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In Cloud Computing This Week [Mar 18th 2022]

Written by Team Hava | March 17, 2022

This week's roundup of all the cloud news.

 

Here's a cloud round up of all things GCP, Azure and AWS for the week ending Friday 18th March 2022

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AWS Updates and Releases

Source: aws.amazon.com

 
Amazon Kendra is an intelligent search service powered by machine learning, enabling organizations to provide relevant information to customers and employees when they need it. Starting this week, AWS customers can use the Amazon Kendra FSx Connector to index and search documents from their FSx for Windows File Server file systems. Amazon FSx for Windows File Server provides fully managed shared storage built on Windows Server, and delivers a wide range of data access, data management, and administrative capabilities.
 
Critical information can be scattered across multiple data sources in an enterprise, including file storage sources. Customers can now use the Amazon Kendra FSx Connector to index documents (HTML, PDF, MS Word, MS PowerPoint, and plain text) stored on their Amazon FSx for Windows File Server file systems and search for information across this content using Amazon Kendra’s intelligent search.

Amazon DocumentDB is a database service that is purpose-built for JSON data management at scale, fully managed and integrated with AWS, and enterprise-ready with high durability. Amazon DocumentDB is designed to give you the scalability and durability you need when operating mission-critical MongoDB workloads. Storage scales automatically up to 64TiB without any impact to your application. It supports millions of requests per second with up to 15 low latency read replicas in minutes, without any application downtime, regardless of the size of your data.

 
Starting this week, Amazon Route 53 supports Geolocation and Latency-Based routing policies for Private DNS, enabling customers to route traffic for their private hosted zones based on the location of the source query or based on the route that provides the best latency with optimal round-trip time.
 
Route 53 Private DNS allows customers to create custom domain names for internal AWS resources within their Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs) without exposing DNS data to the public Internet. Before today, customers could only configure Geolocation and Latency-Based routing policies for Public DNS. With this launch, customers can now create these routing policies for Private DNS as well. Geolocation routing enables customers to choose the resources that serve their traffic based on the geographic location of their users.
AWS customers can use this feature to localize content or restrict distribution of content to only the locations for which they have distribution rights. Latency-based routing enables customers to improve performance for their users by serving requests from the AWS Region that provides the lowest latency.

 

Developers can now share test events with other developers in their AWS account. Test events provide developers the ability to define a sample event in the Lambda console, and then invoke a Lambda function using that event to test their code. Previously, test event were only available to the developers who created them. With this launch, developers can make test events available to other team members in their AWS account using granular IAM permissions. This capability makes it easier for developers to collaborate and streamline testing workflows. It also allows developers to use a consistent set of test events across their entire team.

 
AWS RoboMaker has launched AWS PrivateLink support for application programming interface (APIs) to manage AWS RoboMaker resources such as simulation jobs, robot applications and simulation applications.
 
Now with AWS PrivateLink support, you can privately access AWS RoboMaker APIs without an internet gateway, Network Address Translation (NAT) device, Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection, or AWS Direct Connect connection. You can securely create, restart, tag, cancel or delete your AWS RoboMaker resources without crossing the public internet and without using public IP addresses.
AWS PrivateLink allows you to establish a private connection between your Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) and AWS RoboMaker endpoints by creating an interface VPC endpoint. Traffic between your VPC and AWS RoboMaker does not leave the AWS network. To get started, you can create an interface endpoint for AWS RoboMaker using either the Amazon VPC console or the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI).

 
Amazon Lookout for Vision is now generally available to AWS customers to use at the edge. You can deploy your trained Amazon Lookout for Vision models to a hardware device of your choice and run inference locally without any cloud dependencies. Your trained models can be deployed on any NVIDIA Jetson edge appliance or x86 compute platform running Linux with an NVIDIA GPU accelerator. You can use AWS IoT Greengrass to deploy and manage your edge compatible customized models on your fleet of devices. AWS IoT Greengrass is an open-source edge runtime and cloud service for building, deploying, and managing device software.

As a part of this launch, AWS also announced the Amazon Lookout for Vision Starter Kit in partnership with ADLINK. This starter kit includes the ADLINK DLAP-211-JNX Vision Platform and allows customers to expedite their quality management AI-based solutions at the edge. It provides a vertical solution that integrates ADLINK’s edge hardware with AWS cloud services to bridge the gap between the cloud and edge for deploying end to end machine learning solutions. It includes support for any Genicam compatible camera such as Basler cameras, image acquisition support to train your Lookout for Vision models, easy deployment of these models at the edge, logging capabilities on the device such as performance metrics, provides visual capabilities to simplify the media pipeline configuration, and a visual application that can run on a separate local computer to monitor the image streams and inference results.

 
Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL adds support for mysql_fdw which allows your PostgreSQL database to connect and retrieve data stored in separate Amazon Aurora MySQL-compatible, MySQL, and MariaDB databases.
 
Foreign Data Wrappers are libraries for PostgreSQL databases that can communicate with an external data source, abstracting the details of connecting to the data source and obtaining data from it. mysql_fdw is a PostgreSQL extension that provides a Foreign Data Wrapper for easy and efficient access to Amazon Aurora MySQL-compatible, MySQL, and MariaDB databases. Please see the list of supported extensions in the Amazon RDS User Guide for specific versions.

 

This week, Amazon Location Service added two new HERE map styles for developers, HERE Explore and HERE Explore Truck. With HERE Explore, developers have a new global map that features roads, buildings, landmarks, and water features, including a fully designed map of Japan. With HERE Explore Truck, developers can now display a global map containing truck restrictions and attributes e.g., width, height, HAZMAT, symbolized with highlighted segments and icons on top of HERE Explore to support use cases within transportation and logistics. For example, a customer who manages a fleet of delivery trucks, who needs to calculate the optimal driving route with appropriate restrictions, can use HERE Explore Truck to see driving routes with restrictions shown on the map.

 
Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for PostgreSQL now supports PostgreSQL minor versions 14.2, 13.6, 12.10, 11.15, and 10.20. We recommend that you upgrade to the latest minor versions to fix known security vulnerabilities in prior versions of PostgreSQL, and to benefit from the numerous bug fixes, performance improvements, and new functionality added by the PostgreSQL community. Please refer to the PostgreSQL community announcement for more details about the release.
 
This PostgreSQL release also adds support for new postgreSQL extensions: mysql_fdw and tds_fdw, allowing your PostgreSQL database to connect and retrieve data stored in separate Amazon Aurora databases, MySQL, and MariaDB. Please see the list of supported extensions in the Amazon RDS User Guide for specific versions.
 

 
The Amazon Chime SDK lets developers add real-time audio, video, screen-sharing, and messaging capabilities to their web or mobile applications. Amazon Voice Focus uses artificial intelligence to help reduce background noises such as fans, lawnmowers, and barking dogs. Starting today, developers can use Amazon Voice Focus with Amazon Chime SDK Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) audio applications to help reduce unwanted noise on PSTN audio calls. Builders can use this feature for customer service conversations to help improve caller experience.
 
Amazon Voice Focus integration works for calls to or from the public telephone network or calls with on-premises telephone equipment using the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). The feature can be turned on and off using an API. Builders can choose to permanently enable noise reduction on a call or provide it as an option to end users, similarly to the mute/unmute feature. Amazon Voice Focus for Amazon Chime SDK is available in US-East (N. Virginia) and US-West (Oregon) AWS regions, with usage-based pricing.

 
The Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) Multi-AZ deployment option with one primary and two readable standby database (DB) instances across three Availability Zones (AZs) is now available in US East (Ohio) and Asia Pacific (Tokyo) Regions. This deployment option give you up to 2x faster transaction commit latency, automated failovers typically under 35 seconds, and readable standby instances. 
 
Amazon RDS Multi-AZ deployments  provide enhanced availability and durability for Amazon RDS DB instances, making them a natural fit for production database workloads. Although continuing to use network storage for durability, this new deployment option optimizes transaction commit performance using local instance storage on your choice of AWS Graviton2 R6gd or M6gd DB instances. This configuration supports up to 2x faster transaction commits than a Multi-AZ DB instance deployment with one standby, without compromising data durability. Automated failovers in this configuration typically take under 35 seconds.
 
In addition, the standby DB instances can also serve read traffic without needing to attach additional read replica DB instances. You can connect to your readable standby DB instances by using a managed read-only endpoint or the individual endpoints of each reader instance. This deployment option is ideal when your workloads require lower write latency, automated failovers, and more read capacity.
 
 
AWS is announcing general availability for AWS AppConfig Feature Flags. Feature flagging allows you to quickly roll out new features safely and with more confidence. AWS AppConfig is a feature of AWS Systems Manager.
 
AWS AppConfig Feature Flags allow customers to develop a new feature and deploy it to production, but hide the feature from users behind a flag. The flag is stored in configuration data. Once the feature is ready to be released, engineers can update the flag configuration data without deploying any code. This is a safer feature-management process because new code isn't deployed to release the feature. Features can be made available to users instantly or gradually. Deploying gradually is recommended since it allows you to limit impact of any unexpected behavior.
 
AWS AppConfig Feature Flags also have additional safety guard rails, including flag constraints and validators, which allow flag content to be checked for accuracy prior to being deployed. Other safety guard rails include an automatic rollback of a flag if a specified CloudWatch alarm is triggered.

 

Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service now supports the containerd container runtime on Windows worker nodes. Containerd is a lightweight container runtime that manages the complete container lifecycle on its host system, from container image transfer to execution, as well as storage and network attachment. Customers with Windows workloads can now get similar performance, security, and stability benefits from containerd that are available to customers running Linux-based worker nodes.

 
Amazon Cognito now enables you to use Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES) and Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) in the same region where your Amazon Cognito user pools are configured. By integrating these services in the same region, you can more easily achieve lower latency, and follow best practices in regional configuration.
 
If your Amazon Cognito user pool is currently configured to make cross-region calls to Amazon SES or Amazon SNS, you can update your configuration through the console, API, or CLI. New Amazon Cognito user pools on new accounts, including instances where account creation is automated, will make in-region calls to Amazon SES and Amazon SNS by default. Existing accounts will continue to make cross-region calls by default.

 

Over the course of March 2022, Amazon is reducing the cost of using the Amazon Route 53 Resolver DNS Firewall in all regions. First, Amazon is launching new tiered pricing effective March 1 that provides for reduced query processing fees as your query volume increases.

Secondly, Amazon is implementing internal optimizations to reduce the number of DNS queries for which you are charged. Note that these optimizations will not reduce the number of DNS queries that are inspected or introduce any other changes to your security posture. Amazon customers will see these cost reductions automatically reflected in their Route 53 bills going forward.

 

Amazon Connect Chat now allows your agents and customers to use rich text formatting when composing a message, enabling them to quickly add emphasis and structure to messages, improving comprehension. The available formatting options include bold, italics, hyperlinks, bulleted lists, and numbered lists.

 

Starting this week, you can receive AWS Cost Anomaly Detection alert notifications in Slack and Amazon Chime through AWS Chatbot. Integration with AWS Chatbot allows you to easily configure your cost anomaly alert subscriptions with a Slack or Amazon Chime chat channel. This allows you to receive individual AWS Cost Anomaly Detection alerts within your existing chat channels, supporting improved collaboration and timely resolution of the alerts.

 
Google Cloud Releases and Updates
Source: cloud.google.com

 

Anthos clusters on bare metal

Anthos clusters on bare metal 1.8.9 is now available for download. To upgrade, see Upgrading Anthos on bare metal. Anthos clusters on bare metal 1.8.9 runs on Kubernetes 1.20.

App Engine standard environment Java

The Java 17 runtime for App Engine standard environment is now available in Preview.

Big Query

You can now explicitly specify a schema for BigQuery external tables created over Parquet, ORC, and Avro file formats. Previously, the schema was always auto-detected using the last lexicographic file.

Compute Engine

General-purpose Tau T2D virtual machine instances are available in the following regions and zones:

  • Northern Virginia (us-east4-a,b,c)
  • South Carolina (us-east1-b,c,d)
  • Frankfurt (europe-west3-a,b,c)
  • Sydney (australia-southeast1-a,b,c)
  • Taiwan (asia-east1-a,b,c)

Generally available: Compute Engine now supports Suspend and Resume in General Availability.

Fixed the issue causing the Compute Engine API Quotas page in the Cloud Console to display duplicate API quota groups.

GKE

Version 1.20.15-gke.300 is now the default version in the Stable channel.

 

 



Microsoft Azure Releases And Updates
Source: azure.microsoft.com
 

Public preview: Azure Private Link support in Azure API Management

You can now integrate to clients in a virtual network privately, using Azure Private Link support in API Management.

Premium Container SKU (public preview) will be retired on 30 June 2022

TARGET RETIREMENT DATE: JUNE 30, 2022

Transition to Premium V3 by 30 June 2022.

Azure Container Monitoring will be retired on 31 March 2025

TARGET RETIREMENT DATE: MARCH 31, 2025

Migrate your workloads to Azure Monitor container insights by 31 March 2025.

Community support for Node 12 LTS is ending on 30 April 2022

TARGET RETIREMENT DATE: APRIL 30, 2022

Community support for Node 12 LTS is ending on 30 April 2022 – transition to Node 14 LTS by that date

Community support for .NET 5 is ending on 8 May 2022

TARGET RETIREMENT DATE: MAY 08, 2022

Community support for .NET 5 will end on 8 May 2022 – transition to .NET 6 by that date

Generally available: Azure Site Recovery update rollup 61 - March 2022

Review the improvements and fixes provided in Update Rollup 61.

Generally available: Best practices assessment for SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines

Evaluate SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines for configuration best practices using the SQL best practices assessment feature on the SQL virtual machine blade in the Azure portal.

Azure SQL—Public preview updates for mid-March 2022

Public preview enhancements and updates released for Azure SQL.

General availability: Azure Database for MySQL—Flexible Server - New US government region

Provision Azure Database for MySQL—Flexible Server in the US Gov Virginia region.

General availability: New extensions for Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server

Install timescaleDB, pg_repack and orafce on newly created Flexible Servers on Azure Database for PostgreSQL, a managed service running the open source Postgres database.

General availability: New high availability regions—Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server

You can now provision Flexible Server in a zone redundant high availability mode in more regions on Azure Database for PostgreSQL, a managed service running the open source Postgres database.

General availability: Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server—new US government regions

Provision Flexible Server in the US Gov Virginia and US Gov Arizona regions on Azure Database for PostgreSQL, a managed service running the open source Postgres database.

General availability: Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server supports PostgreSQL minor versions

Flexible Server now supports PostgreSQL versions 11.14, 12.9, and 13.5 on Azure Database for PostgreSQL,.

General availability: Azure Database for PostgreSQL—Hyperscale (Citus) supports PostgreSQL minor versions

Use PostgreSQL 11.15, 12.10, 13.6, and 14.2 minor versions with Hyperscale (Citus) for Azure Database for PostgreSQL, a managed service running the open source Postgres database on Azure.

Public preview: Clustering Support for JBoss EAP on Azure App Service

Run highly available Java EE apps with Red Hat JBoss EAP on App Service with new clustering support.

Generally available: Support for private links in Azure Monitor agent

Use Azure Monitor agent and data collection rules in restricted environments and maintain network isolation by leveraging private links.

Public preview: Azure SignalR Service Premium Tier

Enterprise-focused capabilities to provide resiliency and availability.

Public preview: Azure App Configuration soft delete capability

Soft deletion, recovery, and purge protection capabilities in standard tier

Public preview: Protect Azure Static Web Apps environments with a password

You can now protect your Static Web Apps with a password.

Generally available: Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server in two new regions

Provision your Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server today in the China East 2 and China North 2 regions.

Public preview: Azure Synapse Link for Azure Cosmos DB partitioning Spark 3.1

Use Azure Synapse Spark 3.1 to partition your Azure Cosmos DB data in analytical store for improved query performance.

Public preview: Trusted launch support for Virtual Machines using Ephemeral OS disks

Trusted launch virtual machine (VM) support for VMs using Ephemeral OS disks improves the security of generation 2 VMs in Azure

Generally available: Pin analytics tile to dashboards in Azure IoT Central

Quickly build new visuals by simply pinning an analytics tile from data explorer to the dashboard directly.

General availability: Support for Private Link in Azure Digital Twins

Support for Private Link is now generally available for Azure Digital Twins, a platform that enables you to create digital representation of real-world things, places, and business processes.

 


 

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