AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate
Project 1: Cloud-Native Portfolio Website with Real-Time Visitor Analytics
Website: https://walsonmboe-cloud.com
📘 Project Summary
This project showcases a modern, cloud-native portfolio website designed with AWS serverless architecture. Unlike standard S3-only hosting, this solution integrates real-time visitor metrics, metadata logging, and secure custom domain deployment—highlighting both frontend development and backend cloud engineering expertise.
🎯 Key Objectives
- Deploy a professional-grade portfolio website using scalable and cost-effective AWS services
- Enable a real-time visitor counter and metadata logger without managing servers
- Use fully managed services to ensure security, scalability, and low operational overhead
- Demonstrate a full-stack understanding of cloud-native architecture
- Present this project as part of a public-facing portfolio
🧱 AWS Services and Roles in the Architecture
| Service | Role |
|---|---|
| Amazon S3 | Hosts all frontend assets (HTML, CSS, JS, images) |
| Amazon CloudFront | Distributes content globally with low latency and HTTPS |
| AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) | Provides and manages SSL/TLS certificate for encrypted traffic |
| Amazon Route 53 | Connects custom domain to CloudFront distribution |
| Amazon API Gateway | Handles RESTful HTTP endpoints for Lambda invocations |
| AWS Lambda | Runs serverless backend logic for counting visits and logging metadata |
| Amazon DynamoDB | Persists visitor count and logs detailed session metadata |
🔍 Functional Overview
Static Hosting with S3 + CloudFront
- Website assets are hosted in an S3 bucket
- CloudFront improves speed via global caching
- ACM provides a secure HTTPS connection to the domain
Visitor Counter
- A JavaScript function on the homepage triggers a GET request to API Gateway
- Lambda increments a visit counter in DynamoDB and returns the updated total
Visitor Metadata Logging
- A separate POST request sends detailed data: timestamp, referrer, screen size, language, and more
- Another Lambda function stores these logs as individual records in a separate DynamoDB table
💡 Why This Architecture?
- Real-Time Interactivity: The site dynamically displays visitor count and logs insights on every visit
- Security: HTTPS encryption via ACM & CloudFront ensures visitor privacy and data integrity
- Global Performance: Fast load times everywhere using CloudFront’s edge caching
- Zero Maintenance: No servers to manage, patch, or scale—every component is fully managed
- Easy to Extend: Serverless logic allows future features (e.g., contact forms, geolocation, email triggers) to be added without altering core structure
- Full Visibility: Lightweight analytics without relying on third-party tools
This stack reflects how real-world businesses build scalable, resilient applications—making it a great learning and showcase opportunity.
🖼️ Screenshots & Architecture Diagrams
- ✅ Screenshot of ACM showing issued certificates
- ✅ Screenshot of CloudFront distribution linked to the domain
- ✅ API Gateway Routes
- ✅ Screenshot of DynamoDB visitor count and visitor logs
- ✅ Website DevOps
🧭 Development Flow Summary
- Create and style the frontend using HTML, CSS, JavaScript
- Upload static assets to S3 and enable website hosting
- Set up CloudFront with HTTPS (ACM) and link to S3
- Register and connect custom domain via Route 53
- Build two Lambda functions:
- One for visit counting (GET)
- One for visitor logging (POST)
- Create two API Gateway routes to trigger the Lambdas
- Design two DynamoDB tables for storing counts and logs
- Update frontend JavaScript to:
- Fetch and display total visits
- Send rich metadata to backend
- Deploy and validate via browser & DynamoDB queries
🏁 Outcome
This project isn’t just a personal site—it’s a cloud-native, serverless application that brings real-time functionality and operational maturity into a portfolio website. It demonstrates:
- Strong understanding of AWS infrastructure
- Clean separation of frontend and backend logic
- Comfort with asynchronous JavaScript and RESTful APIs
- Ability to build data pipelines in a serverless ecosystem