Monday Apr 07, 2025
Season 4 Episode 14: Monitoring, Guardrails, and Open Source
In Season 4, Episode 14 Karl & Jon are joined by Tangara Aymen. They discuss Amazon CloudWatch Application Signals, AWS Step Functions SDK Expanded Integrations, Amazon Bedrock Guardrails Image Content Filters, Australian Fintech Data Leak, AWS Commitment to Open Source and then the guys joked about writing horror films called "Attack of the Leaky Buckets" and "Attack of the Bad Internet" after experiencing connectivity issues during the podcast.
04:25 - Monitor service dependencies with Amazon CloudWatch Application Signals SLOs
CloudWatch is getting more features, including application signals for monitoring service dependencies and Service Level Objectives (SLOs). This allows for more precise tracking of performance at the individual request level, improved error budgeting, and cross-account observability. The functionality is becoming comparable to third-party monitoring tools like Datadog or New Relic.
13:27 - AWS Step Functions expands SDK integrations with Amazon Backup Search and 137 additional APIs
AWS has added 137 new API integrations to Step Functions, including Amazon Backup Search. This allows for easier orchestration of backup discovery and management without writing additional code. While it expands capabilities, it may make Step Functions less testable due to the complexity of testing around these integrations.
Bedrock Guardrails has released generally available image content filters to detect and block harmful content. This can be useful for protecting sensitive audiences and reducing the need for manual content moderation. However, there are concerns about potential over-blocking of legitimate content.
28:52 - 27,000 records in Australian fintech database were exposed
An Australian fintech company exposed approximately 27,000 records due to an unsecured S3 bucket. This highlights the ongoing issue of "leaky buckets" and the importance of proper security measures and monitoring for cloud storage.
33:06 - AWS Cloud Credits for Open Source Projects: Affirming Our Commitment
AWS has reaffirmed its commitment to open source projects by offering cloud credits, including $3 million annually to the Kubernetes project. While the credits are beneficial, there was discussion about whether direct financial support would be more valuable for open source communities.