LogiCast AWS News (Video)

Season 3 Episode 30 - Serverless Security, Multicloud and AWS Earnings

In Season 3, Episode 30 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Warren Parad. They discuss AWS Step Functions Encryption, AWS Parameter Store Sharing, AWS Touts Multi-Cloud Capabilities, AWS Quietly Freezes Services, AWS Q2 2022 Earnings and Jon has a proper rant about the deprecation of CodeCommit...   
 
Articles:
04:03 - Strengthening data security in AWS Step Functions with a customer-managed AWS KMS key 
They discuss a recent AWS blog post about encrypting AWS Step Functions state machines using AWS KMS keys. They debate the usefulness and security implications of this new feature.
 
11:57 - Introducing Parameter Store cross-account sharing 
They discuss a new capability from AWS to share Parameter Store parameters across accounts. They debate whether this simplifies operations or creates potential security issues.
 
17:39 - AWS and Multicloud: Existing capabilities & continued enhancements 
They discuss a recent AWS blog post about their multi-cloud capabilities and tools. They consider whether the major cloud providers are becoming commoditized.
 
25:16 - AWS quietly freezes CodeCommit, Cloud9, SimpleDB and more, customers complain about lack of notice 
They discuss AWS deprecating several services like CodeCommit and Cloud9 without notice. They express frustration at the lack of communication.
 
34:12 - Amazon’s cloud unit reports 19% revenue growth, topping estimates 
Thy discuss Amazon's latest quarterly earnings report, which exceeded expectations largely driven by AWS growth.
 
Guest was Warren Parad: 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/warren-parad/
https://warrenparad.nethttps://dev.to/wparad

Season 3 Episode 29: Graviton Benchmarks, SnapStart Java, and New Exam Formats

In Season 3, Episode 29 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Girish Mukim. They discuss new Lambda snap start support for Java ARM functions, new question types being added to some AWS certification exams, using DynamoDB with Amazon OpenSearch Service for near real-time analytics without ETL, dedicated log volumes for RDS to improve database performance, benchmark results showing Graviton CPUs outperforming AMD and Intel and finally there is an update on Jon's leaking tap...
 
Articles Discussed:
 
03:43 - Lambda snap start for Java ARM  
07:52 - New AWS exam question types 
14:17 - DynamoDB and OpenSearch for near real-time analytics 
19:55 - RDS dedicated log volumes 
25:00 - Graviton CPU benchmarks 
 
Guest was Girish Mukim: 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/girish-mukim/
https://www.youtube.com/@AWSLearn
https://dev.to/girishmukim
 

Season 3 Episode 28 - Simplified OIDC, Redshift Serverless, and AI Content Localisation

In Season 3, Episode 28 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Joshua Walker. They discuss AWS IAM OpenID Connect, Amazon Redshift serverless, AWS WAF challenge and capture actions, Media content localization with AWS AI services, Top 10 AWS news stories of 2024 and Jon challenges AWS' definition of Serverless, again...
 
Articles Discussed:
04:40 - AWS Identity and Access Management simplifies management of OpenID Connect identity providers 
The article discusses how AWS IAM is simplifying the management of OpenID Connect identity providers by automating certificate management. This will make it easier to securely connect external identity providers.  
 
10:26 - Amazon Redshift Serverless with lower base capacity available in the Europe (London) Region
The article announces that Amazon Redshift serverless now has a lower base capacity available in the London region. This allows users to run analytics more cost-effectively.  
 
15:11 - Protect against bots with AWS WAF Challenge and CAPTCHA actions 
The article explains how to use AWS WAF challenge and capture capabilities to protect against bots by requiring suspicious traffic to solve a challenge. This is less disruptive than blocking all traffic. 
 
21:16 - Media content localization with AWS AI services and Amazon Bedrock
The article demonstrates using AWS AI services like Transcribe and Translate to automatically localize text content from English to Korean. This makes it easier to reach broader audiences. 
 
26:40 - The 10 Biggest AWS News Stories Of 2024 (So Far) 
The hosts each highlight one of their favorite stories from a list of the top 10 AWS news items in 2022 so far. These include the CEO change, sustainability efforts, global data center expansion, and more.
 
Guest was Joshua Walker
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jwtechdev/

Season 3 Episode 27 - ECS Features, AWS Open Sourcing, and AI IAC

In Season 3, Episode 27 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Jenn Bergstrom. They discuss Amazon ECS, AWS Secrets Manager, Amazon CodeWhisperer, Security Hub and Jon was worried that the new Amazon Bedrock AI agent would replace him as Karl's Lead Cloud Engineer...
 
Articles Discussed:
03:54 - Amazon ECS now enforces software version consistency for containerized applications 
- Prevents issues when deploying containers using mutable tags like 'latest'
- Happens automatically, users don't need to make any changes
 
10:02 - Amazon ECS provides enhanced stop task error messages for easier troubleshooting 
 - Helps debug issues when deploying containers to ECS
- Available automatically in all regions, no user changes needed
 
12:40 - Open source release of Secrets Manager agent for AWS Secrets Manager 
- Allows retrieving secrets without writing custom integration code
- Exciting for serverless/container workloads like Lambda
 
18:35 - Using AI agents in Amazon CodeWhisperer to generate IaC from architecture diagrams 
- Upload a diagram, chat with the AI, get Terraform or CloudFormation code
- Useful but not a complete replacement for experienced engineers yet
 
29:30 - Top 4 ways to improve your Security Hub score 
- Mostly common sense security tips
- Highlights the need for better security practices
 
Guest was Jenn Bergstrom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenn-bergstrom/

Season 3 Episode 26 - GuardDuty, Serverless and Sovereign Cloud

In Season 3, Episode 26 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Igor Soroka. They discuss Amazon GuardDuty, New Lambda Logging Controls, Refactoring to Serverless, Aurora Global Database, the AWS European Sovereign Cloud, and the guys get sidetracked by Catalan taps...
 
Articles Discussed:
5:33 Amazon GuardDuty Runtime Monitoring Now Supports Ubuntu and Debian Operating Systems 
Key points:
- Previously only supported Amazon Linux
- Helps monitor and respond to potential threats like suspicious network activity, crypto mining, etc.
- Uses existing security agent, 30 day free trial
- Pricing is $1.50 per vCPU for first 500 vCPUs per month, drops for larger volumes
 
12:45 - New Lambda Logging Controls 
 Key points:
- Can now choose JSON or plaintext formatting
- Can set log levels like debug, error, etc.
- Supported in Python, Java, and Node.js
- Makes logging easier without needing additional libraries
- Can aggregate logs from different functions
 
18:21 - Refactoring to Serverless from Application to Automation 
Key points:
- Discusses "service factoring", replacing app code with automation
- Serverless allows abstracting away infrastructure details
- Entire architectures can be built using serverless components
- Improves apps through increased automation
 
24:11 - Using Aurora Global Database for Multi-Region Applications 
Key points:
- Provides hot-hot disaster recovery to secondary region
- Local endpoints provide fast response times
- Engineering to replicate globally is complex
- Useful but expensive to run dual full infrastructure
 
29:16 - Initial Services for AWS Europe Sovereign Cloud 
Key points:
- New sovereign cloud being built in Germany - Announces initial services like EC2, EKS, Lambda, etc.
- Functionally similar to AWS US GovCloud
- Provides data residency for EU regulations
- Impressive initial service list, no major omissions
 
Guest was Igor Soroko
https://www.linkedin.com/in/igor-soroka/
https://www.soroka.tech/blog/graphql-serverless-appsync
 
 

Season 3 Episode 25: Security, Sustainability, and Speed - How AWS Powers AI's Future

In Season 3, Episode 25 Karl & Jon are joined by Amazon Alumni & returning guest, Steve Woodard. They discuss AWS CloudShell, AWS Compute Optimizer, SQS, carbon footprint and optimising workloads, AWS engineering infrastructure to power generative AI and the guys go off on tangents about travelling t-shirts, cat bed hats and hair care products...
 
The articles discussed in this week episode are:
05:43 - AWS CloudShell now supports Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) 
12:35 - New – Rightsizing Recommendations for Amazon RDS MySQL and RDS PostgreSQL in AWS Compute Optimizer 
18:42 - Optimizing Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) for speed and scale 
26:14 - AWS can help reduce the carbon footprint of AI workloads by up to 99%. Here’s how. 
33:28 - 4 ways AWS is engineering infrastructure to power generative AI 
 
Guest was Steve Woodard
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevewoodardpi/
https://techtravels.buzzsprout.com/

Season 3, Episode 24: AWS MFA, Glue Transforms, and Cloud Dominance

In Season 3, Episode 24 Karl & Jon discuss MFA, AWS Glue, Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet model, automating cost optimisation, public and private cloud and Karl is thrown by Jon's glue humour...
 
The articles discussed in this week episode are:
 
03:48 - AWS is pushing ahead with MFA for privileged accounts. What that means for you... 
10:10 - AWS Glue adds additional 13 new transforms including flag duplicates 
15:27 - Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet model now available in Amazon Bedrock 
20:34 - Optimize Amazon RDS costs for predictable workloads with automated IOPS and throughput scaling 
24:33 - AWS and Azure maintain dominance as top used public cloud platforms in 2024 – Flexera report 
 

Season 3 Episode 23 - Root User Emails, AI CloudWatch Log Queries, and AI Startup Funding

In Season 3, Episode 23 Karl & Jon discuss root users and root emails, Query generator, Amazon GuardDuty, cost optimisation,  AWS Generative AI Accelerator program and Karl, being superstitious, wondered whether Jon's itchy nose meant he was heading for an argument...
 
The articles discussed in this week episode are:
02:25 - Centrally manage member account root email addresses across your AWS Organization 
10:54 - Amazon CloudWatch announces AI-Powered natural language query generation 
16:55 - Detect malware in new object uploads to Amazon S3 with Amazon GuardDuty 
20:51 - Best practices to optimize costs after mergers and acquisitions with AWS Organizations 
28:37 - Amazon adds $230 million in cloud credits to AI startups 
 

Season 3 Episode 22: Faster Windows Containers, Smarter CloudWatch Alarms, and Easier Tax Settings

In Season 3, Episode 22 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Iain Samuel McLean Elder. They discuss AWS Fargate improving Windows Container Launch Times, Amazon CloudWatch Logs and Alarms, CloudFront, AWS Tax Settings API and the guys discuss the difference between a long black and an americano - and it turns out they don't know!
 
The articles discussed in this week episode are:
05:21 - AWS Fargate Significantly Improves Windows Container Launch Times 
12:53 - Amazon CloudWatch Logs announces Live Tail streaming CLI support 
19:11 - Respond to CloudWatch Alarms with Amazon Bedrock Insights 
30:31 - Introducing CloudFront Hosting Toolkit 
37:17 - AWS launches Tax Settings API to programmatically manage tax registration information 
 
Guest was Iain Samuel McLean Elder:
https://www.isme.es/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/isme-devops/

Season 3 Episode 21 - IPv6, Small Large Language Models and Leadership Changes

In Season 3, Episode 21 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Darya Petrashka. They discuss IPv6 Load Balancer, storage costs, Mistral models, LlamaIndex, impact of AWS’ exec change and somehow we got onto the subject of Channing Tatum in leathers...
 
The articles discussed in this week episode are:
04:52 - Application Load Balancer launches IPv6 only support for internet clients 
11:00 - Optimizing storage costs and query performance by compacting small objects 
17:37 - Mistral Small foundation model now available in Amazon Bedrock 
25:08 - Announcing LlamaIndex support for Amazon Neptune to build GraphRAG applications 
29:08 - What impact will AWS’ exec change have on its AI future? 
 
Guest was  Darya Petrashka:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/daryapetrashka/?originalSubdomain=pl