This week at AWS
Another week has passed and AWS has continued to work to extend the services and features offered to its customers.
Let’s see what are the news this week:
Amazon EC2 D3 Instances are now available in AWS Canada (Central)
Starting today, Amazon EC2 D3 instances, the latest generation of the dense HDD-storage instances, are available in the AWS Canada (Central) Region. D3 instances are powered by 2nd generation Intel Xeon Scalable Processors (Cascade Lake) with a sustained all core frequency up to 3.1 GHz. D3 instances provide up to 2.5x higher networking speed and 45% higher disk throughput compared to D2 instances. These instances are an ideal fit for workloads including distributed / clustered file systems, big data and analytics, and high capacity data lakes. With D3 instances, you can easily migrate from previous generation D2 instances or on-premises infrastructure to a platform optimized for dense HDD storage workloads.
Announcing a new AWS Bills page experience
Starting today, the AWS Bills page has a re-designed user experience, making it easier to understand your AWS spend. The Bills page provides an overview of your AWS charges and the ability to drill into key details; the re-design provides a refreshed user interface, new views of your savings and taxes, and enhanced sorting and filtering capabilities.
Amazon QuickSight Q Embedding SDK now supports programmatic question submission
QuickSight Q can now accept full questions as input without requiring users to type them in when used in embedded mode. This new feature allows developers to create question as widgets at appropriate placements on their web applications making it easy for their users to discover the capability to ask questions about data within the current context of their user journey.
Amazon Connect offers general availability of outbound campaigns for calls, texts, and emails
Amazon Connect outbound campaigns now offers organizations an embedded, cost-effective way to contact up to millions of customers daily for communications such as delivery notifications, marketing promotions, appointment reminders, or debt collection, without having to integrate with third-party tools. With outbound campaigns, formerly known as high-volume outbound communications, you can proactively communicate across voice, SMS, and email to quickly serve your customers and improve agent productivity. The new communication capabilities also include features to support compliance of local regulations such as TCPA through point-of-dial checks and calling controls for time of day, time zone, number of attempts per contact, and time required to connect to an available agent.
Amazon Connect Cases, now available in preview
Amazon Connect Cases provides built-in case management capabilities that make it easy for your contact center agents to create, collaborate on, and quickly resolve customer issues that require multiple customer conversations and follow-up tasks, all without having to build custom applications or integrate with third-party products. Cases provides your agents with a unified timeline view of all activities associated with a customer case, including individual tasks that can be assigned and tracked across multiple agents. Additionally, case information can be used to answer customer questions in self-service IVR and chatbot interactions.
AWS Managed Microsoft AD enables flexible control over directory settings
AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory (AWS Managed Microsoft AD) now provides you the flexibility to update your directory settings. This makes it easier to meet your specific security and compliance requirements across all new and existing directories. Starting today, you can update your directory settings and AWS Managed Microsoft AD applies the updated settings to all domain controllers, automatically. You accomplish this using the AWS console or automating with AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) and/or API.
Amazon Lex Automated Chatbot Designer is now generally available
We are excited to announce general availability of automatic chatbot designer in Amazon Lex, enabling developers to automatically design chatbots from conversation transcripts in hours rather than weeks. Introduced at re:Invent in December 2021, the automated chatbot designer enhances the usability of Amazon Lex by automating conversational design, minimizing developer effort and reducing the time it takes to design a chatbot.
AWS WAF adds support for inspecting multiple request headers
AWS WAF now supports evaluating multiple headers in the HTTP request, without the need to specify each header individually in AWS WAF rules. You can also use this new capability to easily inspect all cookies in the HTTP request, without the need to specify each cookie in WAF rules. This capability helps you protect your applications or API endpoints from attacks that try to exploit a custom header or cookie, or a common header for which you may not have created a WAF rule. You can also limit the scope of inspection to only included or excluded headers, and inspect only the keys or only the values for the headers or cookies you want to inspect.
Amazon ECR now supports AWS PrivateLink in AWS Asia Pacific (Osaka) Region
Today, Amazon Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR) launched the support for AWS PrivateLink in the Asia Pacific (Osaka) Region. Now you can access Amazon ECR API from your Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) in Osaka region without using public IPs and without requiring the traffic to traverse across the internet.
AWS WAF Captcha is now generally available
AWS WAF Captcha is now available for all customers. AWS WAF Captcha helps block unwanted bot traffic by requiring users to successfully complete challenges before their web request are allowed to reach AWS WAF protected resources. You can configure AWS WAF rules to require WAF Captcha challenges to be solved for specific resources that are frequently targeted by bots such as login, search, and form submissions. You can also require WAF Captcha challenges for suspicious requests based on the rate, attributes, or labels generated from AWS Managed Rules, such as AWS WAF Bot Control or the Amazon IP Reputation list. WAF Captcha challenges are simple for humans while remaining effective against bots. WAF Captcha includes an audio version and is designed to meet WCAG accessibility requirements.
Amazon QuickSight launches custom subtotals at all levels and ability to show/ hide column for pivot table
Amazon QuickSight launches custom subtotals at all levels on Pivot Table. QuickSight authors can now customize how subtotals are displayed in Pivot Table, with options to display subtotals for last level, all levels or selected level. This customization is available for both rows and columns. To learn more about custom subtotals, see here.
AWS Well-Architected Tool adds multiple enhancements to custom lenses
AWS Well-Architected Tool now allows customers to preview custom lens content before publishing, add additional URLs to helpful resources and improvement plans, and use tags to assign metadata to their custom lenses.
AWS App2Container now supports Azure DevOps for setting up a CI/CD
AWS App2Container (A2C) now supports Azure DevOps for setting up a CI/CD pipeline to automate building and deploying container applications on AWS. With this release, customers can leverage App2Container to automate the setup of Azure DevOps service pipeline for managing automated build and deployment of containerized applications. App2Container automates the build pipeline setup by installing the required tooling such as AWS Toolkit and the Docker engine. In addition, App2Container also sets up the release pipeline using existing Azure DevOps Service accounts to deploy the containerize image to AWS container services. This is in addition to AWS CodePipeline and Jenkins support already included in App2Container.
Announcing Open Data on AWS Data Exchange
Anyone can now search and find publicly available data sets on AWS Data Exchange along with more than 3,000 existing data products from category-leading data providers across industries, all in one place.
AWS IoT ExpressLink is now generally available
We are excited to announce the general availability of hardware connectivity modules powered by AWS IoT ExpressLink, which are developed and offered by AWS Partners such as Espressif, Infineon, and u-blox. These modules enable easy AWS cloud-connectivity and implement AWS-mandated security requirements for device to cloud connections. Integrating these wireless modules into their hardware design, customers can now accelerate the development of their Internet of Things (IoT) products, including consumer products, industrial and agricultural sensors and controllers.
Amazon Textract announces quality update to its Forms extraction feature
Amazon Textract is a machine learning service that automatically extracts text, handwriting, and data from any document or image. We continuously improve the underlying machine learning models based on customer feedback to provide even better accuracy. Today, we are pleased to announce a quality enhancement to our Forms extraction feature.
AWS Fargate now fully supports multiline logging powered by AWS for Fluent Bit
Amazon ECS now fully supports multiline logging powered by AWS for Fluent Bit for both AWS Fargate and Amazon EC2. AWS Fluent Bit is an AWS distribution of the open-source project Fluent Bit, a fast and a lightweight log forwarder. Amazon ECS users can use this feature to re-combine partial log messages produced by your containerized applications running on AWS Fargate or Amazon EC2 into a single message for easier troubleshooting and analytics.
AWS Site-to-Site VPN introduces Private IP VPNs for enhanced security and privacy
Starting today, AWS Site-to-Site VPN supports the ability to deploy IPSec VPN connections over Direct Connect using private IP addresses. With this change, customers can encrypt DX traffic between their on-premises network and AWS without the need for public IP addresses, thus enabling enhanced security and network privacy at the same time.
Amazon Aurora now supports PostgreSQL 14
Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible Edition now supports PostgreSQL major version 14 (14.3). PostgreSQL 14 includes performance improvements for parallel queries, heavily-concurrent workloads, partitioned tables, logical replication, and vacuuming. PostgreSQL 14 also improves functionality with new capabilities. For example, you can cancel long-running queries if a client disconnects and you can close idle sessions if they time out. Range types now support multiranges, allowing representation of non-contiguous data ranges, and stored procedures can now return data via OUT parameters. This release includes new features for Babelfish for Aurora PostgreSQL version 2.1. Please refer to Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL updates for more information.
Amazon RDS Custom for Oracle now supports Oracle database 12.2 and 18c
Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) Custom for Oracle now supports Oracle Database versions 12.2 and 18c. Amazon RDS Custom is a managed database service for applications that require customization of the underlying operating system and database environment. With support now added for 12.2 and 18c, you can now run your legacy, packaged and customized applications that are dependent on these database versions on Amazon RDS Custom for Oracle.
AWS Lake Formation is now available in AWS GovCloud (US-East) Region
AWS Lake Formation is a service that allows you to set up a secure data lake in days. A data lake is a centralized curated, and secured repository that stores all your data, both in its original form and prepared for analysis. A data lake enables you to break down data silos and combine different types of analytics to gain insights and guide better business decisions.
AWS CodeBuild is now available in AWS Asia Pacific (Jakarta) Region
AWS CodeBuild is now available in the AWS Asia Pacific (Jakarta) Region. AWS CodeBuild is a fully managed continuous integration service that compiles source code, runs tests, and produces software packages that are ready to deploy. With CodeBuild, you don’t need to provision, manage, and scale your own build servers. CodeBuild scales continuously and processes multiple builds concurrently, so your builds are not left waiting in a queue. You can get started quickly by using prepackaged build environments, or you can create custom build environments that use your own build tools. Using CodeBuild, you are charged by the minute for the compute resources you use.
Amazon RDS Custom is now available in 2 additional AWS Regions
Amazon Relation Database Service (Amazon RDS) Custom is now available in Asia Pacific (Mumbai) and Europe (London) AWS Regions.
Announcing new Console Query Editor for Amazon QLDB
Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (Amazon QLDB) launches a new Console Query Editor providing an improved interface for authoring queries, debugging transactions, and exploring results. The new editor supports tabs for simple management of multiple queries, PartiQL syntax highlighting, query performance statistics, multi-statement transactions, and a timer to track the transaction duration limit. You can search and filter your results across the table view, Ion document view, or CSV view for easy exploration of your results in the format you prefer. Query results can also be downloaded in Ion and CSV formats.
Amazon RDS Multi-AZ deployments with one primary and two readable standby database instances now available in Frankfurt and Stockholm Regions
Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for PostgreSQL and for MySQL now supports Multi-AZ deployment option with one primary and two readable standby database (DB) instances in Europe (Frankfurt) and Europe (Stockholm) Regions. This deployment option gives you up to 2x lower transaction commit latency, automated fail overs typically under 35 seconds, and readable standby instances.
Amazon RDS Multi-AZ deployments with one primary and two readable standby database instances now support M5d and R5d instances
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) now supports M5d and R5d instances. This deployment option gives you up to 2x lower transaction commit latency, automated fail overs typically under 35 seconds, and readable standby instances.
Amazon MSK adds support for Apache Kafka version 3.1.1 and 3.2.0
Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (Amazon MSK) now supports Apache Kafka version 3.1.1 and 3.2.0 for new and existing clusters. Apache Kafka 3.1.1 and Apache Kafka 3.2.0 includes several bug fixes and new features that improve performance. Some of the key features include enhancements to metrics and the use of topic IDs. MSK will continue to use and manage Zookeeper for quorum management in this release for stability. For a complete list of improvements and bug fixes, see the Apache Kafka release notes for 3.1.1 and 3.2.0.
AWS Direct Connect adds support for all AWS Local Zones in the United States
Today, AWS announced AWS Direct Connect support for all AWS Local Zones in the United States. Your network traffic now takes the shortest path between Direct Connect point of presence (PoP) locations and AWS resources running in Local Zones. This feature reduces the distance network traffic must travel, decreasing latency and helping make applications more responsive.
AWS announces Amazon CodeWhisperer (Preview)
Amazon CodeWhisperer is a machine learning (ML)–powered service that helps improve developer productivity by generating code recommendations based on developers’ comments in natural language and their code in the integrated development environment (IDE). During preview, CodeWhisperer is available for Java, JavaScript, and Python programming languages. The service integrates with multiple IDEs, including JetBrains (IntelliJ, PyCharm, and WebStorm), Visual Studio Code, AWS Cloud9, and the AWS Lambda console.
Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth now supports synthetic data generation
We are excited to announce that Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth now provides support so you can generate labeled synthetic data without collecting large amounts of real-world, manually labeled data. Amazon SageMaker provides two data labeling offerings, Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth Plus and Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth. You can use both options to identify raw data (such as images, text files, and videos) and add informative labels to create high-quality training datasets for your machine learning (ML) models.
Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) support is generally available for SageMaker Ground Truth
Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth helps you build high-quality training datasets for your machine learning (ML) models. With SageMaker Ground Truth, you can use workers from Amazon Mechanical Turk, a vendor company that you choose, or your own private workforce to create labeled datasets for training ML models.
Amazon QuickSight launches monitoring with CloudWatch metrics
Amazon QuickSight now supports monitoring of QuickSight assets by sending metrics to Amazon CloudWatch. QuickSight developers and administrators can use these metrics to observe and respond to the availability and performance of their QuickSight ecosystem in near real time. They can monitor dataset ingestions, dashboards, and visuals to provide their readers with a consistent, performant, and uninterrupted experience on QuickSight. For more information, visit here.
AWS Graviton2-based Amazon EC2 C6gd instances now available in Asia Pacific (Seoul) Region
Starting today, Amazon EC2 C6gd instances are available in Asia Pacific (Seoul) Region. C6gd instances are ideal for compute-intensive workloads such as high performance computing (HPC), batch processing, ad serving, video encoding, gaming, scientific modelling, distributed analytics, and CPU-based machine learning inference. C6gd instances offer up to 50% more NVMe storage GB/vCPU over comparable x86-based instances and are ideal for applications that need high-speed, low latency local storage.
Amazon Connect Wisdom now enables you to integrate agent assistance capabilities into custom agent applications
Amazon Connect Wisdom now provides a JavaScript library (WisdomJS) to integrate agent assistance capabilities into your homegrown or third-party agent application, enabling you to increase agent productivity and improve customer satisfaction without having to migrate your agents to another application. Amazon Connect Wisdom reduces the time agents spend searching for answers and enables quick resolution of customer issues by providing knowledge search and real-time recommendations while agents talk with customers.
Amazon EC2 C7g instances powered by AWS Graviton3 processors now available in US East (Ohio) and Europe (Ireland)
Starting today, compute-optimized Amazon EC2 C7g instances are available in US East (Ohio) and Europe (Ireland). C7g instances are the first instances powered by the latest AWS Graviton3 processors and deliver up to 25% better performance over Graviton2-based C6g instances for a broad spectrum of applications such as application servers, microservices, batch processing, electronic design automation (EDA), gaming, video encoding, scientific modeling, distributed analytics, high performance computing (HPC), CPU-based machine learning (ML) inference, and ad serving.
Amazon EC2 G5 instances now available in additional regions
Starting today, the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) G5 instances powered by NVIDIA A10G Tensor Core GPUs are now available in Asia Pacific (Mumbai, Tokyo), Europe (Frankfurt, London), and Canada (Central). G5 instances can be used for a wide range of graphics intensive and machine learning use cases. They deliver up to 3x higher performance for graphics-intensive applications and machine learning inference, and up to 3.3x higher performance for training simple to moderately complex machine learning models when compared to Amazon EC2 G4dn instances.
