M Ahmar

Posted on Nov 14 • Edited on Nov 17

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

#serverless #cloudformation #lambda #s3

In this project, I built a fully serverless Student Management Web App using AWS.
The application allows users to insert student data and retrieve existing student records, using:

AWS Lambda

DynamoDB

API Gateway

S3 Static Hosting

CloudFront CDN

This article contains everything needed to recreate the project from scratch

1. Create DynamoDB Table

Go to DynamoDB

Click Create Table

Table name → studentData

Partition key → studentid (String)

Create table

💡 Make sure the partition key exactly matches your Lambda code.

🟧 2. Create IAM Role for Lambda

Go to IAM → Roles → Create Role

Use case → Lambda

Attach policy:
✔ AmazonDynamoDBFullAccess

Name → lambda-dynamodb-full-access

Create role
🟩 3. Create Lambda Function – GET Data

Open AWS Lambda

Create function → Python 3.12

Execution role → Use existing role

Select lambda-dynamodb-full-access

Paste code from getstudents.py

Deploy

🟩 4. Create Lambda Function – INSERT Data

Create function → Python 3.12

Execution role → Use existing role

Select lambda-dynamodb-full-access

Paste code from insertstudentdata.py

Deploy

🔵5. Build REST API with API Gateway

Go to API Gateway

Choose Build under REST API

API name → anything

Endpoint type → Edge Optimized

Click Create API

Create Methods
GET Method

Resource /

Create Method → GET

Integration → Lambda

Choose GET Lambda (function-1)

POST Method

Resource /

Create Method → POST

Integration → Lambda

Choose POST Lambda (function-2)

Enable CORS

Select resource

Click Enable CORS

Deploy API

Deploy → New stage → prod

Copy Invoke URL

Paste this URL inside your script.js

🟣 6. Create S3 Bucket for Front-End

Go to S3 → Create bucket

Block Public Access → Enabled (default)

Upload index.html and script.js

*🟠 7. Enable Static Website Hosting in S3
*
Go to Properties

Scroll to Static Website Hosting

Enable

Set:

Index document → index.html

Error document → index.html

🟢 8. Write S3 Bucket Policy for CloudFront Access

Since the bucket will be private, CloudFront needs explicit access.

You will add a policy like:

{
  "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 the 3 fields:

your-bucket-name

your AWS account ID

your CloudFront distribution ID

🔵 9. Create CloudFront Distribution for S3 Website

Go to CloudFront

Click Create Distribution

Key Settings

Origin domain → Your S3 bucket

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

Viewer protocol policy → Redirect HTTP to HTTPS

Default root object → index.html

Important:

✔ Make the S3 bucket private
✔ CloudFront will access the bucket using OAC

Finish creation

Copy the CloudFront Distribution Domain Name
(example: d123xyzabcdef.cloudfront.net)

💡 Use this URL as your website link.

🔵 10. Add CORS Rules to S3 (Optional)

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

🎉 Final Output

Your system now supports:

✔ Insert student data (POST Lambda)
✔ Fetch student data (GET Lambda)
✔ API communication through API Gateway
✔ Data stored in DynamoDB
✔ Frontend hosted on S3
✔ Distributed globally using CloudFront
✔ Secure bucket access using OAC
✔ CORS enabled
✔ Fully serverless and scalable

*📝 Conclusion
*

This project is perfect for learning: