Architecture and Trade offs for a Campus Lost and Found App

How do you choose the right AWS architecture when cost, performance, security, and simplicity all matter? In this AWS Skillbuilders Community workshop, we review the architecture and design trade-offs behind a centralized Lost and Found application for Seattle University. The application replaces a fragmented process in which departments such as the library, gym, and campus safety manage lost items separately. Students and staff can use one platform to post found items with photos, search for missing belongings, and contact finders. The initial solution uses a cost-conscious three-tier AWS architecture: • Amazon S3 and CloudFront for the React frontend • An Amazon EC2 t3.micro instance for the application backend • Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL for relational data and flexible searches • Amazon Cognito and an AWS Lambda trigger to restrict access to university email accounts • Amazon CloudWatch for monitoring and alerts • A VPC with public and private subnets to separate the application and database layers The discussion goes beyond the architecture diagram to explain why each service was selected. Topics include EC2 versus Lambda, RDS versus serverless database options, avoiding NAT Gateway costs, protecting a public EC2 instance, managing database access, and balancing Free Tier goals with application performance. The workshop also explores how the design could evolve to support one million users using EC2 Auto Scaling, an Application Load Balancer, RDS read replicas, Redis caching, Amazon SQS, and AWS WAF. Chapters: 00:00 Community welcome and introductions 44:00 Lost and Found architecture review begins 47:00 The problem with fragmented campus systems 48:35 The centralized application solution 54:14 Requirements and architecture constraints 58:08 Three-tier AWS architecture overview 58:16 Amazon S3 frontend 1:00:00 Choosing EC2 instead of Lambda 1:02:10 Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL 1:14:47 VPC design and networking costs 1:20:14 CloudFront, HTTPS, and content delivery 1:22:31 Restricting access with Cognito and Lambda 1:24:19 Scaling the architecture to one million users 1:27:00 Application features and user workflow 1:36:59 Adding AWS WAF for application protection 1:44:21 VPC cost discussion and next steps Connect with the AWS Skillbuilders Community: LinkedIn Group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/18729046/ LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aws-skill... #AWS #CloudArchitecture #SolutionsArchitecture