: A GraphQL API enabling Event-Driven Arch. AWS AppSync GraphQL schema Enterprise apps Web & mobile apps Real-time dashboards IoT devices Request Response Offline/delta sync Resolvers Amazon DynamoDB Amazon Aurora Amazon OpenSearch Service AWS Lambda Data sources VTL Other AWS services HTTP Public HTTP APIs Amazon EventBridge API Destination
18. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 18 Appsync + EventBridge = 🩷 Make any system event-driven and real-time Backend to frontend with subscripLons AWS AppSync Amazon EC2 Amazon EventBridge Subscription Frontend to backend AWS Lambda AWS AppSync Amazon EventBridge
19. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 19 AppSync: A GraphQL API enabling Generative AI AWS AppSync GraphQL schema Enterprise apps Web & mobile apps Real-time dashboards IoT devices Request Response Offline/delta sync Resolvers Amazon DynamoDB Amazon Aurora Amazon OpenSearch Service AWS Lambda Data sources VTL Other AWS services HTTP Public HTTP APIs Amazon EventBridge Amazon Bedrock
20. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 20 Model invocation – Converse API Amazon Bedrock Runtime data source + Converse • Integration with Guardrails • Tool use • Max 10 seconds • No streaming
21. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 21 Model invocation – Converse API
22. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 22 Model invocation – InvokeModel API Amazon Bedrock Runtime data source + InvokeModel • Quickly create a summary or generate embeddings • Integration with Guardrails • Max 10 seconds
23. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 23 Model invocation – Synchronous pipeline AWS AppSync Pipeline function Pipeline function Request Response Amazon Bedrock Request Response Amazon Aurora Use case • Create an embedding using Amazon Titan model in Bedrock • Then use that embedding for a similarity search using pgVector in Aurora
24. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 24 Model invocation – Asynchronous AWS AppSync AWS Lambda Async invocation Amazon Bedrock AWS AppSync (Websocket) ConverseStream Using AppSync subscriptions • > 10 seconds response • Streaming (reasoning, responses) muta%on ask muta%on answer subscrip%on onAnswer Blog post: hOp://bit.ly/4nmzbE1
25. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 25 Model invocation – Asynchronous Using AppSync subscriptions • > 10 seconds response • Streaming (reasoning, responses) AWS AppSync AWS Step Functions Async invocation Amazon Bedrock AWS AppSync (Websocket) ConverseStream mutation ask mutation answer subscrip%on onAnswer
26. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 26 AppSync: A GraphQL API for the enterprise AWS AppSync GraphQL schema Enterprise apps Web & mobile apps Real-time dashboards IoT devices Request Response Offline/delta sync Resolvers Amazon DynamoDB Amazon Aurora Amazon OpenSearch Service AWS Lambda Data sources VTL Other AWS services HTTP Public HTTP APIs Amazon EventBridge Amazon Bedrock Amazon CloudWatch AWS X-Ray Metrics, logs, and traces
27. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 27 AppSync: A GraphQL API for the enterprise AWS AppSync GraphQL schema Enterprise apps Web & mobile apps Real-time dashboards IoT devices Request Response Offline/delta sync Resolvers Amazon DynamoDB Amazon Aurora Amazon OpenSearch Service AWS Lambda Data sources VTL Other AWS services HTTP Public HTTP APIs Amazon EventBridge Amazon Bedrock Amazon CloudWatch AWS X-Ray Metrics, logs, and traces API key AWS Lambda Amazon Cognito AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) OpenID Connect Authorization AWS WAF Custom domain name
28. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 28 AppSync Private APIs Instance Customer account Interface endpoint VPC Private subnet AWS PrivateLink Route 53 private hosted zone AWS Region AWS AppSync
29. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 29 GraphQL Federation with Merged APIS • A merged API combines a group of AppSync GraphQL APIs owned and managed by different teams by composing a single GraphQL schema and securely exposing data from backend APIs to clients in a single endpoint • Enables cross-team collaboration while operating independently
30. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 30 GraphQL Federation with Merged APIS GraphQL Schema Resolvers AWS account – Team B Amazon DynamoDB Amazon Aurora Serverless AWS account – Team A GraphQL Schema Resolvers Schema A Schema B AWS account – Merged API IAM Permissions Merged GraphQL Schema Resolvers (Team A) Merged Schema Read-only Read-only Resolvers (Team B) Read-only IAM Permissions
31. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 31 Thank you! © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Amazon Confidential and Trademark. Jerome Van Der Linden @jeromevdl