- Learn AWS
- Architecture
- Media processing pipeline
Architecture pattern
AWS Media processing pipeline architecture
when uploads need heavy work that nobody is waiting on
Upload and processing are separate problems. The upload lands in S3 and returns immediately; the event queues the work; workers scale on queue depth and take minutes if they need to. A failed job retries without blocking the next one, and the finished asset is served from the edge.
What it runs through
In the order a request or a record moves through it. Each one links to the page that explains it.
- S3Amazon S3
- EventBridgeAmazon EventBridge
- SQSAmazon SQS
- ECS on FargateAmazon ECS on AWS Fargate
- S3Amazon S3
- CloudFrontAmazon CloudFront
Signals in a brief that point here
Phrases that, when you meet them in a scenario, mean this shape rather than another. They are the tell, and they are what an exam question is built around.
- “transcode”
- “thumbnails”
- “takes several minutes”
- “does not need to be immediate”
- “one failure must not block others”
What it costs you
The user needs somewhere to see progress, because "done" now arrives long after "uploaded".
Every shape has one. A design decision with no stated downside is usually a decision nobody has finished making.
Learn the services in it
- AWS S3Object storage for any amount of data: files kept as objects in buckets, designed for eleven nines of durability, and private until you grant access.
- AWS SQSA queue between the part of your system that creates work and the part that does it, so a slow or broken consumer never costs you the work.
- AWS CloudFrontA content delivery network: copies of your files are cached at edge locations near viewers, and requests that miss go back to your origin over the AWS network.
Shapes it is easily confused with
These run through some of the same services, which is exactly why a brief that fits one can look like it fits another.
Now build it from a brief
Reading a shape and producing one from a scenario that never names a service are different skills, and the exam asks for the second. The scenarios give you the brief; you draw the architecture and it is scored against what the brief requires.