70. How do you create good AWS diagrams?

Are you ready to level up your software architecture skills? In this episode, we deep-dive into the world of diagrams and show you why they are essential for creating robust and scalable cloud architectures!

Starting with the basics, we explain why diagrams are so important and why you should be using them in your work. We'll discuss different approaches to creating diagrams mentioning the popular C4 method and some alternative approaches.

In the context of AWS we will share some insider tips about using AWS icon sets to enhance your architecture diagrams and make them look as professional as possible.

Next, we'll take you for a tour of the various tools you can use to create diagrams, from manual drag-n-drop tools like Visio, DrawIo, Excalidraw, and LucidCharts, to programmatic tools like Mermaid, Python diagrams library, and Kroki. We will also share some exciting insights into generating diagrams from infrastructure using tools like CfnDiagrams and the Terraform graph command.

Finally, we'll close this episode by showing you how to share your diagrams and collaborate effectively with others.

💰 SPONSORS 💰

AWS Bites is sponsored by fourTheorem, an AWS Consulting Partner offering training, cloud migration, and modern application architecture.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

• Official AWS Icon set: https://aws.amazon.com/architecture/icons/
• CloudCraft: https://www.cloudcraft.co/
• ExcaliDraw: https://excalidraw.com/
• Diagrams.net: https://www.diagrams.net/
• LucidChart: https://www.lucidchart.com/
• Whiteboard: substitute tldraw: https://www.tldraw.com/
• Mermaid: https://mermaid.js.org/ 
• Python diagrams library: https://pypi.org/project/diagrams/
• Kroki URL-based diagram renderer: https://kroki.io/
• cfn-diagram by Lars Jacobssen: https://github.com/ljacobsson/cfn-diagram
• cdk-dia by Tom Roshko: https://github.com/pistazie/cdk-dia
• AWS Application Composer https://aws.amazon.com/application-composer/

You can listen to AWS Bites wherever you get your podcasts:

• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/aws-bites/id1585489017
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3Lh7PzqBFV6yt5WsTAmO5q
• Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy82YTMzMTJhMC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw==
• Breaker: https://www.breaker.audio/aws-bites
• RSS:  https://anchor.fm/s/6a3312a0/podcast/rss