This week at AWS
Another week has gone and other news has arrived. We are getting closer to re:Invent and AWS continues to release services and features for its customers, let’s see those of this week:
New FreeRTOS Long Term Support version released
Today, we are excited to announce the second release of FreeRTOS Long Term Support (LTS) — FreeRTOS 202210.00 LTS. This release includes new libraries such as AWS IoT Fleet Provisioning and Cellular LTE-M Interface for easier device provisioning and cellular connectivity. It also includes coreMQTT and FreeRTOS-Plus-TCP libraries with improved modularity and robustness. All libraries included in this FreeRTOS LTS version, summarized in this post, will receive security and critical bug fixes until October 2024. With an LTS release, you can continue to maintain your existing FreeRTOS code base and avoid any potential disruptions resulting from FreeRTOS version upgrades.
Announcing increased AWS IAM Identity Center default quota values
AWS IAM Identity Center (successor to AWS Single Sign-On) now supports higher default quotas to help you scale your environment. With the increased quota you can create and assign up to 2,000 permission sets in an Identity Center instance. You can also assign up to 100,000 users and 100,000 groups to as many as 3,000 applications and accounts (combined) that are accessible via the AWS access portal.
Amazon Detective helps reduce time to investigate Amazon GuardDuty findings by grouping related findings
Starting today, Amazon Detective automatically groups related GuardDuty findings to help security analysts reduce triage time and create a more comprehensive security investigation. Detective uses machine learning (ML) to group related GuardDuty findings that in insolation may have been ignored but together show the lifecycle of an attack, which can help security analysts identify advanced threats more easily. Available under the Summary page, Detective shows groups of related GuardDuty findings with severity, all affected AWS accounts, and resources. In addition, Detective maps the evolution of findings to tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) from the MITRE ATT&CK framework — a well adopted framework for security and threat detection.
AWS Database Migration Service now supports C6i and R6i instances
AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) now supports Amazon EC2 C6i and R6i instance types. These instances are powered by 3rd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors with an all-core turbo frequency of 3.5 GHz, offering up to 15% better compute price performance over comparable Generation5 instances for a wide variety of workloads, and always-on memory encryption using Intel Total Memory Encryption (TME).
Refit transforms to prepare data at scale with Amazon SageMaker Data Wrangler
Today, we are excited to announce support to refit transforms with Amazon SageMaker Data Wrangler. To make data usable by algorithms such as XgBoost, data scientists must transform non-numeric values to numeric values using transforms such as one-hot encoding. Since transforms like one-hot encoding depend on the data, these transforms are frequently referred to as fitted transforms. These transforms must be updated or re-fitted to account for changes in the data as data continues to change over time. Additionally, when working on a sample data set, transforms must be updated to account for changes between a sample data set and the larger data set. Use of transforms like one-hot encoding generates additional information, which needs to be tracked and captured in the data preparation pipeline. Omitting or incorrectly tracking this information can lead to errors in the data preparation process. Without support to refit transforms, many data scientists did not have an easy way to specify when to use a fitted version of a transform or to refit their transform on new data. Data scientists also lacked an easy way to generate updated versions of their transformation pipelines when refitting on new datasets.
Announcing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Workstation on AWS
We are announcing the launch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Workstation for accelerated GPU instances on AWS Marketplace. RHEL Workstation is a cloud-based remote desktop solution that allows end users from anywhere in the world to access a workstation instance to do their work and collaborate with team members. RHEL Workstation is designed for advanced Linux users working on more powerful hardware, and is optimized for activities such as animation, computer-aided design and engineering, scientific research, medical imaging etc. It is delivered via NICE DCV, a secure, high-performance remote display protocol. RHEL Workstation on AWS allows customers to provide high-end hardware capabilities to a distributed workforce, without the need for large capital investments in expensive workstation equipment.
PostgreSQL 15 Release Candidate 2 is now available in Amazon RDS Database preview environment
Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL 15 Release Candidate 2 (RC2) is now available in the Amazon RDS Database Preview Environment, allowing you to test the release candidate of PostgreSQL 15 on Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL. You can deploy PostgreSQL 15 RC2 for development and testing in the Amazon RDS Database Preview Environment without the hassle of installing, provisioning, and managing the database.
Amazon Connect Wisdom now delivers improved machine learning capabilities
Amazon Connect Wisdom now delivers improved machine learning capabilities to continuously understand issues throughout a call and to deliver the right knowledge article to contact center agents. Wisdom analyzes contact center calls in real-time and proactively delivers agents the information they need to solve customer issues, improving agent productivity and caller satisfaction.
AWS Snowball Edge Compute Optimized delivers double the compute capacity and is now fully SSD NVMe storage
AWS announced an enhanced Snowball Edge Compute Optimized with expanded compute, memory and storage options. The AWS Snowball Edge Compute Optimized device doubled the compute capacity up to 104 vCPUs, doubled the memory capacity up to 416GB RAM, and is now fully SSD with 28TB NVMe storage. AWS Snowball Edge Compute Optimized is a secure, rugged device that brings AWS computing and storage capabilities, such as Amazon EC2, Amazon EBS, Amazon S3, AWS IoT Greengrass, AWS Lambda functions, and AWS IAM to your rugged edge environments.
Announcing new AWS Amplify Library for Swift, now with support for both iOS and macOS
Today, we are excited to announce the general availability of Amplify Library for Swift (previously Amplify iOS)! This release allows Swift developers to easily build cloud-connected iOS apps. Since its Developer Preview release in April 2022, we have re-written our APIs to support idiomatic Swift features like async/await that makes it easier for developers to implement structured concurrency. We also want to take this opportunity to introduce beta availability of macOS support — one of our most requested features — with watchOS and tvOS support coming in future releases. As with the Preview, the Amplify Library for Swift is open source on GitHub, and we deeply appreciate the feedback we have gotten from the community.
Amazon SageMaker Canvas announces Quick build support for time-series forecast models
Amazon SageMaker Canvas announces Quick build support for time-series forecasting models, enabling faster prototyping and experimentation to select the best performing machine learning (ML) model. SageMaker Canvas is a visual point-and-click interface that enables business analysts to generate accurate machine learning (ML) predictions on their own — without requiring any machine learning experience or having to write a single line of code.
Amazon Corretto October 2022 quarterly updates
On October 18th, 2022 Amazon announced quarterly security and critical updates for Amazon Corretto Long-Term Supported (LTS) versions of OpenJDK. Corretto 19.0.1, 17.0.5, 11.0.17, 8u352 are now available for download. Amazon Corretto is a no-cost, multi-platform, production-ready distribution of OpenJDK.
Amazon Interactive Video Service now includes web and mobile SDKs for IVS stream chat
Amazon Interactive Video Service (Amazon IVS) now provides SDKs for stream chat with support for web, Android and iOS. The Amazon IVS stream chat SDKs support common functions for chat room resource management, sending, and receiving messages, and managing chat room participants. Visit the Amazon IVS chat documentation to learn more. Using the Amazon IVS stream chat SDKs incurs no additional charges beyond standard Amazon IVS usage costs.
Announcing AWS Parameters and Secrets Lambda Extension
Today, AWS launched the AWS Parameters and Secrets Lambda Extension, a convenient method for AWS Lambda users to retrieve parameters from AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store and secrets from AWS Secrets Manager. AWS Lambda customers can leverage this extension to improve their application performance as it decreases the latency and the cost of retrieving parameters and secrets. Previously, customers had to initialize either the core library of a service or the entire service SDK inside a Lambda function for retrieving secrets and parameters, now they can simply use the extension. This lightweight and easy-to-use extension caches parameters and secrets, and persists them throughout the lifecycle of the Lambda function. The extension runs inside an isolated execution environment using the same permissions as the role of the user running the Lambda function.
Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) is now available in the Middle East (UAE) region.
Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) is now available in the Middle East (UAE) Region.
Announcing the FreeFormInput Slot Type for Amazon Lex
Amazon Lex is a service for building conversational interfaces into any application using voice and text. With Amazon Lex, you can quickly and easily build sophisticated, natural language, conversational bots (“chatbots”), virtual agents, and IVR systems. Today, Amazon Lex launches the FreeFormInput built-in slot type.
Amazon SES now offers new model to simplify provisioning and managing dedicated Ips
Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES) announces the launch of a new model of Dedicated IPs (managed) which helps customers to grow, manage and maintain their sending reputation via exclusive IP addresses without all of the heavy lifting associated with provisioning and managing dedicated IPs. Amazon SES is a scalable, cost-effective, and flexible cloud-based email service that allows digital marketers and application developers to send marketing, notification, and transactional emails from within any application.
AWS Step Functions adds new execution observability features for Express Workflows
AWS Step Functions now provides a new console experience for viewing and debugging your Express Workflow executions that makes it easier to trace and root cause issues in your executions.
Amazon SQS announces increased throughput quota for FIFO High Throughput (HT) mode to up to 6,000 Transactions Per Second (TPS)
Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) announces the general availability of an increased default quota for a high throughput mode for FIFO queues, allowing you to process up to 6,000 transactions per second, per API action in: US East (Ohio), US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Europe (Ireland), Europe (Frankfurt) regions. For Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), and Asia Pacific (Tokyo) regions, the default throughput quota has been increased to 3,000 transactions per second, per API action. This is a twofold increase compared to the current SQS FIFO queue throughput quota. For a detailed breakdown of default throughput quotas per region, see SQS documentation.
Visualize application health with Amazon CloudWatch Application Insights
Amazon CloudWatch Application Insights will now auto-generate Application Level Health Dashboards. Application Insights helps you automatically set up monitoring and enhanced observability for AWS resources. With the new health dashboards, you get a centralized view of all aspects of your application, making it easier and faster to view, sort and search your problems. The visual clues will help you take a faster path towards diagnosing and resolving potential issues.
Amazon WorkDocs adds support for Apple Silicon MacBooks
Today Amazon WorkDocs, a fully managed product for creating, sharing, and enriching digital content, announced the General Availability of an Apple Silicon (M1, M2) compatible WorkDocs Drive. Apple Silicon support for WorkDocs makes it easy for customers with Apple Silicon MacBooks to install and sync WorkDocs files on their devices.
Announcing Camera Stream Pause and Resume on AWS Panorama
AWS Panorama customers can now pause and resume existing camera stream connections within applications deployed on the AWS Panorama Appliance using the AWS Panorama APIs. As customers deploy Panorama Appliances across multiple sites, they want a scalable way to manage individual camera streams without the overhead of a full application deployment. Using this capability, customers can achieve failover between redundant camera streams, thereby meeting their high availability requirements. They can also dynamically swap between multiple camera streams to meet their business needs. To learn more, visit the AWS Panorama documentation.
Announcing Remote Reboot for AWS Panorama
AWS Panorama customers can now remotely reboot their connected AWS Panorama Appliance from the AWS console or by using the AWS Panorama SDK. Before this launch, customers were only able to reboot Panorama Appliance by physically pressing the reboot button on the appliance. As customers deploy Panorama Appliances across multiple sites, they want a scalable way to reboot the appliances from one central place. Remote reboot makes it easier for customers to recover from application or device issues and ensures high application uptime without needing to be physically present onsite. To learn more about Remote Reboot for AWS Panorama, click here.
Amazon Aurora MySQL supports faster export to S3
Today AWS announced up to 10x faster exports to Amazon S3 for snapshot exports for Amazon Aurora MySQL-Compatible Edition for MySQL 5.7 and 8.0. The performance improvement is automatically applied to all types of database snapshot exports, including manual snapshots, automated system snapshots, and snapshots created by the AWS Backup service.
Amazon FSx for Windows is now available in the AWS Asia Pacific (Jakarta) Region
Customers in the AWS Asia Pacific (Jakarta) Region can now use Amazon FSx for Windows.
AWS Control Tower now available in GovCloud (US) Regions
AWS GovCloud (US) enables U.S. government agencies and contractors to move more sensitive workloads into the cloud by addressing their specific regulatory and compliance requirements. By expanding AWS Control Tower to the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions, AWS Control Tower now provides customers on the GovCloud (US) Region and their partners the ability to architect their secure cloud solutions.
Amazon RDS for MySQL, MariaDB and PostgreSQL now support up to 15 read replicas for 3X read capacity
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) for MySQL, MariaDB and PostgreSQL now support 15 read replicas per instance, including up to 5 cross region read replicas, delivering up to 3X the previous read capacity.
Amazon CloudFront adds fields for origin latency and ASN in real-time logs for more granular insights
Amazon CloudFront now offers three additional data fields in CloudFront real-time logs: Origin first-byte latency, Origin last-byte latency, and autonomous system number (ASN). CloudFront real-time logs contain detailed information about requests delivered by CloudFront such as the HTTP status codes of the response, or whether the response was cached. With the three new data fields, customers can get more granular insights on CloudFront performance while analyzing real-time logs, or in the dashboards created using the logs. The Origin first-byte latency provides the time taken in seconds by the origin server to respond back with the first byte of the response. The Origin last-byte latency indicates the time taken in seconds by the origin server to respond back with the last byte of the response. ASN is a unique number that identifies the network, such as an internet service provider (ISP) network, that provides the viewer IP address.
AWS Service Management Connector now streamlines display of AWS Service Catalog products by Account and Region in ServiceNow Service Portal
Starting today, AWS Service Management Connector for ServiceNow (version 4.7.5) enables customers to streamline the display of AWS Service Catalog portfolios and products by Account and Region in ServiceNow Service Portal. This feature enables ServiceNow Service Portal end users to identify and drill-down to the appropriate AWS Service Catalog product if they have access to shared portfolios from multiple accounts and regions. Previously the drilldown feature was restricted to only portfolio names. This version also includes additional filter navigator modules for open incidents in AWS Systems Manager Incident Manager integration and displays timeline events as comments on the AWS incident in user-readable format. The AWS Support integration now introduces an optional configuration to create the support cases in an intermediate table for customers who want to leverage custom business workflows for managing support cases. The AWS Service Management Connector supports latest ServiceNow releases for Tokyo(T), San Diego(S) and Rome (R).
AWS CloudFormation language extensions transform is now available in AWS GovCloud
AWS CloudFormation has expanded the availability of language Transform called ‘AWS::LanguageExtensions’ to the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions. When declared in a template, the transform enables extensions to the template language in AWS CloudFormation.
IAM Identity Center adds session management features for improved user experience and cloud security
Using AWS IAM Identity Center (successor to AWS Single Sign-On), you now have more control over user session management. You can use the console to set customized session lengths (up to 7 days), based on your organization’s security requirements and desired end-user experience. With this feature, you can also terminate sessions, enabling you to manage sessions that are no longer needed or potentially suspicious.
Amazon DevOps Guru now provides list view for resources analyzed
You can now view and filter the list of resources analyzed by Amazon DevOps Guru within the DevOps Guru console. You can view the list of resources on the ‘Analyzed resources’ page and sort and filter by resource name, DevOps Guru tag name (or tag value), CloudFormation stack name, or AWS Service name. You can optionally download the list via CSV file which also includes the Amazon Resource Names (ARN).
Amazon Braket now supports pulse-level access to study the performance of today’s quantum computers
Amazon Braket, the quantum computing service from AWS, aims to accelerate research and software development in quantum computing. Today, we are adding support for pulse-level access to superconducting quantum processors from Rigetti Computing and Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) by launching Braket Pulse, a new feature for running pulse-level quantum programs. With this launch, Braket customers have more choice and can dive deeper in their research with the option to code their quantum programs using gates, pulses, or a combination of both.
