Building a Serverless Student Management System Using AWS (Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, S3 & CloudFront)

Faheem abid 011 — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 09:23:31 +0000

In this project, I designed and deployed a complete serverless Student Management application using AWS services.
The system lets users add new student records and retrieve existing data, powered entirely by:

AWS Lambda

Amazon DynamoDB

API Gateway (REST API)

S3 Static Website Hosting

CloudFront CDN

IAM (Role-based permissions)

This article contains everything needed to recreate the project from scratch
1. Create DynamoDB Table

Open DynamoDB in the AWS Console

Click Create Table

Set:

Table name: studentData

Partition key: studentid (String)

Create the table.

🔎 Ensure the partition key name matches exactly with the name used inside your Lambda functions.

2. Create IAM Role for Lambda

Go to IAM → Roles → Create Role

Select Lambda as the use case

Attach the policy: AmazonDynamoDBFullAccess

Name it: lambda-dynamodb-full-access

Create the role.

3. Create Lambda Function – Fetch Students (GET)

Go to AWS Lambda

Click Create function

Choose Python 3.12

Select Use an existing role

Pick the role: lambda-dynamodb-full-access

Paste your getstudents.py code

Deploy the function

4. Create Lambda Function – Insert Students (POST)

Repeat the same steps as the GET function:

Create a new Lambda (Python 3.12)

Choose the same IAM role

Paste insertstudentdata.py

Deploy

*5. Build REST API Using API Gateway
*
Open API Gateway

Choose REST API → Build

Set:

API name: any

Endpoint type: Edge Optimized

Create the API

Add Methods

GET Method

Resource: /

Method: GET

Integration type: Lambda

Select the GET Lambda function

POST Method

Resource: /

Method: POST

Integration: Lambda

Select the POST Lambda function

Enable CORS

Select the resource

Click Enable CORS

Deploy the API

Deploy → New Stage → prod

Copy the Invoke URL

Add it to your script.js

6. Create S3 Bucket for Hosting the Website

Go to S3 → Create bucket

Keep Block Public Access ON

Upload:

index.html

script.js

7. Enable Static Website Hosting in S3

Go to Properties

Scroll to Static Website Hosting

Enable it and set:

Index document: index.html

Error document: index.html

8. Allow CloudFront to Access S3 (Bucket Policy)

Since your bucket will remain private, CloudFront needs permission to read files.

Use this policy template:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Sid": "AllowCloudFrontAccess",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Principal": {
        "Service": "cloudfront.amazonaws.com"
      },
      "Action": "s3:GetObject",
      "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::your-bucket-name/*",
      "Condition": {
        "StringEquals": {
          "AWS:SourceArn": "arn:aws:cloudfront::YOUR-ACCOUNT-ID:distribution/YOUR-DISTRIBUTION-ID"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Replace:

your-bucket-name

YOUR-ACCOUNT-ID

YOUR-DISTRIBUTION-ID

9. Create CloudFront Distribution

Open CloudFront

Click Create Distribution

Set:

Origin domain: Your S3 bucket

Origin access: OAC (Origin Access Control) → Create new

Viewer protocol policy: Redirect HTTP → HTTPS

Default Root Object: index.html
Ensure:
✔ Your S3 bucket is private
✔ CloudFront accesses S3 using OAC

Create the distribution.

Copy the CloudFront URL:

dxxxxxx.cloudfront.net

This becomes your main website link.

10. Add CORS to S3 (Optional but Recommended)

[
  {
    "AllowedHeaders": ["*"],
    "AllowedMethods": ["GET", "POST", "PUT", "DELETE", "HEAD"],
    "AllowedOrigins": ["*"],
    "ExposeHeaders": ["ETag"],
    "MaxAgeSeconds": 3000
  }
]

🎉 Final Output

Your serverless system now supports:

✔ Adding student records (POST Lambda)
✔ Fetching student data (GET Lambda)
✔ API handling with API Gateway
✔ Fast NoSQL storage using DynamoDB
✔ S3 hosting for the front-end
✔ CloudFront as a secure CDN
✔ OAC-based private bucket access
✔ Proper CORS configuration
✔ 100% serverless, scalable, and cost-efficient architecture

Conclusion

This project is an excellent introduction to:

Serverless development on AWS

Working with DynamoDB

Writing Lambda functions in Python

Building APIs with API Gateway

Hosting static websites on S3

Using CloudFront for global delivery

Understanding IAM and permissions

DEV Community: Faheem abid 011

Building a Serverless Student Management System Using AWS (Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, S3 & CloudFront)