LogiCast AWS News: Recent Episodes

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In Season 5, Episode 27, Karl and Jon are joined by Alam Ahmad, AWS Community Builder and content creator, to discuss four news stories: a new Secrets Manager integration with EventBridge, an AI-powered investigation feature for GuardDuty, a widely reported AWS billing display glitch, a domain expiry incident that locked a web developer out of his own account, and an update on the AWS data center in Bahrain. Along the way, the conversation somehow evolves from AWS billing errors into career advice on how missing a card payment can be an effective way to get people's attention.

05:33 - AWS Secrets Manager Now Publishes Secret Update Notifications to Amazon EventBridge

AWS Secrets Manager has been updated to publish secret update notifications directly to Amazon EventBridge, removing the need to rely solely on CloudTrail for visibility into secret changes. Previously, taking automated action on a secret update required complex workarounds involving CloudTrail logs, which Jon describes as requiring considerable effort to parse and act upon. Jon welcomes the change, noting it makes it far simpler to trigger downstream actions - such as validation workflows - when a secret is updated. Alam agrees the feature is common sense and highlights its particular value for large teams or organisations with high staff turnover, where credential visibility is critical. Jon also uses the opportunity to question the value proposition of Secrets Manager over SSM Parameter Store's secure string type, noting that at roughly 40 cents per secret, the cost differential is hard to justify given the functional similarity between the two services.

10:20 - AWS Guard Duty Investigation Agent - AI-Powered Threat Investigation

AWS has announced a preview of an investigation agent for Guard Duty that can automatically investigate findings, correlate related activity, and produce a report with actionable recommendations. Jon explains that Guard Duty ingests signals from multiple sources - including VPC Flow Logs, CloudTrail, and RDS login attempts - and generates findings, but that historically working out whether a finding is genuinely concerning required significant manual effort and environmental knowledge. The new agent can investigate a specific finding, a specific account, or up to 100 accounts across an organisation, reducing the legwork required from security teams. Alam notes it addresses the lower-level, high-volume work typical of a SOC tier-one role, and welcomes AWS's broader move towards automating security workflows. Jon flags uncertainty around pricing, noting that the DevOps Guru agent ties pricing to a support plan, which he finds an unfriendly model, and expresses interest in seeing what this agent will cost once out of preview. Karl also notes that unlike the DevOps Guru and Security agents, the investigation agent does not appear to carry title case branding, suggesting it may be a sub-feature of Guard Duty rather than a standalone named agent.

18:46 - AWS Billing Console Glitch Generates Trillion-Dollar Bills

A bug in the AWS billing console caused a number of customers to see wildly inflated estimated bills, with some figures reported as high as 55 trillion dollars - exceeding the GDP of the United States. Jon believes the root cause was a units-based calculation error, likely confusing bits and bytes, resulting in figures off by many orders of magnitude. The episode discusses the absurdity of the numbers themselves, with Alam noting the highest figure he encountered was around 7.8 trillion dollars. Jon's primary criticism is not the bug itself but AWS's public response, which described the issue as a "slight billing issue" - a characterisation he calls tone-deaf given that unexpected large bills can cause genuine distress and, in extreme cases, serious harm to individuals. Karl notes that in practice, no credit card would likely process a transaction of this size, offering some comfort, but agrees the communication was poorly handled.

25:27 - AWS Customer Loses All Client Websites After Account Suspended Over Expired Card

A web developer - running a digital firm called Taproom - lost access to all client websites and email accounts after his AWS account was suspended due to an expired payment card. Jon outlines the cascade of failures: domain management and DNS were both hosted within Route 53 in the same suspended account, the root account MFA relied on a software authenticator stored on a broken laptop, and the email backup MFA method used an address hosted on one of the suspended domains, making it impossible to log in and resolve the issue without a lengthy identity verification process with AWS support. Alam draws parallels with similar small-footprint issues seen in NOC work, such as DNS misconfigurations and failure to account for employees leaving, and acknowledges that the customer was bounced between departments when trying to resolve the situation. Jon's key takeaway is that critical recovery mechanisms - such as MFA methods and billing contact details - must never be hosted within the same account or service they are intended to recover. Karl notes that the team has seen similar issues within their own customer base, and Alam reflects that while many of the contributing factors were within the customer's control, hindsight makes it easy to identify mistakes that are common in practice.

32:56 - Iranian Cruise Missile Strike Reported Against AWS Data Centre in Bahrain

Iranian state media claimed that an AWS data centre in Bahrain was struck and destroyed by cruise missiles, reportedly in response to alleged US strikes on an under-construction nuclear facility. Jon urges caution about the specific claims, noting that state media from any country carries an inherent agenda and that a single missile would be unlikely to destroy a facility of that scale. Karl notes that AWS's status page for the Bahrain facility has not been updated since 30 April, when AWS was already advising customers to migrate workloads elsewhere. AWS reportedly stated that no customers were impacted and that workloads had been proactively moved to other sites. Alam raises the broader question of whether geopolitical risk must now form part of infrastructure planning decisions when selecting AWS regions, and Jon's conclusion is straightforward - workloads should not be running in this region at present.

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In Season 5, Episode 26, Karl and Jon are joined by AWS Hero Johannes Koch to discuss recent developments across the AWS ecosystem, including Amazon's satellite broadband initiative, the retirement of Amazon Mechanical Turk, updates to coding tool Kiro, a new MCP server for accessing public data, and the announcement of a free AWS sandbox account. Along the way, Johannes also discovers that bloopers don't get edited out!

03:20 - Amazon Leo: Starlink Competitor

Amazon Leo, Amazon's answer to Starlink, aims to provide satellite broadband services. While Starlink has a significant lead with thousands of satellites already in orbit, Amazon is preparing to launch its own constellation. The discussion highlights the technical challenges and potential markets for satellite broadband, including enterprise use cases and connectivity for remote areas.

13:45 - Amazon Mechanical Turk Retirement

Amazon has decided to stop accepting new customers for its Mechanical Turk service, which allowed users to complete small tasks for payment. The service, which has been around since 2005, has faced competition from other freelance platforms and AI advancements. The decision raises questions about Amazon's strategy and the future of human-in-the-loop tasks in AI development.

19:48 - Kiro: Amazon’s Coding Tool

Kiro, Amazon's coding assistant, has recently made other coding models available, including GPT models. This flexibility allows users to choose from various models directly within Kiro, setting it apart from other coding tools. The discussion explores Kiro’s positioning within AWS, its potential for future monetization, and how it compares to other AWS development tools.

36:42 - New MCP Server for Public Data

AWS has launched a new MCP server to access Rhoda, the Registry of Open Data, which contains over 1,122 public datasets. This development aims to make public data more accessible but also brings concerns about the increasing number of MCP servers and the potential for sprawl. The conversation touches on the value of knowing how to query these servers and the future of data access in the AWS ecosystem.

43:40 - Free Sandbox Account

AWS now offers a free sandbox account that users can run for up to 8 hours without incurring any costs. This feature is aimed at making it easier to run workshops and experiments without the hassle of managing accounts and cleaning up resources. While the initiative is praised for its potential, there are discussions about its limitations, such as the single-use nature and the 8-hour time constraint.

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In Season 5, Episode 25, Karl and Jon are joined by Artem Hrechanychenko, an AWS Community Builder and expert in DevOps and Kubernetes. Together, they discuss CloudFormation Express Mode, Amazon RDS Log Analysis with Qiro and MCP, safely releasing frontier AI models to customers, AWS GPU instance price increases, and AWS adding more data centre capacity than any other company in 2025. Along the way, the conversation somehow shifts from government control over AI models to government control of World Cup football!

08:46 - CloudFormation Express Mode

The first article discusses AWS CloudFormation Express Mode, which accelerates infrastructure deployments by up to four times. The hosts and guest discuss the potential benefits and challenges of using this mode, particularly in scenarios where rapid deployment and minimal waiting times are critical. They also compare it to other infrastructure-as-code tools like Terraform.

16:53 - Amazon RDS Log Analysis with Qiro and MCP

This article explores the use of Amazon RDS log analysis with Qiro and Machine Learning Control Plane (MCP). The discussion focuses on the practical applications of this tool for developers and SREs, particularly in environments where access to production databases is restricted. The hosts debate the effectiveness of this approach versus using built-in AWS tools like CloudWatch Logs.

24:20 - Safely Releasing Frontier Models to Customers

The third article examines the ethical and policy considerations surrounding the release of advanced AI models. The conversation touches on the recent incident with Anthropic's Fable 5 model, government regulations, and the broader implications of AI governance. The hosts and guest discuss the balance between innovation and safety in AI development.

35:06 - AWS GPU Instance Price Increase

This article reports on AWS's decision to raise prices for GPU instances by 20%. The discussion revolves around the implications of this price increase for AI infrastructure costs and the potential for higher costs to be passed on to end-users. The hosts explore the reasons behind the price hike and its impact on the AI ecosystem.

41:08 - AWS Adds More Data Center Capacity Than Any Other Company in 2025

The final article highlights AWS's significant expansion of data center capacity in 2025, claiming to have added more capacity than any other company. The hosts analyze the environmental and economic impacts of this expansion, considering both the positive aspects of job creation and the negative implications for energy consumption and sustainability.

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In Season 5, Episode 24, Karl and Jon are joined by Gorkem Kestane, a software developer and former Amazon Community Builder specializing in machine learning and cloud technologies. Together, they discuss the introduction of AWS Lambda microVMs and what they bring to the cloud computing landscape. They also explore the growing adoption of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) in DevOps and its impact on integrating AI systems with external tools, review AWS's new certification renewal process that emphasizes continuous learning over traditional exams, analyze the potential of Amazon QuickSight and the challenges it faces in becoming a mainstream desktop application, and debate the EU's stance on cloud gatekeepers, including proposed changes to egress fees and interoperability standards. To top it all off, Karl's wife calls him in the middle of the recording, leaving Jon and Gorkem to debate whether he should have taken that all...

03:50 - Model Context Protocol (MCP)

MCP is an open standard protocol designed to facilitate communication between AI systems and various tools, APIs, and data sources. It aims to eliminate the need for custom integrations by providing a standardized way for agents to interact with enterprise applications. While MCPs are becoming more common, organizations must ensure robust security measures are in place to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive systems.

17:50 - AWS Certification Renewals

AWS has introduced a new method for renewing certifications without taking an exam. This continuous learning model involves completing AWS Skill Builder training and lab activities, making it easier for professionals to maintain their certifications without the need for periodic exams. While this method is beneficial for those who already understand the material, it is not yet available for all certifications.

28:39 - Amazon Quick and Its Strategic Importance

Amazon Quick, born out of QuickSight, is an AI assistant that aims to streamline workflows and automate routine tasks within enterprises. Despite its powerful capabilities, the setup process is complex and costly, involving multiple steps and third-party integrations. The tool's potential lies in its ability to connect enterprise data sources and applications, though it faces challenges in user adoption and integration simplicity.

42:01 - EU's Designation of AWS and Azure as Cloud Gatekeepers

The European Union is considering designating AWS and Azure as "cloud gatekeepers" under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) due to their significant market impact and the fees they charge for data egress. The EU aims to reduce vendor lock-in by forcing these providers to eliminate egress fees and promote interoperability. However, the feasibility of these regulations remains uncertain, as major cloud providers are unlikely to rewrite their platforms to meet open standards.

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In Season 5, Episode 23, Karl and Jon are joined by Stephen Woodard, enterprise architect and founder of Obligra Labs, a startup focused on AI governance frameworks, to discuss the latest AWS news.

Topics include the introduction of AI-assisted paywall transactions through AWS Web Application Firewall (WAF), enhancements to Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) auto-scaling, and a new safe secrets-handling feature in AWS Secrets Manager, including its integration with the AWS Agent Toolkit.

They also explore the government crackdown on the release of powerful AI models, with a focus on Anthropic’s Fable 5 model, and the growing impact of AI-driven development tools on GitHub’s infrastructure, which has led to a partnership with AWS to help manage increased demand.

And, despite Karl and Jon struggling through the UK heatwave, they received little sympathy from their Florida-based guest.

07:32 - AI Traffic Monetization with AWS WAF

AWS WAF now allows AI bots to make payments to access content behind paywalls. This feature facilitates machine-to-machine transactions, enabling bots to pay for content directly. While this can be beneficial for content providers, it raises concerns about the ethics of AI making financial decisions and the potential for abuse. The discussion also touched on the need for governance and legal frameworks to manage such transactions.

14:11 - Faster Auto-Scaling for Amazon ECS

Amazon ECS has introduced improvements to its auto-scaling capabilities, reducing scale-out times significantly. These enhancements aim to make scaling more responsive, which is particularly beneficial for applications with variable workloads. The conversation highlighted the importance of scaling strategies and the evolution from simple CPU-based scaling to more sophisticated methods like predictive and event-driven scaling.

22:21 - Safe Secrets Handling in AWS Secrets Manager

AWS Secrets Manager now includes features to handle secrets more securely within the AWS ecosystem, preventing developers from inadvertently exposing sensitive information in code. This integration with the AWS Agent Toolkit aims to enhance security in AI-assisted development workflows. The speakers noted the importance of this feature in preventing the leakage of sensitive data and discussed potential challenges and questions around its implementation.

28:44 - Government Crackdown on AI Model Releases

The episode discussed the US government's decision to restrict the release of powerful AI models like Anthropic's Fable 5, citing national security concerns. This move has sparked debates about the balance between innovation and regulation in AI development. The speakers expressed confusion and concern over the inconsistency in government policies regarding AI and emphasized the need for clearer legislative frameworks.

37:26 - GitHub's AI Agent Crisis and AWS Partnership

The surge in AI-driven development has led to a significant increase in GitHub's commit rates, straining its infrastructure. This has resulted in Microsoft turning to AWS for additional capacity to manage the load. The discussion touched on the broader implications of AI on cloud infrastructure, including potential increases in costs and the challenges of capacity management in hyper-scale environments.

During this episode, we discussed AI governance, decision intelligence, and the importance of verifiable business decisions. For listeners who would like to explore the topic further:

• Research Paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6473418
• Article: https://vocal.media/lifehack/obligra-launches-verify-the-system-of-record-for-ai-assisted-business-decisions
• Obligra: https://www.obligra.ai/

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In Season 5, Episode 22, Karl and Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder and CTO Luis Valdivia to discuss the latest AWS news, including Amazon Q-powered Cost Explorer insights, the AWS FinOps Agent for cloud cost optimization, and a security maturity roadmap for operationalizing AWS security. The conversation also covers AI-assisted development with AWS Kiro Specs for building multi-account patch compliance dashboards, and Microsoft’s shift to Bring Your Own License for Amazon RDS. The episode wraps with lighter moments, including Jon’s distraction by unusual Peruvian bird activity caused by unexpected seasonal weather.

04:50 - AWS Cost Explorer with Amazon Q

• Introduction of intelligent cost explanations powered by Amazon Q in AWS Cost Explorer.

• Discussion on how this feature simplifies cost analysis and helps users understand unexpected cost spikes without manual investigation.

12:44 - AWS FinOps Agent

• Overview of AWS's FinOps agent designed to help customers optimize their cloud spending.

• Analysis of the agent's capabilities including anomaly detection, cost optimization, and identifying responsible parties for changes in cloud usage.

21:35 - Operationalizing AWS Security

• Insights into AWS's maturity roadmap for operationalizing security, emphasizing the importance of security hygiene and the use of tools like GuardDuty and Security Hub.

• Discussion on the challenges of balancing security with accessibility in cloud environments.

29:54 - Building a Multi-Account Patch Compliance Dashboard with Kiro Specs

• Exploration of how to build a patch compliance dashboard using Amazon's spec-driven IDE, Kiro Specs.

• Discussion on the benefits of spec-driven development and how it accelerates the development process.

38:51 - Microsoft Allowing Bring Your Own License for Amazon RDS

• Announcement and implications of Microsoft allowing customers to bring their own SQL Server licenses to Amazon RDS.

• Speculation on the strategic reasons behind this change and its impact on customers dependent on SQL Server.

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In Season 5, Episode 21, Karl and Jon are joined by Jason Wood, fellow AWS Community Builder, user group leader, and AWS Ambassador. They discuss recent developments and updates in AWS services. The hosts and guest discussed various articles and features, touching upon topics such as instance types, AWS Managed Services for Prometheus (MCP) server, AWS Security Agent, AWS DevOps Agent, and Amazon Quick and the conversation somehow started off with a deep dive into UK vehicle excise duty...

07:21 - EC2 T2 Instances vs. T3 Instances

This article compared the cost and performance of EC2 T2 and T3 instances. The discussion highlighted that while T3 instances have been around for a while, many users are still on T2 instances, likely due to their familiarity and lower costs for non-intensive workloads. The hosts debated the benefits of upgrading to T3 instances, noting the challenges of migration but also the potential cost savings and performance improvements.

14:05 - AWS Managed Services for Prometheus (MCP) Server

This article detailed the general availability of the AWS MCP server, which consolidates various MCP services into a single gateway. The discussion focused on the shift from multiple local MCP services to a centralized service running in specific AWS regions. The speakers also talked about the implications for data sovereignty and security, emphasizing the need for discussions with security teams about running services in certain regions.

22:31 - AWS Security Agent Verification Scripts for Pen Test Findings

The article announced that AWS Security Agent now includes verification scripts for penetration testing findings. The hosts appreciated this feature for its ability to provide transparency and validation of security findings, making it easier for teams to review and act on the results. They discussed the importance of validating findings before implementation, especially in a DevSecOps environment.

27:24 - AWS DevOps Agent Uses Multi-Agent Reasoning to Find Root Causes

This article explained how AWS DevOps Agent uses multi-agent reasoning to identify and remediate incidents. The hosts discussed the potential of this feature to streamline incident management and improve efficiency. They also highlighted the importance of building trust in automated systems before fully relying on them for critical tasks, emphasizing the need for thorough validation and testing.

37:44 - Amazon Quick: Transforming Professional Work

The final article discussed how Amazon Quick can transform document creation from hours to minutes. The speakers shared their positive experiences with Quick, particularly in generating case studies and other professional documents. They also noted the challenges of setting up Quick, especially for users outside of North Virginia, and the additional costs associated with the enterprise version. The discussion concluded with a reflection on the balance between the efficiency gains and the costs of using such AI-driven tools.

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In Season 5, Episode 20, Karl and Jon are joined by Malte Polley, an AWS Community Builder, to discuss recent AWS news including ExtendDB, AWS Security Hub, the AWS DevOps Agent, unauthorized account removals from AWS Organizations, and the European Sovereign Cloud. Malte brings a German perspective to the sovereignty discussion, while the group explores the benefits, challenges, and business impact of these updates for AWS users, before all three recently renewed AWS Community Builders speculate on what swag might be heading their way next.

08:05 - Extend DB - An Open Source Dynamo DB Compatible Adapter

Extend DB is a new open-source project that allows Dynamo DB-like functionality on local machines. It supports pluggable storage back ends and is ideal for local development, CI/CD pipelines, and self-hosted deployments. Despite being in version 0.1, it shows great potential for local NoSQL database needs without the need to use the actual Dynamo DB service.

13:49 - AWS Security Hub Uncovers Identity Risks from Unused Access

AWS Security Hub now integrates with IAM Access Analyzer to identify and manage unused access within AWS accounts. This feature helps in detecting unused IAM roles, policies, and keys, which are often overlooked during regular audits.

19:29 - Automate Root Cause Analysis Across Datadog with AWS DevOps Agent

This article explores how to automate root cause analysis in Datadog and Elasticsearch using the AWS DevOps Agent. It discusses a complex architecture involving Kubernetes, file beats, CloudWatch, and more to correlate various data sources for effective monitoring.

27:32 - Prevent Unauthorized Account Removals from AWS Organizations

The article provides insights from the AWS Customer Incident Response Team (CIRT) on preventing unauthorized account removals from AWS Organizations. It emphasizes the importance of service control policies and the risks associated with unauthorized access.

36:51 - European Sovereign Cloud: Sovereignty Without Compromise

The article discusses the adoption of the AWS European Sovereign Cloud by various companies and the reasons behind their decision. It addresses the political and regulatory drivers for data sovereignty and the implications for businesses operating in the EU.

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In Season 5, Episode 19, Karl and Jon are joined by Anwaar Hussain, Cloud Infrastructure Architect at AWS, to discuss the latest AWS updates, including Amazon CloudFront Premium Flat Rate Pricing Plans, which offer more flexible tier options for request counts and data transfer rates; AWS Transform Containerization, an AI-powered capability for containerizing applications during migration to ECS or EKS; Amazon Q in QuickSight Requirements Analysis, which helps identify contradictions and improve code quality; AI Sovereignty on AWS, covering data residency, operator access restrictions, and responsible AI certification; and analysis of the May 2024 US-East-1 outage, which reinforces the importance of multi-AZ architecture and disaster recovery testing. Karl also questions why Jon did not spend his time off in lieu having a test nap in the camper van he wants to buy.

07:07 - Amazon CloudFront Premium Flat Rate Pricing Plans - Expanded Options

AWS has enhanced CloudFront flat rate pricing with more flexible tier customization, letting customers choose combinations from 500 million to 6 billion requests and 50 to 600 TB of data transfer without manual AWS support. This helps mid-market enterprises access custom pricing, improve cost forecasting, and align cloud spending with fixed budget planning.

14:28 - AWS Transform Adds Containerization Capability During Migration

AWS Transform now uses AI to automate application containerization, going beyond lift-and-shift migrations. It analyzes source code, creates Dockerfiles, builds and scans images, pushes them to ECR, and deploys to ECS or EKS. Supporting platforms such as IBM z/OS, Fujitsu GS21, VMware, and .NET, it helps organizations modernize faster while allowing consultants to focus on higher-value work like upskilling, architecture, and complex transformation.

23:33 - Amazon Q in QuickSight - Requirements Analysis Feature (GeekWire: "AWS Targets AI Slop")

Amazon Q has launched a requirements analysis feature designed to improve code quality by identifying gaps and contradictions in application specifications before development begins. Using a neurosymbolic AI pipeline—combining neural networks with SMT (Satisfiability Modulo Theories) solvers—the tool translates requirements into logical format, searches for mathematical contradictions, and presents clarifying questions to users about edge cases, conflicting requirements, and use case priorities. This addresses a core challenge with AI-generated code: while AI excels at optimizing for high-throughput scenarios, real-world applications often have different constraints and lower usage patterns that require deliberate architectural choices. The feature was released alongside parallel task execution (allowing simultaneous sub-agent work on independent tasks) and quick plan mode (combining requirements analysis, design, and task listing). Combined with Q's existing spec mode, these tools reduce implementation time and improve code quality, though they emphasize that prompt engineering rigor and human oversight remain critical to avoiding poor-quality outputs in production environments.

36:49 - AWS Security Blog - Enabling AI Sovereignty on AWS

Stefan Israel, lead of AWS’s European Sovereign Cloud, outlined how AWS addresses AI sovereignty through data residency, operator access controls, and cultural-linguistic model considerations. Building on AWS’s Digital Sovereignty Pledge, the guidance covers where models run, how data moves through AI workflows, and how responsible AI is governed. AWS’s ISO/IEC 42001 certification adds assurance for customers still cautious about generative and agentic AI adoption.

44:04 - Mashable - AWS Reveals Cause of May 2024 Outage

AWS disclosed that the May 2024 US-East-1 outage was caused by a cooling failure in a single data center within one availability zone. While only part of the region was affected, the incident reinforces the need for multi-AZ architecture, regular disaster recovery testing, and verified backup restoration plans, as many organizations still rely on single-AZ dependencies or untested recovery processes.

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In Season 5, Episode 18, Karl and Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder Muhammad Fahid, Head of SRE in the healthcare industry, for a wide-ranging discussion covering AWS IAM quota increases for roles, policies, trust policies, and identity providers; the AWS MCP (Model Context Protocol) Server becoming generally available; the launch of the Agent Toolkit for AWS to enhance AI coding assistants; the impact of Iranian drone attacks on AWS Middle East infrastructure in the Bahrain and UAE regions; Amazon’s plan to hire 11,000 interns in 2026 amid AI efficiency gains and recent layoffs; AI’s impact on the workforce, job market, and required skill development; multi-region deployment strategies and disaster recovery planning; security and compliance considerations in AI-assisted development; and Karl and Jon going off on a tangent about UK skip etiquette.

05:01 - AWS IAM Quota Increases

AWS has raised several IAM quotas, including larger trust policies, more roles, managed policies, instance profiles, policies per role, and OIDC providers. These increases should help enterprises that regularly hit IAM limits when managing complex, least-privilege permissions across many teams and workloads. The higher OIDC provider quota is especially useful because it reduces the need for awkward workarounds in federated identity setups.

11:05 - AWS MCP Server Generally Available

The AWS MCP Server is now generally available, making it a more stable part of the AWS ecosystem. It helps AI coding assistants better understand AWS services and best practices, although setup can still be complex for less technical users. John notes that GA status is important because preview tools can disappear, as happened with some earlier MCPs such as the Diagrams MCP.

14:45- Agent Toolkit for AWS

AWS has introduced the Agent Toolkit for AWS, bundling the MCP server with more than 40 skills across areas such as infrastructure, storage, analytics, containers, and AI. The toolkit makes it easier for coding assistants to discover and use the right AWS capabilities automatically, without users manually configuring multiple MCPs. It is also a strategic move to keep AI-assisted development closely tied to AWS.

21:53 - AWS Middle East Data Center Damage

Amazon says full recovery of damaged Middle East cloud infrastructure in Bahrain and the UAE will take months after Iranian drone attacks. The long recovery timeline and billing refunds suggest the damage was more serious than early reports implied, affecting power, cooling, and broader data center infrastructure. Mohammed notes that affected healthcare clients only recovered because they had multi-region deployments, highlighting the importance of disaster recovery planning, data residency, and resilient architecture.

33:06 - Amazon Dismisses AI Job Loss Fears

AWS CEO Matt Garman has pushed back on fears of AI-driven job losses while Amazon plans to hire 11,000 interns in 2026. However, this follows major layoffs, leading John to suggest Amazon may be replacing experienced staff with cheaper, AI-assisted junior talent. The bigger concern is whether new hires will develop the right skills: not just coding, but architecture, security, compliance, simplicity, and system design in AI-assisted environments.

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In Season 5, Episode 17, Karl and Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder Gabriel Torres for a wide-ranging discussion on the latest AWS and cloud industry updates. They cover the launch and key features of Amazon Quick Desktop AI Assistant, new AWS Training and Certification micro credentials, and recent AWS service end-of-life announcements, including WorkMail, App Runner, and selected Comprehend and Rekognition features. The episode also explores Amazon Q Developer’s end-of-support announcement, the move toward Codeium, and changes to the Microsoft-OpenAI exclusivity agreement and what they could mean for AWS and other cloud providers. And, of course, Karl found time to share one of his favourite dad jokes.

04:25 - Amazon Quick Desktop AI Assistant

Amazon has launched Quick Desktop, an AI assistant for desktop tasks that connects to email, calendar, files, Slack, Jira, and Codeium CLI. Running on AWS Bedrock, it keeps data within AWS to support compliance needs. After a free trial, pricing starts at $20 per user/month annually, plus a $250 organization infrastructure fee. Quick offers strong integrations and an intuitive markdown-based interface, but its success remains uncertain in a competitive AI assistant market.

16:55 - AWS Training and Certification Updates - April 2025

AWS has introduced micro credentials as a hands-on certification pathway through SkillBuilder, with practical labs in Serverless, Agentic AI, Networking, and Incident Response. Unlike traditional exams, they require no test center or subscription and focus on realistic scenarios. The format fills gaps such as serverless, includes a 30-minute preview and three-week retake wait, and supports learners seeking practical, specialized AWS skills at lower cost.

24:25 - AWS Ends WorkMail and Moves App Runner to Maintenance Mode

AWS is discontinuing or moving several low-adoption services into maintenance mode, including WorkMail, App Runner, RDS Custom for Oracle, and selected Comprehend and Rekognition features. The shift marks a clearer focus on high-adoption services and consolidation around alternatives such as Bedrock and ECS. While viable replacements exist, the App Runner change may especially affect developers who valued its simplicity over managing ECS directly.

30:28 - Amazon Q Developer End of Support Announcement

Amazon Q Developer is being phased out in 2027 as AWS consolidates its AI coding strategy around Codeium. Q Developer struggled with adoption, hallucinations, and confusing “Q” branding, while Codeium offers clearer positioning, stronger code generation, and agentic, spec-driven development. Console and Teams features will remain, but IDE plugins and CLI tools are being discontinued, requiring subscribers to migrate to Codeium.

38:16 - Microsoft-OpenAI Exclusivity Terms Change

Microsoft has modified its OpenAI exclusivity agreement, allowing OpenAI to work with AWS and Google Cloud. This removes Azure-only routing constraints, enabling more native integrations, lower latency, and simpler infrastructure across AWS and GCP. AWS could benefit through smoother OpenAI model access in services like Lambda and ECS, though regulated industries may still face privacy and compliance barriers.

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In Season 5, Episode 16, Karl and Jon are joined by Taylor Dolezal, Head of Open Source at Dosu, to discuss AWS Lambda’s S3 file system integration, Anthropic Claude Opus 4.7 arriving in Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Q’s cost management capabilities for FinOps, Microsoft’s £2.8 billion UK licensing lawsuit, and the latest AI adoption statistics and implementation challenges, before taking a nostalgic tangent into early-noughties personal digital assistants...

03:13 - AWS Lambda Mounts S3 Buckets as File Systems

AWS Lambda can now mount S3 buckets as file systems via S3 Files, reducing the need for separate EFS infrastructure when working with large files already in S3. This simplifies use cases like image processing, user-generated content, Lambda Durable Functions, and multi-step AI workflows.

Jon noted that while the feature reduces engineering complexity, pricing remains hard to predict. It also does not resolve some S3 limitations, such as folder recreation issues, and its usefulness depends on Lambda capacity provider configuration.

11:47 - Claude Opus 4.7 Available in Amazon Bedrock

Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.7 is now available in Amazon Bedrock, continuing Anthropic’s rapid model release cycle. The model offers new capabilities, but users may need to adjust prompts and implementations to see improvements.

The discussion noted that newer models do not always outperform older ones in real-world use. Some teams still prefer Claude 4.6 for reliability. Taylor highlighted that performance can vary by infrastructure, such as Nvidia chips versus TPUs, and that enterprise tools for evaluating model cost, consistency, and behavior remain immature. Concerns were also raised about models detecting test environments and optimizing for metrics in unintended ways.

20:19 - Amazon Q Adds FinOps Cost Management

Amazon Q is now integrated into AWS Cost Explorer, letting users ask natural language questions about AWS spending without manually building reports. This makes cost insights more accessible to business users and non-technical stakeholders.

Taylor emphasized that cost predictability is critical for planning, based on experience at the Linux Foundation and Disney. While the feature lowers the barrier to cost analysis, it currently focuses on ad-hoc questions rather than recurring reports, dashboards, or automated alerts. Jon suggested future improvements such as monthly recurring analysis and natural language dashboard creation.

26:21 - Microsoft Faces UK Cloud Licensing Lawsuit

Microsoft is facing a £2.8 billion UK lawsuit alleging anti-competitive cloud licensing practices, claiming Microsoft software such as Windows Server and SQL Server costs more on rival clouds than on Azure.

Jon noted that while Azure pricing advantages may be expected, Microsoft has not clearly explained how price differences are calculated. Microsoft argues damages are difficult to assess because cloud providers do not separate licensing from infrastructure costs. Taylor shared that Disney had to migrate SQL Server workloads after Microsoft restricted bring-your-own-license options, creating major engineering effort. The case could force more transparency in cloud licensing, though changes would likely take time.

34:12 - AI Adoption Still Mostly Basic

AWS research presented at the London Summit found that 64% of UK organizations have adopted AI, but only 25% of those use it at an advanced level, equal to about 15% of all businesses.

The discussion questioned what counts as “basic” versus “advanced” AI use, such as whether Office 365 Copilot or code generation qualifies. Jon stressed the importance of definitions. Taylor argued that the biggest barriers are governance, compliance, and unclear use cases rather than skills alone. Key challenges include data residency, government requirements, supply chain security, rapid technology change, and likely future cost increases as VC subsidies decline.

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In Season 5, Episode 15, Karl and Jon are joined by Damien Jones, an AWS Community Builder, to discuss AWS Interconnect, now generally available for multi-cloud connectivity with Google Cloud Platform, with Azure and Oracle Cloud coming later; database migration acceleration using Kiro and Amazon Bedrock Agent Core to speed up migrations to Amazon Aurora DSQL; Project Glasswing, Anthropic’s restricted-preview model for detecting AI-driven cyberattacks and identifying vulnerabilities; Amazon’s AI revenue, with the CEO revealing $15 billion in annualized AI services revenue, roughly 10% of AWS’s run rate; and Project Houdini, AWS’s initiative using prefabricated modular data centers to accelerate construction timelines. And, of course, the guys got excited about the prospect of a Lidl cloud platform...

07:40 - AWS Interconnect - Multi-Cloud Connectivity

AWS has announced the general availability of AWS Interconnect, a dedicated service for connecting AWS with other cloud providers more reliably and efficiently than VPNs. It currently supports Google Cloud, with Azure and Oracle Cloud expected by late 2026. Pricing depends on capacity and distance, starting around $90,000 per month for 10 Gbps between nearby regions and rising to nearly $400,000 for longer cross-region links. AWS has also open-sourced the specification on GitHub to encourage broader adoption. The service removes unpredictable internet egress fees and guarantees capacity, making it most relevant for large enterprises with hybrid or multi-cloud environments. Still, it is a premium solution for moving data between clouds, not for reducing multi-cloud complexity itself.

17:22 - Accelerating Database Migration with Kiro and Bedrock Agent Corp

AWS shared a technical guide showing how Kiro and Amazon Bedrock Agent Core can speed up schema analysis for migrations to Amazon Aurora DSQL. The approach helps identify schema mapping needs and compatibility issues early, reducing the need for deep migration expertise during planning. But the discussion raised concerns about production readiness: it depends on persistent Kiro CLI sessions that lose in-memory analysis if interrupted, forcing a restart, and it lacks the real-time observability of native AWS DMS tools. While useful for proof-of-concept work and easing upfront analysis, the panelists were cautious about recommending it for production migrations without stronger persistence and observability. More broadly, they noted that AI-driven “faster” database migration tooling is part of a familiar cycle, while the core migration challenges remain largely the same.

27:06 - Project Glasswing - AI-Driven Cybersecurity Tool

Anthropic launched Project Glasswing, a restricted-preview model aimed at detecting and preventing AI-driven cyberattacks by finding software vulnerabilities. It reportedly uncovered thousands of critical bugs in core internet infrastructure, including projects like FFMPEG and OpenSSL, often maintained by very small teams. Access is limited to about 40 organizations, which sparked debate over publicly promoting a powerful tool that few can use. The discussion raised concerns about a two-tier security landscape, possible future “Glasswing scan” requirements in cyber insurance, and broader AI safety issues as models grow more capable. While restricting access to dangerous tools may be sensible, the panelists argued that the public hype creates perverse incentives and could let a small group of firms charge premium prices for exclusive access.

38:29 - Amazon AI Revenue and Investment Strategy

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in the annual shareholder letter that AWS AI services are now generating more than $15 billion in annualized revenue, about 10% of AWS’s total run rate. Amazon has committed $200 billion in capital spending for data centers and AI chips, reflecting strong demand for specialized infrastructure. Jassy also noted that two major AWS customers asked for exclusive access to all Graviton capacity in 2026, a request Amazon declined to avoid limiting other customers. The letter underscored the strategic value of AWS’s AI and chip business, with discussion pointing to a more disciplined approach: Amazon is now securing customer demand before building capacity, with production already committed into 2027 and 2028. While the ROI horizon is still long given the scale of spending, demand and adoption appear to be accelerating.

45:16 - Project Houdini - Prefabricated Data Center Construction

AWS announced Project Houdini, which uses prefabricated modular data center units, or “skids,” to speed up data center construction and AI infrastructure deployment. While the idea of prefabrication is not new, AWS is standardizing it at scale to cut build times. The panelists noted the bigger constraint is power, not construction: aging UK and European grids are already under strain and often cannot support modern data center demand. That has pushed companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft to tackle infrastructure problems typically handled by governments. Amazon is exploring options such as small modular nuclear reactors, but broader questions remain about whether private companies should be solving national power challenges. One advantage of the modular approach is portability, allowing deployment in areas where power is available.

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In Season 5, Episode 14, Karl and Jon are joined by Destiny Erhabor, an AWS Community Builder, to discuss S3 Files Launch, AWS’s new file system interface for S3 buckets that provides POSIX-compliant access to S3 data through a cached file system layer. They also cover EKS Managed Node Groups with EC2 Auto Scaling Warm Pools, a new feature that simplifies Kubernetes cluster auto-scaling and reduces operational complexity; the ongoing AWS Middle East data center disruptions caused by drone strikes, including full-month service credits and emergency restoration efforts; AWS’s AI investment strategy, including its simultaneous investments in Anthropic and OpenAI and how that positions it against Amazon Nova models; and the broader AI hype cycle, including whether AI could disrupt SaaS business models in a so-called “SASSpocalypse” and what kind of real ROI companies are actually seeing from AI investments. And, for the record, no crimes were committed during the recording of this podcast.

03:19 - S3 Files Launch - Making S3 Buckets Accessible as File Systems

AWS's new file system interface for S3 buckets, providing POSIX-compliant access to S3 data through a cached file system layer

15:54 - EKS Managed Node Groups Now Support EC2 Auto Scaling Warm Pools

New feature simplifying Kubernetes cluster auto-scaling and reducing operational complexity

22:26 - WS Teams Working Round-the-Clock to Restore Middle East Region Services Following Drone Strikes

Ongoing impact of drone strikes on Middle East regions, including full month service credits and emergency restoration efforts

31:08 - AWS CEO Matt Garman Defends Simultaneous Multi-Billion Dollar Investments in Anthropic and OpenAI

Discussion of AWS's simultaneous investments in Anthropic and OpenAI, and competitive positioning with Amazon Nova models

37:01 - AWS CEO Addresses AI "SASSpocalypse" Concerns at Human X Conference

Debate over whether AI will disrupt SaaS business models and discussion of genuine ROI from AI investments

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In Season 5, Episode 13, Karl and Jon discuss a packed lineup of AWS news, including the general availability of AWS DevOps Agent with autonomous incident response capabilities, support for EC2 instance store in Amazon ECS Managed Instances for latency-sensitive workloads, and the introduction of managed daemons for managed instances, similar to Kubernetes DaemonSets. They also cover how to build high-performance applications with AWS Lambda managed instances, a migration guide for moving from Amazon ElastiCache for Redis to ElistiCache for Valkey, and the European Commission data breach involving a compromised AWS account through a supply chain attack on Aqua Security’s Trivy vulnerability scanner. And along the way, the guys realize that Karl’s muscle memory for intro titles is apparently so bad, he could probably forget his own name if he took a week off.

03:24 - AWS DevOps Agent General Availability and autonomous Incident Response with DevOps Agent

AWS DevOps Agent has officially moved from preview to general availability. This service acts as an autonomous incident investigation tool that can analyze logs, telemetry, and infrastructure metrics to help teams understand what's going wrong during incidents. Rather than replacing human SREs, it accelerates the investigation phase by correlating data from multiple sources (CloudWatch logs, monitoring tools, error messages) and reducing the time spent in manual troubleshooting. The tool can be integrated with existing monitoring platforms like PagerDuty, Datadog, New Relic, and Grafana. It supports "skills" (essentially runbooks or if-then rules) that can be customized for known failure patterns specific to an organization's infrastructure. Currently in GA, it can perform investigations but cannot yet execute remediation actions, though this is expected as a future capability. Notable customers in production include Western Governors University, ZenChef, T-Mobile, and Granola.

This article provides a practical walkthrough for implementing DevOps Agent in AWS environments to handle incident response workflows. It demonstrates how to set up the integration between incident management systems and DevOps Agent, allowing automated investigation workflows to be triggered when alerts fire. The article shows bidirectional integration with services like PagerDuty (which can feed alerts into DevOps Agent) and Slack (for notifications), and outbound capabilities to create incidents or update existing ones. The key value proposition is that the tool can handle approximately 80% of the incident investigation burden—the time-consuming process of correlating logs, metrics, and events—while human engineers remain responsible for decision-making and remediation approvals.

14:44 - Amazon ECS Managed Instances Support for EC2 Instant Store and Amazon ECS Managed Daemons for Managed Instances

Amazon ECS Managed Instances now supports EC2 instant store volumes, which are high-performance local storage options connected directly to physical instances. Instant store provides lower latency than EBS volumes since it's attached directly to the hardware rather than accessed over a network. This feature is primarily useful for highly latency-sensitive containerized workloads that require extremely fast disk access. While the number of use cases for this is relatively niche, it enables scenarios where applications need local, high-speed temporary storage without the network latency overhead of EBS volumes. This represents one of several enhancements to ECS Managed Instances announced recently.

ECS Managed Instances now supports managed daemons, a capability analogous to Kubernetes DaemonSets. This feature ensures that exactly one instance of a specified container runs on every node in an ECS cluster. This is particularly useful for system-level services that need to be present on all instances—such as monitoring agents (New Relic, Datadog), log collectors, or security scanning tools. Previously, this functionality was available for traditional self-managed EC2 compute but was missing from managed instances. The feature automatically scales with cluster size: adding a new instance to the cluster automatically deploys the daemon, and removing an instance removes it accordingly. This brings ECS Managed Instances to feature parity with self-managed EC2 deployments for daemon-like workloads.

20:10 - Building High-Performance Apps with AWS Lambda Managed Instances

AWS has published guidance on using Lambda managed instances for high-performance computing scenarios. Lambda managed instances allow developers to run Lambda functions on dedicated EC2 instances that AWS manages, providing higher resource availability than traditional Lambda. This hybrid approach enables use cases requiring consistent high CPU capacity, GPU access, or sustained high concurrency that traditional Lambda (which has memory/CPU scaling limits) cannot efficiently support. However, this represents a shift from Lambda's original value proposition of serverless simplicity. The article frames this as a solution for specialized scenarios where traditional Lambda's constraints become limiting, though experts note this use case may better serve customers who already understand their infrastructure needs and that the distinction between Lambda managed instances and containerized solutions like Fargate becomes increasingly blurred.

25:00 - Migrating to Amazon ElastiCache for Valkey from Redis

This AWS database blog article provides best practices for migrating from Amazon ElastiCache for Redis to ElastiCache for Valkey. Valkey is Amazon's open-source Redis fork that aims to provide API compatibility with Redis while offering approximately 30% cost savings. The article presents a real-world case study of a global travel technology company that successfully migrated, achieving significant cost reduction (approximately $200/day savings) with minimal downtime and only brief periods of slightly elevated latency. The migration can be performed using in-place upgrades or snapshot-based migration approaches. AWS provides console-based one-click migration tools, though for production workloads, testing thoroughly in staging environments first is recommended. The key appeal is that Valkey maintains feature parity with open-source Redis while reducing costs, making it an attractive option for organizations with substantial caching infrastructure investments.

31:25 - European Commission Data Breach via Supply Chain Attack

A data breach affected the European Commission's AWS environment, resulting in the theft of approximately 350 gigabytes of data from multiple databases. The root cause was not an AWS vulnerability but rather a compromise of the Commission's API keys through a supply chain attack. Specifically, hackers gained access to sensitive credentials through a GitHub Actions workflow vulnerability in Aqua Security's Trivy vulnerability scanner. This compromise led to malicious code being distributed, which allowed attackers to extract the Commission's AWS API keys. This incident exemplifies the broader cybersecurity trend of supply chain attacks, where adversaries find it easier to compromise upstream dependencies than to directly breach well-hardened targets. The incident underscores that cloud security relies heavily on customer credential management and that zero-day vulnerabilities in widely-used tools can have cascading effects across organizations using those tools.

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In Season 5, Episode 12, Karl and Jon are joined by Farah Abdirahman, an AWS Community Builder, to discuss Amazon S3’s new account regional namespaces for general purpose buckets, deploying AWS applications and accessing AWS accounts across multiple regions with IAM Identity Center, AWS and NVIDIA deepening their strategic collaboration to accelerate AI, celebrating 20 years of Amazon S3, and Microsoft reportedly considering legal action over the recent $50 billion Amazon-OpenAI cloud deal. Then, just when things couldn’t get any more unexpected, the conversation took a turn toward the smell of Jon’s feet — and let’s just say the guys really put their foot in it.

07:28 - Amazon S3 Account Regional Namespaces

This feature allows S3 bucket names to be unique within an account and region, rather than globally. This change simplifies bucket naming conventions and addresses long-standing challenges with global uniqueness requirements. The impact is significant for daily operations and resource management in S3.

13:59 - AWS IAM Identity Center Multi-Region Deployment

AWS now offers multi-regional replication for IAM Identity Center, enabling users to access applications and accounts across multiple regions. This feature enhances resilience and reduces the need for break-glass setups. It also supports integration with external identity providers like Okta and Microsoft Entra ID.

21:05 - AWS-Nvidia AI Collaboration

AWS plans to deploy at least a million Nvidia chips in their regions this year to accelerate AI deployment. This partnership raises questions about AWS's own chip development efforts and highlights the increasing demand for AI-capable hardware. The collaboration also includes expanded support for Nvidia Nemo models on Amazon Bedrock.

26:25 - Amazon S3 20th Anniversary

S3 celebrated its 20th anniversary, highlighting impressive statistics such as 500+ trillion objects stored, 11 nines of durability, and 200+ million requests per second. The service continues to evolve and remains a cornerstone of AWS's offerings, with new features and improvements still being developed.

37:04 - Microsoft-Amazon-OpenAI Legal Dispute

Microsoft is considering legal action over the recent $50 billion deal between Amazon and OpenAI. The dispute centers on whether OpenAI can offer certain services without violating its previous agreement with Microsoft. This situation highlights the intense competition and large sums of money involved in the AI industry.

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In Season 5, Episode 11, Karl and Jon are joined by Dmytro Sirant, AWS Community Builder and User Group Leader from Australia, to discuss the expansion of AWS Database Savings Plans, AWS European Sovereign Cloud compliance milestones, managing Amazon Machine Image lifecycles with AMI lineage, SpaceX’s plan for a million-satellite data center and Amazon’s opposition, and AI coding assistants and their potential impact on Amazon outages, with a few unexpected tangents along the way, including turtles and frozen corpses.

09:31 - AWS Database Savings Plans expansion

AWS has added Amazon OpenSearch Service and Amazon Neptune Analytics to the Database Savings Plans. This expansion provides more flexibility for clients who haven't decided which database best fits their requirements. The plans currently offer only one-year, no-upfront options, which is more limited compared to Reserved Instances.

16:48 - AWS European Sovereign Cloud compliance milestones

The European Sovereign Cloud has achieved its first compliance milestones, including SOC 2 and C5 reports, plus seven ISO certifications. These certifications are crucial for organizations requiring compliance and demonstrate that the European Sovereign Cloud is operating independently from AWS proper.

27:50 - Managing AMI lifecycles using AMI lineage

AWS introduced AMI lineage, a tool for managing the lifecycle of Amazon Machine Images. This solution helps track the chain of custody for AMIs, which is particularly useful in large enterprises with multiple teams working on image creation. However, it requires manual deployment and may be unnecessarily complex for many users.

32:35 - SpaceX's million-satellite data center plan and Amazon's opposition

SpaceX has filed plans with the FCC for a million-satellite data center in low Earth orbit. Amazon has objected to this plan, claiming it lacks substance and is purely aspirational. The discussion touched on potential issues such as cooling systems for satellites and the impact on astronomy.

40:08 - AI coding assistants and Amazon's outages

Recent outages on Amazon.com have led to speculation about the rapid adoption of AI coding assistants potentially causing issues. The discussion focused on the challenges of integrating AI-generated code into existing development processes and the need for improved review mechanisms to handle the increased output from AI assistants.

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In Season 5, Episode 10, Karl and Jon discuss several developments in the AWS and cloud ecosystem, including the new output formats in AWS CLI v2 and how they improve usability and automation. They also explore the strategic partnership between OpenAI and Amazon and what it could mean for AI infrastructure and the broader cloud landscape. The conversation dives into architectural design as well, looking at rewriting Step Functions as Durable Functions in a Lambda-heavy approach, and how teams can use the AWS Well-Architected Framework to uncover hidden costs in their environments. They also touch on reports of AWS data centers in the UAE being targeted by Iranian drones, discussing the implications for cloud resilience and global infrastructure. And in a lighter moment, the guys compare notes on who drove the furthest for their hobbies last weekend.

02:30 - New output formats in AWS CLI v2

AWS has introduced new output formats in CLI v2, including an enhanced format for better error messaging and debugging. The update allows for suppression of CLI output, which is useful for handling sensitive information. These changes aim to improve user experience and security when working with the AWS CLI.

08:48 - Strategic partnership between OpenAI and Amazon

OpenAI and Amazon announced a strategic partnership where OpenAI will consume 2 gigawatts of Trainium capacity through AWS infrastructure. This deal involves significant investment from Amazon and allows for distribution of OpenAI's models via AWS Bedrock. The partnership raises questions about the economics and future of AI adoption.

18:14 - Rewriting Step Functions as Durable Functions (Lambda Heavy)

Danielle Heberling wrote an article about rewriting her Step Function as a Durable Function (Lambda Heavy). The post compares the two approaches, highlighting the benefits of Durable Functions for developers who prefer standard programming languages and fine-grained control over execution state in code.

28:53 - Using the AWS Well-Architected Framework to uncover hidden costs

The article discusses how the AWS Well-Architected Framework can be used to uncover hidden costs in cloud architectures. It emphasizes that hidden costs are not just about direct expenses but also include potential costs related to security breaches, downtime, and regulatory compliance.

34:58 - AWS data centers in UAE targeted by Iranian drones

AWS data centers in the UAE were targeted by Iranian drones, causing power outages and downtime for some applications. This event marks the first time data centers have been specifically targeted in a conflict, highlighting the need for multi-region resilience and raising questions about the future security measures needed for data centers in conflict zones.

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In Season 5, Episode 9, Karl and Jon are joined by Jenn Bergstrom, VP of Cloud and Data Solutions at Parsons, AWS Community Builder, and AWS Ambassador. They discuss AWS Landing Zone Accelerator and custom CI/CD pipelines, AWS Security Agent’s new support for penetration tests on shared VPCs, A recent AI-augmented campaign that targeted over 640 Fortinet firewalls, Resilience testing on Amazon ElastiCache with AWS Fault Injection Service, AWS IAM Policy Autopilot now available as a Kiro Power, Controversy over whether AI (Kiro) or human error caused a recent AWS outage, and the conversation moved on to whether it’s more important to protect the feelings of human team members or AI agents!

04:48 - AWS Landing Zone Accelerator and custom CI/CD pipelines

The hosts and guest discussed the complexity of the new feature, comparing it to existing solutions like AWS Control Tower for Terraform. They questioned the necessity of the additional steps involved and wondered about its potential adoption rate.

13:15 - AWS Security Agent's support for penetration tests on shared VPCs

The speakers highlighted the importance of this feature for organizations with multiple accounts and shared VPCs. They discussed how it could complement traditional penetration testing services by allowing more frequent and cost-effective internal testing.

19:16 - AI-augmented campaign targeting Fortigate firewalls

The discussion centered on the use of AI tools by malicious actors to create more sophisticated attacks. The speakers emphasized the importance of basic security hygiene, such as changing default credentials and keeping management interfaces off the internet.

27:24 - Resilience testing on Amazon ElastiCache with AWS Fault Injection Service

A quick walkthrough for chaos-testing Amazon ElastiCache resilience with AWS Fault Injection Service, simulating an Availability Zone interruption/failover and showing how to run the experiment, capture logs, and validate your app’s reconnect/retry and fallback behavior.

36:18 - AWS IAM Policy Autopilot as a Kiro Power

The hosts and guest talked about the benefits of integrating IAM Policy Autopilot into Kiro, making it easier for developers to create secure IAM policies. They discussed the concept of Kiro Powers and how they simplify access to various AWS tools and services.

41:17 - Controversy over AI vs. human error in AWS outage

The speakers discussed the recent controversy surrounding whether an AWS outage was caused by Kiro (AI) or human error. They debated AWS's decision to blame human error rather than their AI tool, considering the implications for trust in both AI systems and human engineers.

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In Season 5, Episode 8, Karl and Jon are joined by Jack McGuire*, an AWS Community Builder and software engineer at Green Man Gaming. They discuss how Amazon RDS now supports backup configuration when restoring snapshots, default encryption at rest for new Amazon Aurora clusters, AWS’s plans for space-based data centers and satellite constellations, Amazon’s Leo (formerly Project Kuiper) satellite internet service, and Amazon’s $200 billion Capex plan for AI data center buildouts, before the conversation once again turns to plumbing hacks.

04:27 - Amazon RDS backup configuration

This minor feature update allows users to change certain backup parameters when restoring RDS and Aurora snapshots, rather than having to modify them after restoration. While a small quality-of-life improvement, it's mainly beneficial for those managing instances through the console.

08:19 - Default encryption for Amazon Aurora

Amazon Aurora clusters now have encryption enabled by default, following the trend of other AWS services. This change simplifies security best practices and eliminates the need for manual encryption setup, particularly beneficial for new deployments.

14:10 - AWS space-based data centers

StarCloud is planning to launch satellites with AWS Outposts hardware, aiming to enable high-performance computing in space. The company intends to deploy up to 88,000 satellites, raising questions about the practicality and purpose of such a massive space-based infrastructure.

23:40 - Amazon Leo satellite internet

Amazon's low Earth orbit satellite internet service (formerly Project Kuiper) hints at opening its technology to third-party antennas. This approach differs from competitors like Starlink, potentially allowing for a more open ecosystem and wider adoption, especially in developing countries or remote areas.

34:51 - Amazon's $200 billion Capex plan

Amazon announced a significant investment in AI data center buildouts. While the scale of investment raised concerns, industry analyst Corey Quinn suggests that Amazon can likely handle potential market fluctuations better than smaller competitors due to its size and resources.

*More about our guest Jack McGuire:

https://linkedin.com/in/jackmcguire1994https://builder.aws.com/community/@jackmcguirehttps://jackmcguire1.github.io/https://github.com/jackmcguire1https://dev.to/jackmcguire1https://devpost.com/jackmcguire1 Twitch Extension - Stat-Milestoneshttps://stat-milestones.dev/https://dashboard.twitch.tv/extensions/e93cf8730nd11z7gepkly2gry5kv8k

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In Season 5, Episode 7, Karl and Jon are joined by - Kai (Huynh Le Nhat Nghia), AWS Community Builder from Vietnam. They discuss cross-account stream processing with AWS Lambda and DynamoDB - choosing between Amazon ECS Blue/Green native or AWS CodeDeploy for deployments - how AWS Support helped refund unexpected QuickSight charges - Amazon's $200 billion investment in AI data center capacity - growth of sovereign cloud spending in Europe - and once again the guys went off on a tangent about Jon's feet...

04:06 - Cross-account stream processing with AWS Lambda and DynamoDB

This article discusses a new feature allowing simplified cross-account stream processing. It highlights use cases such as centralized data processing, shared services, and multi-tenant architectures. The feature provides improved security by maintaining data ownership in one place while allowing controlled access from other accounts.

10:13 - Choosing between Amazon ECS Blue/Green native or AWS CodeDeploy

The article compares ECS native blue/green deployments with using AWS CodeDeploy. While ECS native offers simpler deployments, CodeDeploy provides more advanced features like canary deployments, bake periods, and lifecycle hooks. The choice depends on the complexity of deployment requirements.

19:44 - AWS Support refunding QuickSight charges

A user shared their experience of unexpected QuickSight charges after a promotional period ended. AWS Support helped refund the charges. The article emphasizes the importance of setting budget alerts and understanding service pricing, especially after promotional periods.

27:00 - Amazon's $200 billion AI data center investment

Amazon announced a $200 billion investment in data center capacity for AI, with plans to double capacity by 2027. The podcast discussion touched on whether this massive investment is part of an AI bubble and how it might be monetized in the future.

34:16 - Growth of sovereign cloud spending in Europe

The article discusses the expected tripling of sovereign cloud spending in Europe, driven by concerns over data sovereignty and the US Cloud Act. The podcast touched on the challenges of truly sovereign clouds when subsidiaries are still owned by US companies.

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In Season 5, Episode 6, Karl and Jon are joined by Danielle Heberling, an AWS Hero, to dig into AWS Serverless updates from Q4 2025, including Amazon DynamoDB Global Tables now supporting cross-account replication, a new feature for displaying related resources for EC2 and VPC security groups, and IAM Identity Center now supporting multi-region replication. They also explore the feasibility of orbital data centers—before the conversation takes a fun turn as the guys debate whether data centers in space would technically be “in the cloud” or above it.

06:14 - AWS Serverless updates from Q4 2023

This article summarized various serverless updates from AWS in Q4 2023, including Lambda durable functions, Lambda managed instances, provision mode for SQS, ECS express mode, and other improvements. The speakers discussed the benefits of these updates, particularly highlighting durable functions as a significant quality of life improvement for developers.

14:53 - Amazon DynamoDB Global Tables cross-account replication

AWS announced support for replicating DynamoDB Global Tables across different AWS accounts. The speakers discussed potential use cases, such as disaster recovery and data lake setups, but also questioned the necessity of this feature given existing workarounds.

21:31 - EC2 and VPC security group related resources display

A new feature was introduced allowing users to view related resources for EC2 and VPC security groups in the AWS console. The speakers agreed this would be beneficial for operators, making it easier to understand and manage security group configurations across various services.

25:03 - IAM Identity Center multi-region replication

AWS announced support for multi-region replication of IAM Identity Center configurations. The speakers discussed the potential benefits for disaster recovery and compliance scenarios, as well as how it might simplify break-glass access procedures.

33:04 - Orbital data centers

The podcast concluded with a discussion on the feasibility of orbital data centers, prompted by an article where AWS's CEO called them "pretty far from reality." The speakers debated the technical challenges, costs, and potential benefits of space-based data centers, ultimately agreeing that while interesting, such technology is likely far off in the future.

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In Season 5, Episode 5, Karl and Jon are joined by Brian Tarbox, an AWS Hero. Together they discuss Amazon's recent job cuts and their impact on AWS community programs, Amazon Route 53 adding support for new top-level domains, increased payload size for serverless services, Amazon Bedrock's extended prompt caching duration, and commentary on AWS's future and potential challenges. Karl & Jon had yet another swag clash!

06:22 - Amazon Confirms 16,000 Job Cuts

Amazon announced 16,000 job cuts, affecting various departments including AWS community programs. The cuts impacted senior roles and partner sales organizations, raising concerns about the future of community-building efforts and customer support.

14:36 - Amazon Route 53 Adds Support for New Top-Level Domains

Route 53 now supports new top-level domains like .AI, .bot, and .moi. The speakers discussed that this change is likely due to the registrar behind Route 53 adding support, rather than AWS making significant updates to their service.

18:30 - Serverless Services Support Larger Payloads

AWS increased the maximum payload size for serverless services like Lambda, SQS, and EventBridge from 256KB to 1MB. While this change can simplify some workflows, there were concerns about potential misuse and inefficiency in serverless architectures.

24:11 - Amazon Bedrock Extends Prompt Caching Duration

Amazon Bedrock now supports 1-hour duration for prompt caching, up from the previous 5-minute limit. This change can benefit users with less frequent interactions or contexts requiring more time between steps, though it comes with different pricing.

28:02 - Commentary on AWS's Future (The Register article)

The podcast discussed an article by Corey Quinn suggesting AWS might become less relevant as developers increasingly use tools that abstract away infrastructure decisions. The speakers debated the long-term implications of AI-assisted coding and its impact on cloud providers and developers.

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In Season 5, Episode 4, Karl and Jon are joined by Ran Isenberg*, an AWS Serverless Hero. Together they discuss AWS Lambda cross-account access for DynamoDB Streams, Lambda durable functions, and a CI/CD security risk identified in AWS CodeBuild. They also touch on the potential AI bubble (including comments from Amazon’s CEO), upcoming Amazon job cuts, and—somehow—Jon manages to steer the conversation onto chocolate-covered Custard Creams.

03:51 - AWS Lambda cross-account access for DynamoDB streams

This feature allows Lambda functions in one AWS account to access DynamoDB streams in another account. The speakers discussed potential use cases but generally viewed it as a niche feature with limited applications. Concerns were raised about potential security risks and the breaking of contracts between services.

11:38 - AWS Lambda durable functions

This new feature allows Lambda functions to run for longer than the previous 15-minute limit. The speakers discussed how it simplifies certain workflows that previously required step functions or other workarounds. They noted that while useful, it may not be necessary to migrate existing solutions to this new feature.

22:42 - CICD security risk in AWS CodeBuild

A security flaw was discovered in AWS CodeBuild that could potentially allow attackers to gain access to repositories and pipelines. The speakers discussed the complexity of the exploit and emphasized the importance of monitoring CICD processes and supply chain security.

30:40 - Potential AI bubble

The speakers discussed Amazon CEO Andy Jassy's comments on the possibility of an AI bubble. They agreed that there are signs of a bubble, including circular investments and unsustainable business models. Concerns were raised about the long-term profitability of AI companies and the impact on other industries, such as gaming.

39:36 - Upcoming Amazon job cuts

The podcast discussed the impending job cuts at Amazon, affecting various departments including HR, sales, and Prime Video. The speakers expressed concern for affected employees and criticized the way the news was communicated, creating uncertainty for workers.

*More about our guest - ranthebuilder.cloud

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In Season 5, Episode 3, Karl and Jon are joined by Matt Martz, Principal Software Architect at Definitive and an AWS Community Builder. They discuss AWS CloudWatch’s evolution into a unified observability platform with Apache Iceberg support; AWS Backup’s 2023 year in review and new features; five ways to use Kiro and Amazon Q to optimize infrastructure; the opening of the AWS European Sovereign Cloud; and Amazon’s plans for a data center site at a former power plant in the UK. And somehow, Karl managed to go off on a tangent about Lily Allen song lyrics…

03:54 - AWS CloudWatch Evolution

CloudWatch has improved significantly over the years, becoming more competitive with third-party tools like Datadog and Splunk. The new Apache Iceberg support enhances its capabilities for log analysis and multi-account aggregation. While this may increase costs, it provides better insights into traffic and data usage.

11:29 - AWS Backup 2023 Review

AWS Backup added support for new services like Redshift Serverless, Aurora PostgreSQL, and EKS. Key features discussed include automated restore testing, item-level search and recovery, and logically air-gapped vaults. The panel highlighted the importance of testing backups and the benefits of infrastructure as code for backup strategies.

20:25 - Kiro and Amazon Q for Infrastructure Optimization

The article discusses five ways to use Kiro and Amazon Q for infrastructure optimization, including cost optimization, automated recommendations, and integrating optimization into development workflows. The panel discussed the benefits of using AI tools for infrastructure management and coding assistance.

33:00 - AWS European Sovereign Cloud

AWS has opened its European Sovereign Cloud, designed to meet strict data sovereignty requirements for European businesses and government organizations. The cloud is physically and logically separated from the main AWS infrastructure, with European personnel and data centers. The panel discussed the implications and potential use cases for this specialized cloud offering.

40:21 - Amazon's UK Data Center Plans

Amazon is planning to build a data center at the site of a former coal-fired power station in Didcot, UK. This represents a significant investment in UK data center infrastructure and demonstrates Amazon's strategy of repurposing brownfield sites for data center development. The panel discussed the implications of this development and the broader context of data center expansion in the UK.

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In Season 5, Episode 2, Karl and Jon are joined by Allen Helton, an AWS Hero and ecosystem engineer at Momento. They discuss AWS raising GPU prices by 15% for specific instance types, accelerating cloud modernization with AWS MCPs and Quiro, AWS getting approval for three new data centers in Dublin, Ireland, Allen Helton’s blog post on optimizing image serving from S3, and recent layoffs at Amazon Web Services. And then the guys start debating whether it’s “champing at the bit” or “chomping at the bit,” completely derailing their discussion of AWS news.

04:04 - AWS raising GPU prices

This is the first specific price rise from AWS in two decades, affecting certain GPU instance types. While it only impacts a small subset of users, it sets a precedent that could make future price increases easier. The move goes against AWS's typical strategy of only lowering prices over time.

11:28 - Accelerating cloud modernization with AWS MCPs and Quiro

The article discusses how AI-powered tools like Quiro and AWS MCPs can help streamline cloud modernization processes. These tools can analyze existing systems, plan modernization efforts, and even assist in implementation, potentially reducing the time and effort required for such projects.

21:30 - AWS new data centers in Dublin

AWS received approval for three new data centers in Dublin, Ireland. This expansion will increase capacity in the region, potentially leading to better service availability and possibly lower prices. The approval comes with requirements for power agreements with local energy providers.

27:48 - Allen Helton's blog post on S3 image optimization

Allen shared his experience optimizing image serving from S3 for his blog. He implemented various techniques to improve Core Web Vitals scores, resulting in better performance and SEO rankings. The post highlights the importance of consistency in content creation and how it can lead to significant growth in readership.

37:30 - AWS layoffs

Amazon has laid off several hundred employees from its AWS division as part of a broader effort to streamline operations. While the numbers are relatively small compared to AWS's total workforce, it's part of a trend of tech companies adjusting their workforce in 2024. The layoffs primarily affected tangential divisions within AWS.

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In Season 5, Episode 1, Karl and Jon are joined by Peter Sankauscas, an AWS Hero and User Group Leader. They discuss whether AI is replacing younger employees and what that could mean for businesses, OpenAI’s potential investment from Amazon, and AWS leadership changes — including Peter DeSantis’s new role. They also cover AWS flat-rate pricing plans for CloudFront and WAF, the 2026 Answers for AWS survey, and even ask whether AI data centres could be affecting the world’s weather.

04:47 - AI replacing young employees

AWS CEO Matt Garman stated that replacing young employees with AI is a bad idea for businesses. The discussion highlighted the importance of junior employees for company growth, innovation, and diversity of thought. The speakers also touched on how AI is changing customer service roles.

15:04 - OpenAI's potential investment from Amazon

The article discussed rumors of Amazon potentially investing $10 billion in OpenAI. The speakers debated the implications of this investment, including its impact on the AI industry and potential financial risks. They also discussed OpenAI's relationships with other tech giants like Microsoft.

19:38 - AWS leadership changes

Peter DeSantis was appointed to lead a new organization focusing on AI models, the Amazon Nova portfolio, and AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). The speakers discussed the significance of this role and its potential impact on AWS's AI strategy.

26:37 - AWS flat rate pricing plans

AWS announced new flat rate pricing plans for CloudFront and WAF, potentially competing with services like Cloudflare. The speakers discussed the benefits of these plans and how they might affect customer choices and costs.

35:02 - Answers for AWS survey

Peter Sankauscas explained the annual community-run survey he conducts to understand trends in AWS service usage. He discussed new categories added for 2026, such as AI SDLC, and highlighted some interesting findings from the previous year's survey, including the adoption of Graviton and the popularity of DynamoDB.

LInk to this years survey https://answersforaws.com/survey/

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In Season 4, Episode 46, Karl and Jon are joined by Matheus Guimaraes, AWS Lead Developer Advocate. Together, they cover the AWS CodeCommit resurrection and roadmap, the AWS Builder Center wishlist feature, ECS Express for simplified container deployment, an ECR archiving tier for cost optimization, blue-green deployments in Aurora Global, and accelerated recovery in Route 53 to speed up DNS updates during outages. They also discuss a recent AWS outage and its impact, then wrap up by joking about launching a “Shot Clock Karaoke” segment in future episodes where they’d have to sing AWS parody songs against the clock.

09:51 - CodeCommit resurrection

AWS brought back CodeCommit due to customer feedback and demand. It's now back in general availability with a public roadmap, including features like Git LFS support and expanded regional availability. The decision to resurrect the service was based on customer needs and integrations.

19:55 - AWS Billing Transfer

AWS Billing Transfer for centrally managing AWS billing and costs across multiple organizations

24:32 - ECS Express

ECS Express is a new mode that simplifies container deployment on Amazon ECS. It creates clusters with best-practice defaults, allowing teams to focus on container deployment without extensive setup. It's suitable for production use and can be customized later.

30:55 - ECR archiving tier

Amazon ECR now offers an archiving tier for container images, addressing compliance needs and cost optimization. Images can be automatically moved to the archive based on usage patterns and easily restored when needed.

35:06 - Blue-green deployments in Aurora Global

Aurora Global now supports blue-green deployments across up to 10 regions, simplifying database updates and migrations with minimal downtime. This feature extends to schema changes, potentially solving complex database DevOps challenges.

39:26 - Accelerated recovery in Route 53

In response to recent outages, AWS introduced an accelerated recovery feature for Route 53. This allows customers to continue making DNS updates with a 60-minute SLA even if a primary region (like North Virginia) is down.

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In Season 4, Episode 45, Karl and Jon are joined by AWS Hero Johannes Koch for a recap of the big AWS re:Invent 2023 announcements, including Lambda Managed Instances, Database Savings Plans, new EKS capabilities for workload orchestration and cloud resource management, and AWS AI Frontier Agents (Kiro, Security, DevOps) — and despite the looming threat of AI agents coming for their jobs, the guys decide to keep calm and carry on coding!

08:40 - Lambda Managed Instances

This new feature allows users to run Lambda functions on EC2 instances they manage. It aims to provide more control over the underlying infrastructure while maintaining Lambda's serverless model. There was debate about whether it truly eliminates cold starts and its potential use cases.

16:25 - Database Savings Plans

AWS introduced savings plans for database services like RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB, and others. This allows customers to commit to usage for a 1-year term in exchange for discounted rates. While generally seen as positive, there were discussions about its limitations and potential impact on database choices.

23:56 - New EKS Capabilities

Amazon announced new features for EKS, including managed Argo CD and capabilities for deploying AWS infrastructure from Kubernetes. This was seen as part of AWS's strategy to expand EKS's control plane capabilities and take on more management responsibilities for customers.

33:28 - AWS AI Frontier Agents

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-devops-agent-helps-you-accelerate-incident-response-and-improve-system-reliability-preview/

Three new AI agents were introduced - for Kiro (code development), Security, and DevOps. These agents aim to automate various tasks and provide intelligent assistance in their respective domains. The speakers discussed the potential benefits and concerns around these new AI tools.

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In Season 4, Episode 44, Karl and Jon are joined by Tech Lead for the Developer Experience team at AWS, Brian Beach. They discuss Introduction to Kiro, AWS's new AI coding assistant, Spec-driven development and its benefits, property-based testing in Kiro, MCP support and agent hooks in Kiro, upcoming AWS re:Invent conference and developer tools track, Kiro-related events and challenges at re:Invent and the guys spent a lot of time discussing which sport has the best ball for reliving plantar fasciitis symptoms...

00:00 - Intros

09:51 - Kiro General Availability

Kiro, AWS's AI coding assistant, has recently gone into general availability. It offers a spec-driven development approach, allowing developers to create requirements, technical designs, and task lists before generating code. This process helps reduce technical debt and improves code quality. Kiro also introduces property-based testing, which automates the testing process and helps ensure code correctness.

Specification-driven development & Property Based Development

46:34 - Agent Hooks

48:20 - Kiro at re:Invent 2025

The upcoming AWS re:Invent conference will feature about 75 sessions in the developer tools track. There will be various Kiro-related events, including a "House of Kiro" experience, kiosks in the AWS village, and a builder's loft at Mandalay Bay. A Kiro-themed hackathon with significant prizes will also take place during the conference.

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In Season 4, Episode 43, Karl and Jon are joined by Senior Technical Account Manager at AWS, Loïc Fournier, to discuss optimizing Amazon RDS and Amazon Aurora database costs and performance with AWS Compute Optimizer, the introduction of AWS pricing capabilities in Amazon Q Developer, serverless databases and their use cases, a comparison of different storage types for databases (GP2, GP3, IO1, IO2), and AWS Q’s capabilities in providing cost insights and pricing information—before joking about using a complicated CAPTCHA to stall users for 15 seconds while their serverless database spun up.

02:39 - Optimizing Amazon RDS and Amazon Aurora database costs and performance with AWS Compute Optimizer

This article discusses how AWS Compute Optimizer now provides recommendations for optimizing RDS and Aurora databases. The tool uses machine learning to analyze metrics and provide suggestions for instance types, including Graviton options. It categorizes databases as optimized, not optimized, or idle. The feature is currently available for MySQL and PostgreSQL engines. The tool focuses on performance optimization first, with cost savings as a secondary benefit.

31:47 -Introducing AWS pricing capabilities in Amazon Q developer

This article introduces new pricing capabilities in Amazon Q, allowing users to ask natural language questions about AWS pricing and receive instant cost insights. Users can inquire about cost comparisons between services, optimal regions for deployments based on pricing, and get accurate, up-to-date pricing information directly from AWS APIs. This feature aims to simplify the process of estimating costs for various AWS architectures and workloads, making it easier for architects and developers to provide quick pricing estimates to businesses.

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In Season 4, Episode 42, Karl and Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder Sujal Shaw to discuss a range of new AWS developments. Topics include the New AWS Region Planner for easier regional planning and global deployments, EC2 Auto Scaling warm pool support for mixed instance policies, the AWS European Sovereign Cloud white paper, and the new underwater AWS Fastnet cable featuring robust armoring. They also explore the challenges younger developers face when deploying to AWS. The team was delighted to make it through the episode without any gremlins—despite Karl’s makeshift mobile studio setup in Madrid!

04:12 - AWS Region Planner

AWS introduced a new tool for centralized information on service and feature availability across regions. It helps architects avoid feature parity issues between regions and plan global deployments more efficiently. The tool shows availability status (available, planning, not expanding, or planned) for services and features in different regions.

11:34 - EC2 Auto Scaling Warm Pool Support

AWS announced warm pool support for auto scaling groups with mixed instance policies. This feature combines the benefits of warm pools (faster instance launch) with mixed instances (flexibility in instance types). It allows for both speed and cost savings by keeping a mix of pre-warmed instances ready to launch instantly using the most effective combination of on-demand, spot, or savings plan instances.

16:59 - AWS European Sovereign Cloud

AWS published a white paper detailing the upcoming European Sovereign Cloud. It will be operated by EU residents and citizens, with no critical dependencies on non-EU infrastructure. The cloud aims to address data residency and sovereignty concerns for European organizations, particularly government and regulated industries.

25:30 - AWS Fastnet Underwater Cable

Amazon is equipping a new underwater cable (AWS Fastnet) with robust armoring to prevent cuts. The cable will run from Maryland, US to Ireland, capable of transporting over 320 terabytes per second. The armoring aims to protect against potential threats like fishing anchors or intentional damage, improving durability and reducing maintenance downtime.

32:26 - Challenges of Deploying to AWS

Corey Quinn's article discusses the complexity of deploying to AWS, arguing that younger developers may not tolerate the steep learning curve. The article highlights the numerous steps and services (IAM, VPCs, etc.) required before actual development can begin. It suggests that easier deployment options like Vercel or Heroku, which abstract away complexity, may be more appealing to new developers.

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In Season 4, Episode 41, Karl and Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder Fabien Zucchet to discuss AWS Lambda’s increased payload size for asynchronous invocations and what it means for developers building event-driven applications. They cover the new metrics dashboard for AWS Step Functions, best practices for handling sensitive log data in Amazon CloudWatch, and insights into a major AWS service outage and its widespread impact. The episode wraps up with a look at Amazon’s stock jump despite recent challenges, as the trio reflect on the resilience of cloud providers in a constantly evolving market. And then the guys joked about how their video call issues were secretly caused by discussing cloud outages, as if the streaming platform was taking revenge.

03:57 - AWS Lambda payload size increase

AWS Lambda increased its maximum payload size from 256KB to 1MB for asynchronous invocations. The speakers discussed potential use cases and pricing implications, noting that while it solves a problem, it may not be widely necessary and could lead to increased costs for some users.

13:21 - AWS Step Functions metrics dashboard

AWS announced a new metrics dashboard for Step Functions. The speakers viewed this as a positive development, improving observability and providing better insights for users, especially those operating at scale.

17:19 - Handling sensitive log data in Amazon Cloudwatch

The article discussed methods for masking sensitive information in Cloudwatch logs. The speakers highlighted the importance of this feature for compliance with regulations like GDPR and protecting personally identifiable information (PII).

23:56 - AWS service outage

A major AWS outage occurred due to a DNS race condition, affecting multiple services. The speakers discussed the complexity of operating at AWS's scale and the cascading effects of the outage on various dependent services.

33:29 - Amazon's stock performance

Despite recent challenges including the service outage and layoffs, Amazon's stock jumped due to accelerated AWS cloud growth. The speakers discussed how layoffs can paradoxically lead to stock increases and the continued strong performance of AWS as a key driver of Amazon's success.

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In Season 4, Episode 40, Karl and Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder Jason Wood to discuss the recent AWS outage in the US-East-1 region and its impact across multiple services. They cover simplified model access in Amazon Bedrock, the introduction of the Claude 4.5 Haiku model, the launch of Amazon EC2 Capacity Manager, new automated CloudWatch dashboards for analyzing log usage, and the latest AWS service availability updates, including those entering maintenance or retirement. Eventually, the conversation takes a lighter turn as the guys debate which countries Jon must speak in to officially graduate from a national to international conference speaker.

09:08 - Simplified model access in Amazon Bedrock

AWS has simplified access to non-AWS models in Bedrock, removing the need for manual activation in most cases. This change streamlines the process of using AI models, though some models like Anthropic's still require a first-time usage form.

14:49 - Claude 4.5 Haiku model in Amazon Bedrock

Anthropic has released Claude 4.5 Haiku, a more cost-effective model with performance comparable to the older Sonnet version. The speakers discussed the naming conventions and the importance of upgrading from older models before they reach end-of-life.

18:51 - Amazon EC2 Capacity Manager

This new feature provides a single interface for monitoring, analyzing, and managing EC2 capacity usage. It combines data from various existing tools, offering a comprehensive view of capacity trends, cost optimization opportunities, and usage metrics.

24:15 - Enhanced automatic dashboard for CloudWatch logs

AWS introduced an enhanced automatic dashboard for analyzing CloudWatch log usage. This feature provides detailed insights into log ingestion, API calls, and cost-related metrics, making it easier to optimize log management and associated costs.

30:32 - AWS service availability updates

AWS announced changes to the availability status of several services. 19 services are moving to maintenance mode, and 4 are entering sunset phase. The speakers discussed the implications of these changes and potential alternatives for affected services.

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In Season 4, Episode 38, Karl and Jon welcome AWS Community Builder Luis Valdivia. They discuss the new ECS managed instances for containerized applications on AWS, the cost-effectiveness of serverless architecture at scale, and the latest Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 model now available in Amazon Bedrock. They also cover the general availability of the AWS Knowledge MCP server and a recent social engineering attack on a software platform that exploited AWS domain registration. The episode wraps up with a lighthearted moment as the hosts spend ten minutes trying to determine whether Jon’s background had actually changed or not.

06:05 - ECS managed instances for containerized applications

AWS introduced a new way to run containers called ECS managed instances. This option sits between unmanaged EC2 instances and Fargate, offering more control than Fargate but less management overhead than unmanaged EC2. The pricing model is based on instance type, with a management fee added. This new option provides more flexibility but also adds complexity to the decision-making process for container deployment.

16:17 - Serverless cost-effectiveness at scale

An article by AWS hero Evandro Pires argues that serverless is not inherently expensive at scale, but rather becomes costly when implemented incorrectly. The discussion highlights that serverless encompasses more than just Lambda functions and that proper architecture is crucial for cost-effective serverless deployments. The speakers agree that bad architecture, rather than the serverless approach itself, is often the root cause of high costs.

23:44 - Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 model in Amazon Bedrock

AWS announced the availability of Anthropic's latest AI model, Claude Sonnet 4.5, in Amazon Bedrock. This model is described as Anthropic's most intelligent, particularly for coding and complex agents. The speakers discuss the benefits of having this model integrated into AWS's ecosystem, including enhanced security and data privacy. They also note the incremental improvements over previous versions and its capabilities compared to other models.

30:11 - AWS Knowledge MCP server

AWS released the Knowledge MCP server, which allows large language models (LLMs) to access AWS documentation and knowledge bases. This tool aims to reduce hallucinations and provide more accurate information when using AI for AWS-related tasks. The speakers highlight its potential to improve the reliability of AI-generated code and documentation for AWS services.

36:14 - Social engineering attack on AWS domain registration

A software company called Kodex experienced an outage due to a social engineering attack that targeted their domain registration through AWS. The speakers discuss that while the attack occurred through AWS's systems, it's not entirely fair to blame AWS as it was a human vulnerability rather than a technical exploit. They suggest that AWS and other providers may need to tighten verification policies for domain management, especially for high-profile targets.

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In Season 4, Episode 37, Karl and Jon welcome AWS Community Builder Mahmoud Khatib to the show. Together, they dive into some of the latest AWS announcements, including Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling’s new support for forced cancellation of instance refreshes, Amazon RDS enabling cross-region and cross-account snapshot copy, and the expansion of AWS Organizations service control policies to cover the full IAM language. They also explore how log management can be simplified through Amazon CloudWatch centralization, and reflect on AWS being named a leader in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for AI code assistance. Somewhere along the way, the conversation takes an entertaining detour into the world of tech relics, from floppy disks to Amazon Dash Buttons.

09:19 - EC2 Auto Scaling Forced Cancellation

This new feature allows for immediate cancellation of instance refreshes, which is particularly useful when pushing out bad updates. Previously, users had to wait for in-progress refreshes to finish before canceling, potentially causing more issues. The new feature enables instant cancellation, reducing stress for on-call engineers.

15:52 - RDS Cross-Region and Cross-Account Snapshot Copy

This feature simplifies the process of copying RDS snapshots between regions and accounts. Previously, it required two steps, but now it can be done in one command. This saves time and potentially reduces costs associated with orphaned snapshots.

21:13 - AWS Organizations Service Control Policy

The update allows for full IAM language support in service control policies (SCPs). This enables more granular control and simplifies policy management, potentially replacing some use cases for permissions boundaries. The speakers were particularly excited about the improved wildcard support and the ability to centralize policies.

30:27 - CloudWatch Logs Centralization

This new feature simplifies log management by allowing easier centralization of logs from multiple accounts. It's particularly useful for organizations with multiple single-tenant applications or those needing to collect logs from customer accounts. The process is now simpler, requiring fewer steps and potentially reducing costs.

37:51 - AWS in Gartner Magic Quadrant for AI Code Assistance

AWS was named a leader in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for AI code assistance. The speakers discussed their experiences with AWS's AI coding tools, including Q Developer and Kiro, noting significant improvements in recent versions. They also expressed some skepticism about the exclusion of certain tools from the Magic Quadrant.

You can connect with Mahmoud online:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mahmoud-khatib-45900052/
Medium: https://medium.com/@khatib.edge
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mahmoud-Khatib-2

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In Season 4, Episode 36, Karl and Jon welcome AWS Community Builder Neeraj Sharma to the show. Their conversation covers a wide range of updates and insights, including AWS Organizations’ new Account State Information feature, the migration from Claude 3.5 Sonnet to Claude 4 Sonnet on Amazon Bedrock, and the introduction of Amazon GuardDuty’s new protection plans with extended threat detection capabilities. They also explore the transition from AWS CodeDeploy to Amazon ECS for blue-green deployments, while reflecting on AWS being named a leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for cloud-native application platforms and container management. And, in true podcast style, we also discover a surprising fact: Jon’s forearm happens to be the perfect diameter for fitting a standard extractor fan vent.

09:29 - AWS Organizations' Account State Information

AWS Organizations has introduced new, more granular account states to improve account lifecycle management. This update provides clearer information about account status, including pending activation, active, suspended, pending closure, closed, and post-closure periods. The new states offer better visibility into account status, potentially improving compliance and automation workflows.

16:52 -Migrating from Claude 3.5 Sonnet to Claude 4 Sonnet

Amazon Bedrock is deprecating Claude 3.5 Sonnet and encouraging users to migrate to Claude 4 Sonnet. The migration process involves more than just changing the model flag, requiring code changes and possibly prompt engineering adjustments. The article discusses the challenges of this migration, including potential increases in token usage and changes in output format.

23:52 - Amazon GuardDuty Protection Plans

AWS has introduced new protection plans for GuardDuty, including options for S3, EKS, EC2, RDS, and Lambda. These plans offer extended threat detection capabilities and are designed to improve security monitoring across various AWS services. The article discusses the benefits and potential concerns of these new features, including automatic enablement and cost considerations.

30:47 - Migrating from AWS CodeDeploy to Amazon ECS for Blue-Green Deployments

AWS is recommending users migrate from CodeDeploy to native ECS blue-green deployments for container workloads. This change simplifies the deployment process by eliminating the need for separate appspec files and reducing complexity. The article discusses the benefits of this migration and the continuing relevance of CodeDeploy for other deployment scenarios.

37:33 - AWS in Gartner's Magic Quadrant

AWS has been named a leader in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for cloud-native application platforms and container management. The discussion covers AWS's position relative to other cloud providers like Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, and the implications of these rankings for enterprise decision-making and cloud strategy.

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In Season 4, Episode 35, Karl and Jon dive into AWS Budget Controls with automated actions, explore DMS Data Resync for seamless database migrations, and look at CloudFront’s new support for IPv6 origins. They also compare Fargate and ECS for container orchestration and discuss the shift from the SysOps Admin exam to the new Cloud Ops Engineer certification. And after hearing Jon's DIY plans, thankfully Karl failes to recall his ex tractor fan joke, as it is rather long!

02:13 - AWS Budget Controls

AWS introduced a new solution for automating actions based on budget alerts. This architecture uses various AWS services like Config, EventBridge, DynamoDB, and Step Functions to automatically manage cloud costs. Users can set up actions to inform, stop, or terminate resources based on budget thresholds for specific services like EC2, SageMaker, Aurora, and OpenSearch.

10:01 - AWS DMS Data Resync

AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) now offers a Data Resync feature for certain database engines, excluding MySQL. This feature addresses the challenge of maintaining data consistency during migrations, especially for large databases. It allows for quicker resynchronization of data without the need for a full dump and restore, which can be time-consuming for large datasets.

15:28 - Amazon CloudFront IPv6 Support

Amazon CloudFront now supports IPv6 origins, enabling end-to-end IPv6 delivery. This update offers benefits such as non-NAT operation, lower latency, and higher connection scalability. It's particularly relevant for mobile-first markets where IPv6 adoption is high. The change may also lead to cost savings as IPv6 traffic is generally cheaper than IPv4.

19:35 - Fargate vs ECS

The article discusses the differences between AWS Fargate and Amazon ECS (Elastic Container Service). It clarifies that Fargate is a serverless compute engine for containers, while ECS is a container orchestration service. The comparison aims to address confusion among users about how these services interact and their respective roles in container deployment.

22:51 - AWS SysOps to Cloud Ops Exam Evolution

AWS has renamed and updated the SysOps Administrator Associate exam to the Cloud Ops Engineer Associate exam. The new exam (SOA-C03) maintains similar content to its predecessor but includes some reorganization of topics and the addition of newer AWS services. The article discusses the implications for certification holders and the evolving nature of cloud operations roles.

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In Season 4, Episode 34, Karl and Jon sit down with AWS Community Builder and Software Engineer Iyanuoluwa Ajao for a fast-paced chat on the latest in cloud and beyond. They cover the new AWS Budgets features for cross-account cost visibility, smart ways to optimize Amazon RDS and Aurora costs with Compute Optimizer, and advanced Graviton adoption strategies across regions. The conversation also dives into how AWS scaled to meet the demands of Prime Day 2025, and AWS CEO Matt Garman’s comments on why AI won’t replace junior developers. As always, the hosts veer into lighter territory—this time reminiscing about vintage computers, classic consoles, and coding in Basic.

Check out Iyanuoluwa’s blog The Rise of AI, and don’t miss Retro Reset, a tech charity close to Jon’s heart.

05:09 - AWS Budgets improvements

AWS has introduced cross-account cost visibility in AWS Budgets, allowing users to view budgets across multiple accounts within an organization. This feature is particularly useful for managed service providers and large organizations with multiple business units. It enables teams to have a consolidated view of budgets relevant to their specific areas without needing access to the entire organization.

09:23 - Optimizing RDS and Aurora with AWS Compute Optimizer

AWS Compute Optimizer now supports optimization recommendations for Amazon RDS and Aurora databases. This tool helps identify over-provisioned resources, unused instances, and opportunities for right-sizing. The article discusses the importance of database optimization due to its significant impact on overall cloud spending and provides guidance on using Compute Optimizer for databases.

16:04 - Advanced AWS Graviton adoption strategies

The article discusses strategies for implementing AWS Graviton across different AWS regions. It highlights the importance of considering regional differences in instance availability and suggests using mixed instances and instance requirements rather than specific instance types. The article emphasizes the benefits of Graviton for price and performance optimization but notes that some workloads may still require x86 chips.

22:07 - AWS services scaling for Prime Day 2025

AWS shared statistics on how their services scaled to handle Amazon's Prime Day 2025. Notable figures include deploying over 87,000 Inferentia and Trainium chips for Amazon Rufus, powering more than 40% of Amazon.com using Graviton, and processing 1.5 quadrillion daily requests on Amazon ElastiCache. This article demonstrates AWS's ability to handle massive scale and serves as a marketing tool for potential customers.

29:56 - AWS CEO on AI and junior developers

Matt Garman, CEO of AWS, stated that junior developers are not at risk of being replaced by AI. The discussion touched on the importance of understanding code versus relying solely on AI-generated solutions. The speakers emphasized the continued need for human developers, especially for smaller companies, and cautioned against over-reliance on AI in software development.

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In Season 4, Episode 33, Karl and Jon chat with AWS Community Builder William Antonio Guzmán Bernal. They cover the new AWS Cost Management dashboards, a security issue in AWS Trusted Advisor related to public S3 buckets, how to build AI agents using AWS Serverless, and how to set up large-scale log ingestion pipelines with Amazon OpenSearch Service. They also reflect on ten years of Amazon Aurora innovation—and, once again, veer off into a tangent about painful sports injuries.

05:34 - AWS Cost Management Dashboards

AWS has released new customized billing and cost management dashboards that allow users to display multiple views of billing and cost data on a single page. While not groundbreaking, it provides a more user-friendly interface for finance teams to visualize cost data. However, the speakers noted limitations in sharing this data outside of AWS accounts.

14:10 - AWS Trusted Advisor Security Flaw

A security researcher discovered a flaw in AWS Trusted Advisor that allowed public S3 buckets to go unflagged under certain configurations. The speakers discussed that this was likely an intentional edge case used to test the system rather than a common misconfiguration. AWS has since fixed the issue, and the article was seen as somewhat sensationalized.

22:54 - Building AI Agents on AWS Serverless

The article discusses using AWS Serverless to build AI agents. The speakers noted that while serverless is often a good starting point, this particular use case is quite advanced (300-level) for both AI and serverless technologies. They discussed the rapid pace of AI development and the new AWS Agents SDK, which simplifies the process of building AI agents.

29:47 - Enterprise-scale Log Ingestion with Amazon OpenSearch

The article covers building large-scale log ingestion pipelines using Amazon OpenSearch. The speakers cautioned that while powerful, OpenSearch may be overkill and too expensive for smaller organizations. They emphasized the importance of considering budget and actual needs when choosing logging solutions.

36:23 - 10 Years of Amazon Aurora

The podcast discussed various innovations in Amazon Aurora over the past decade, including cross-region read replicas, serverless capabilities, and increased storage capacity. The speakers highlighted features like synchronous read replicas and the simplicity of deployment options as particularly impressive or useful advancements.

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In Season 4, Episode 32, Karl and Jon welcome AWS Community Builder and DynamoDB and Serverless technologies expert, Uriel Bitton. Together, they explore a range of fresh developments in the AWS ecosystem: the introduction of Amazon CloudWatch’s organization-wide VPC Flow Logs enablement, Amazon SQS’s expanded maximum message payload size to 1 MiB, and the arrival of OpenAI’s open-weight models on AWS Bedrock. They also delve into monitoring AWS Backup vault lock compliance across organizations and discuss how capacity constraints are limiting the growth of major cloud providers. The conversation then takes a playful turn, as the hosts debate whether SQS “FIFO” queues should be pronounced "FEEFO" or "FYFO", evoking childhood memories of Jack and the Beanstalk...

03:15 - Amazon CloudWatch's organization-wide VPC flow logs enablement

This new feature allows users to enable VPC flow logs across an entire organization, rather than configuring them per VPC. It uses AWS Config for remediation, which can be expensive. The feature aims to simplify management and improve security monitoring across multiple accounts and regions.

09:58 - Amazon SQS increasing maximum message payload size

AWS increased the maximum message payload size for Amazon SQS from 256 KiB to 1 MiB, a 4x increase. This change eliminates the need to use S3 as an intermediary for larger payloads, simplifying architectures and potentially reducing costs. It's particularly beneficial for AI-related workloads that often involve larger data transfers.

16:06 - OpenAI's open-weight models on AWS Bedrock

AWS has made OpenAI's open-weight models available on their Bedrock platform, marking a significant collaboration between competitors. This addition expands the range of AI models available to AWS customers and demonstrates Amazon's commitment to providing diverse AI options, even from competitors.

22:16 - Monitoring AWS Backup vault lock compliance

The article discusses how to monitor AWS Backup vault lock compliance across an organization. Vault lock is a feature that enforces retention policies for backups, crucial for ransomware protection. The monitoring solution described seems to offer an alternative to using compliance frameworks, potentially providing a simpler or more cost-effective approach.

29:03 - Capacity constraints affecting cloud vendor growth

Major cloud providers, including AWS, Microsoft, and Google, have reported that data center capacity constraints are limiting their growth. This is particularly due to the increased demand from AI workloads, which require significant computing power and energy. The situation contrasts with earlier reports of canceled data center contracts, suggesting a complex landscape of expansion and optimization in the cloud industry.

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In Season 4, Episode 31, Karl and Jon are joined by Warren Parad, CTO of Authress. Together, they discuss a range of topics including AWS Managed Microsoft Active Directory and best practices for security, the Amazon Q Developer CLI and serverless solutions, implementing defense-in-depth security for CodeBuild pipelines, and the latest quarterly financial results from AWS, Microsoft, and Google Cloud. They also cover the UK Competition and Markets Authority’s investigation into cloud service providers — all while Karl battles network issues ahead of his upcoming fibre installation.

03:47 - AWS managed Microsoft Active Directory

The article discusses how to automatically disable users in AWS managed Microsoft Active Directory based on GuardDuty findings. The process involves a complex setup described as a "Rube Goldberg machine," including Event Bridge, Step Functions, and Systems Manager. The speakers debate the practicality of this solution and suggest alternatives like using Azure Active Directory instead.

08:40 - Amazon Q developer CLI and serverless solutions

This article from the AWS artificial intelligence blog discusses building modern serverless solutions using Amazon Q developer CLI. The speakers express skepticism about the quality of the recommendations provided by the tool, noting that even the examples in the blog post don't adhere to best practices. They discuss the concept of MCP (Multi-Cloud Platforms) and its relevance in the context of AI and API interactions.

13:16 - Defense in depth security for CodeBuild pipelines

The article focuses on implementing defense in depth security measures for CodeBuild pipelines. The speakers discuss the relevance of such measures, especially in the context of open-source projects and potential security risks from pull requests. They also touch on the recent security incident with AWS tools for Q developer and the need for transparency in such situations.

22:52 - Cloud providers' quarterly financial results

The discussion covers the quarterly financial results of major cloud providers (AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud). The speakers analyze the growth rates, revenue numbers, and the challenges in comparing these figures due to differences in how each company reports their cloud-related earnings. They also discuss the impact of AI investments on these results.

33:36 - UK Competition and Markets Authority probe

The podcast covers the ongoing probe by the UK Competition and Markets Authority into major cloud service providers. The investigation has focused on Microsoft and Amazon, finding that both have "significant unilateral market power." The speakers discuss the implications of this finding, the challenges faced by smaller cloud providers, and the potential impact on issues like egress fees.

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In Season 4, Episode 30, Karl and Jon are joined by Pieter VanIperen, CISO at AlphaSense. They discussed AWS security best practices and authentication methods, the Security Reference Architecture (SRA) and the SRA Verify tool, as well as the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and its implications for CIOs. They also covered the CLOUD Act and its impact on data access, and a compromised Amazon Q extension that posed a security risk. Finally, the guys discovered that Jon's interest in karate extends to Japanese electoral politics.

06:17 - Beyond IAM Access Keys: Modern Authentication Approaches for AWS

This article discusses the shift from traditional IAM users and access keys to more secure authentication methods. It recommends using Cloud Shell for CLI access, Identity Center for permissions management, and emphasizes the principle of least privilege. The article also covers scenarios where access keys might still be necessary and suggests alternatives like OIDC for better security.

15:20 - Introducing SRA Verify: An AWS Security Reference Architecture Assessment Tool

The article introduces SRA Verify, a tool for assessing compliance with AWS Security Reference Architecture guidelines. It provides automated checks for various security services like CloudTrail, GuardDuty, and Security Hub. The tool aims to simplify the deployment and assessment of security measures in AWS environments.

23:09 - MCP Doesn't Stand for Many Critical Problems, but Maybe It Should for CIOs

This article discusses the challenges and potential risks associated with Model Context Protocol (MCP) for CIOs. While MCP offers new possibilities for AI integration, it also raises concerns about data security, context poisoning, and the need for proper scoping and permissions management. The discussion highlights that many organizations are still in the early adoption phase of MCP.

30:42 - 5 Facts About How the CLOUD Act Actually Works

AWS published an article addressing misconceptions about the CLOUD Act, a US law from 2018. The article aims to clarify that the Act doesn't give unrestricted access to data and that proper encryption and security measures can protect customer data. It emphasizes that AWS prioritizes customer data privacy and security.

40:33 - Compromised Amazon Q Extension Told AI to Delete Everything

This article discusses a security incident where a malicious actor compromised an Amazon Q extension for VS Code. The compromised extension contained a destructive AI prompt that could potentially delete user files. The incident highlights the importance of code review and the potential risks in the open-source ecosystem.

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In Season 4, Episode 29, Karl and Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder and Ambassador Niklas Westerstråhle to discuss the AWS Free Tier overhaul, the new Cloud Operations Engineer certification, the launch of the Amazon Kiro AI, and a security issue with misconfigured AWS Organizations policies. They wrap up with thoughts on the latest Amazon/AWS layoffs—and a fun debate over whether Niklas should keep wearing his gold AWS jacket after his certifications expire, like it's some kind of sacred relic that loses its powers.

04:15 - AWS Free Tier Overhaul

The AWS Free Tier has been significantly updated. New accounts now receive up to $200 in credits valid for 6 months instead of the previous 12-month free tier offerings. Users can earn additional credits by completing certain tasks. The new system aims to be more developer-friendly and reduce surprise bills. Accounts are automatically closed after 6 months unless upgraded to paid plans.

15:03 - New AWS Cloud Operations Engineer Certification

AWS is updating the SysOps Administrator certification to become the AWS Certified Cloud Ops Engineer. The exam will include new content on containers and other topics. Existing SysOps Administrator certificate holders will need to take the new exam to earn the Cloud Ops Engineer certification. The change has caused some debate about recertification requirements for those holding multiple AWS certifications.

28:58 - Amazon Kiro AI Coding Assistant

AWS launched Kiro, a new AI-powered coding assistant, currently in preview. It's based on Visual Studio Code and uses Anthropic's AI models. Kiro aims to assist with coding tasks and project setup. AWS is running a competition with $100,000 in prizes for developers to build applications using Kiro

28:23 - AWS Organizations Misconfigured Managed Policy

A security issue was discovered in the AmazonGuardDutyFullAccess managed policy, which could potentially allow attackers to gain full AWS organizational control. AWS has fixed the issue by creating a new version of the policy (with "_V2" appended). Users are advised to review and update their environments to use the new policy version.

34:15 - Amazon/AWS Layoffs

Reuters reported that AWS is cutting hundreds of jobs in its latest round of layoffs. The speakers discussed the scale of these layoffs in context of Amazon's overall workforce and debated the potential impact of AI on employment in the tech industry. They also critiqued the article's presentation of the information, noting that it seemed to conflate Amazon and AWS employee numbers.

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In Season 4, Episode 28, Karl and Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder Mahendran Selvakumar. Together, they dive into topics including Amazon’s development of cooling equipment for NVIDIA GPUs to support AI acceleration, the launch of the new AWS Builder Center for the AWS Builder Community, and Amazon's massive AI supercluster—Project Rainier—built for Anthropic. They also explore the upcoming changes to the AWS Free Tier, which will introduce a new credit-based system. And in true Karl fashion, he deftly steers the conversation away from a tangent on uneven sun tans.

05:23 - AWS Transform for VMware

AWS has shifted its strategy from supporting VMware workloads to encouraging migration off VMware entirely. The new AWS Transform for VMware service helps migrate VMware workloads to native AWS services, potentially reducing licensing costs and manual efforts. It supports various migration tasks like network conversion and instance sizing.

12:08 - Amazon cooling equipment for Nvidia GPUs

As AI workloads increase power demands, Amazon is developing in-row heat exchangers to cool Nvidia GPUs more efficiently. This liquid cooling solution can be retrofitted into existing data centers and is designed to handle the extreme heat generated by high-density GPU racks used for AI applications.

17:50 - Amazon CloudWatch and Application Signals MCP servers for AI-assisted troubleshooting

AWS launched two open-source MCP servers for CloudWatch and Application Signals, enabling AI agents to troubleshoot issues via natural language—accessing metrics, logs, traces, and SLOs for faster root cause analysis.

22:23 - New AWS Builder Center

AWS has launched a new Builder Center to unify various community programs and resources. It provides a centralized platform for learning, building, and connecting within the AWS ecosystem. The center includes features like wishlists for suggesting ideas to AWS and supports multiple languages for broader accessibility.

29:17 - Amazon's AI supercluster for Anthropic (Project Rainier)

Amazon is building a massive AI supercomputer cluster for Anthropic, using custom-designed AI chips instead of traditional GPUs. This project demonstrates significant investment in AI capabilities and includes a custom network fabric for high-bandwidth communication between nodes.

34:39 - Changes to AWS Free Tier

AWS is replacing its traditional free tier with a new credit-based system. New accounts will receive $100 in credits valid for 6 months, with restrictions on certain high-usage services. This change aims to simplify the free tier and prevent unexpected charges for new users.

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In Season 4, Episode 27, Karl and Jon are joined by AWS Community Member, Tim Dodd. They discuss Amazon DynamoDB Global Tables with multi-region strong consistency, Amazon ECS-optimized Windows Server 2025 AMIs, AWS Backup support for copying S3 backups across regions/accounts in GovCloud, a Chrome extension using AI to summarize web pages, and building a generative AI landing zone on AWS and then the guys realized they’d spent more time talking about the world’s weather than any of the AWS articles.

03:19 - Amazon DynamoDB Global Tables with multi-region strong consistency

This feature allows for strongly consistent multi-region DynamoDB tables, similar to Aurora DSQL. It's currently limited to major AWS regions but enables applications to have the same consistent data across multiple geographic locations. This is useful for disaster recovery, high availability, and serving users in different regions with the same synchronized dataset.

08:49 -Amazon ECS optimized Windows Server 2025 AMIs

AWS has released new Amazon ECS optimized Windows Server 2025 AMIs. While not groundbreaking, this update ensures Windows container users can run workloads on up-to-date host systems. It highlights the ongoing need to support Windows workloads in containerized environments, despite limitations compared to Linux containers.

13:30 - AWS Backup support for copying S3 backups across regions/accounts in GovCloud

This feature allows GovCloud users to copy S3 backups across regions and accounts, bringing capabilities already available in commercial AWS regions to GovCloud. It's particularly relevant for government agencies adopting cloud-first strategies and implementing best practices for data backup and disaster recovery.

20:12 - Chrome extension using AI to summarize web pages

A developer created a Chrome extension that uses AI to summarize web page content. This tool addresses short attention spans and language barriers by providing quick summaries of long articles or content in unfamiliar languages. It demonstrates a practical application of AI for improving web accessibility and information consumption.

26:59 - Building a generative AI landing zone on AWS

This article discusses how to build a generative AI landing zone on AWS, adapting traditional landing zone concepts to AI workloads. It covers foundational guardrails, development fast lanes, composable building blocks, observability, and governance specific to AI applications. The approach aims to provide a secure, compliant, and efficient foundation for deploying AI workloads on AWS.

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In Season 4, Episode 25, Karl and Jon are joined by AWS Community Hero Stephen Sennett. They discuss recent AWS security enhancements and active defense measures, including the introduction of exportable public SSL/TLS certificates from AWS Certificate Manager, the enforcement of 100% MFA for AWS root users, and Amazon Inspector’s new code security feature. The conversation also covers AWS’s $20 billion investment in Australian data center infrastructure. The episode wraps up with a light-hearted segment where the hosts compare their sports tape collections, each trying to outdo the other with increasingly outrageous injury stories.

05:45 - AWS improves active defense to empower customers

This article discusses AWS's internal security tools like Madopt, Mythroat, and Sonaris, which help protect customers at scale. It highlights the decreasing trend in global malicious vulnerability exploit attempts and emphasizes AWS's ability to provide security measures that individual organizations cannot match.

16:40 - AWS Certificate Manager introduces exportable public SSL/TLS certificates

AWS now offers exportable public SSL/TLS certificates at competitive prices ($15 for single domain, $150 for wildcard). This new feature allows for end-to-end encryption within the AWS ecosystem and provides a more cost-effective and manageable solution compared to traditional certificate authorities.

26:14 - AWS enforces 100% MFA for root users

AWS has achieved 100% MFA enforcement for root users, addressing a long-standing security concern. This change alters the login flow for new accounts, requiring MFA setup before access is granted. The guys also discusse the importance of hardware MFA solutions for organizations.

35:48 - Amazon Inspector launches code security feature

Amazon Inspector now includes a code security feature that scans code for vulnerabilities and security issues. While not as comprehensive as some existing tools, it provides a convenient option for AWS customers who want to keep their security tooling within the AWS ecosystem.

42:32 - AWS invests $20 billion in Australian data center infrastructure

AWS is investing $20 billion AUD (about $12.8 billion USD) to expand its data center infrastructure in Australia. This investment aims to strengthen Australia's AI capabilities, improve renewable energy usage, and address data sovereignty concerns. The article also mentions AWS's commitment to training 400,000+ people in Australia in cloud skills since 2017.

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In Season 4, Episode 24, Karl and Jon are joined by Randall Hunt, CTO of Caylent, for a dynamic and insightful conversation that blends cutting-edge cloud developments with a dash of humor. They dive into some of the latest updates from AWS, including the launch of on-demand key rotation for imported keys via AWS Key Management Service, new application layer 7 DDoS protection for customers using AWS Web Application Firewall and AWS Shield Advanced, and enhanced CloudTrail logging for Amazon S3’s delete objects API, which offers improved auditability and operational visibility. The discussion also explores Amazon’s ambitious investment plans in global data center infrastructure and the introduction of AWS’s new liquid cooling technology designed for next-generation AI data centers. As always, the episode takes an entertaining turn when the conversation veers into a lighthearted tangent about IKEA meatballs and flat-pack furniture.

04:04 - AWS Key Management Service (KMS) on-demand key rotation

This new feature allows users to rotate imported keys, which was previously not possible. It improves key management and security while maintaining backwards compatibility. The pricing model includes additional charges for the first two rotations, with a cap after that.

08:44 - New application layer 7 DOS protection

AWS introduced enhanced DDoS protection for Web Application Firewall and Shield Advanced customers. This feature uses machine learning to quickly learn normal traffic patterns and protect against complex layer 7 attacks, especially with the challenges posed by HTTP/3 and newer protocols.

14:17 - AWS CloudTrail enhanced logging for S3 delete objects API

CloudTrail now provides more detailed logging for S3 delete operations, including bulk deletes. This closes a gap in logging capabilities, making it easier to track and audit object deletions without relying on expensive bucket-level logging.

19:22 - Amazon's data center infrastructure investments

AWS announced significant investments in data center infrastructure globally, including $20 billion in Pennsylvania, $10 billion in North Carolina, and $5 billion in Taiwan. These investments demonstrate AWS's commitment to expanding its cloud infrastructure despite recent reports of AI data center project delays.

26:58 - AWS liquid cooling technology for AI data centers

AWS introduced a new liquid cooling system for its next-generation AI data centers. This closed-loop system allows for more efficient cooling of high-density racks, particularly for GPU workloads. The technology provides flexibility in deployment and doesn't significantly increase water consumption.

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In Season 4, Episode 23, Karl and Jon are joined by Cloud Security Consultant, Deep Shankar Yadav for a wide-ranging discussion on recent cloud updates and innovations. They cover the latest enhancements to the AWS Pricing Calculator, including support for discounts and purchase commitments, making it easier for users to estimate and plan costs more accurately. The conversation moves to Amazon EC2's new feature that allows for the deletion of underlying EBS snapshots when deregistering AMIs, helping users streamline storage management. They also explore how Amazon GuardDuty and Amazon Detective can be used together to detect and investigate EC2 malware, providing stronger security insights. The episode highlights how developers can boost productivity with Claude Code and take advantage of prompt caching in Amazon Bedrock. They also reflect on AWS’s launch of a new sovereign cloud in Europe, aimed at addressing data residency and regulatory requirements. To cap it all off, the trio dives into a fun debate over whether karate is fundamentally more offensive or defensive in nature.

04:26 - AWS Pricing Calculator

The AWS Pricing Calculator now supports discounts and purchase commitments, allowing users to get more accurate cost estimates. This update is particularly useful for product businesses and internal teams, but may add complexity for consulting businesses when explaining costs to clients. The tool's effectiveness still depends on accurately knowing usage patterns.

13:25 - Amazon EC2 and EBS snapshots

Amazon EC2 now allows users to delete underlying EBS snapshots when deregistering AMIs. This feature helps clean up orphaned snapshots and reduces storage costs. Users need to enable this option manually, and it won't delete snapshots associated with multiple AMIs.

20:37 - Detecting EC2 malware

The article discusses using Amazon GuardDuty and Amazon Detective together to detect and investigate EC2 malware. While this combination provides a good workflow for security investigations, it requires manual setup and lacks some features found in commercial malware protection offerings, such as automatic quarantine.

27:22 - Claude Code and Bedrock prompt caching

Anthropic's Claude Code is entering the AI coding assistant market, competing with GitHub Copilot and Amazon's Q Developer. The article highlights the benefits of using Claude Code through AWS Bedrock, including data privacy and prompt caching for improved efficiency.

33:24 -AWS sovereign cloud in Europe

AWS is launching a sovereign cloud in Europe, starting in Germany, to address data sovereignty concerns. This separate entity will be governed independently from Amazon Inc. and AWS. The move is seen as a response to growing demands for data localization and sovereignty, particularly in regions like the Middle East.

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In Season 4, Episode 22, Karl and Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder Mohit Saxena to unpack the latest in AWS news. They kick things off with the general availability of Amazon Aurora DSQL, followed by updates to Amazon ECS, which now provides more detailed exit reason messages. The conversation moves into developer tools, highlighting how Amazon Q’s Developer CLI agents can be used to automatically generate architecture diagrams. They also explore a new cost comparison feature in AWS Cost Explorer and improvements to the Cost Optimization Hub, which now supports preferences for savings plans and reserved instances. The episode also touches on a recent survey reflecting growing dissatisfaction with the rising costs of cloud computing. Just as the discussion hits full technical stride, things take an unexpected (and hilarious) turn when the trio dives into a spirited debate over the best way to fold a wrap—completely derailing the AWS updates in favor of culinary strategy.

04:58 - Aurora DSQL General Availability

Aurora DSQL, announced at re:Invent 2023, is now generally available. It offers a globally distributed database service with millisecond-level time synchronization, solving distributed time issues. It provides active-active distributed architectures with high availability (99.99% within a single region, 99.999% multi-region) and no single point of failure.

10:54 - ECS Exit Reason Message Increase Amazon ECS has increased the exit reason message character limit from 255 to 1,024 characters. This change makes debugging failed container starts significantly easier by providing more detailed information. The extended message can be accessed through both the management console and the describe tasks API.

14:28 - Architecture Diagrams with Amazon Q

Faye Ellis wrote about creating architecture diagrams using the Amazon Q developer CLI agent. This tool can generate mermaid diagrams or Draw.io compatible diagrams from YAML templates or CloudFormation code. It's a useful feature for visualizing and understanding complex architectures quickly.

20:32 - Cost Explorer and Cost Optimisation Hub

AWS Cost Explorer now offers a new cost comparison feature allowing users to overlay and compare costs from different time periods more easily. It also includes a new widget on the cost management home page showing the top 10 cost variations in the previous two months, making it easier to identify and analyze cost trends.The Cost Optimization Hub now supports savings plans and reservations preferences. Users can set their preferences for upfront payments and commitment terms, allowing for more realistic and aligned cost-saving recommendations based on their financial situation and needs.

30:35 - Cloud Cost Dissatisfaction Survey

A Gartner survey revealed growing dissatisfaction with cloud computing costs. The article suggests that many organizations moved to the cloud without proper planning or workload analysis, leading to higher than expected costs. It highlights the importance of due diligence and proper cloud migration strategies to realize the full benefits of cloud computing.

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In Season 4, Episode 21, Karl and Jon are joined by Community Builder Ayhan Setirekli to discuss a range of AWS updates and industry news. Topics include the new EC2 feature: customer-initiated reboot migrations for scheduled events, enhancements to Amazon Inspector for container security, the launch of the AWS Product Lifecycle page, and updates on service availability. They also cover a report revealing that generative AI spending is now surpassing security spending in some organizations, and a widespread misconfiguration in cloud storage buckets exposing over 200 billion files and then the conversation shifted to plumbing—almost as if they were trying to fix a leaky S3 bucket!

06:09 -EC2 Customer-initiated reboot migrations

This feature simplifies the process of rebooting EC2 instances for scheduled maintenance events. Previously, users had to manually stop and start instances, which could be time-consuming. The new feature allows for a simpler reboot process, making it easier for users to manage their instances during maintenance windows.

09:36 - Amazon Inspector container security enhancement

Amazon Inspector now maps Amazon ECR images to running containers, improving visibility and security for containerized workloads. This feature helps users identify vulnerabilities in container images and track where these images are running, making it easier to manage and secure container deployments across ECS and EKS environments.

17:22 - AWS Product Lifecycle page and service availability updates

AWS has introduced a new page that provides information on service deprecations and end-of-life announcements. This addresses previous criticism about lack of communication regarding service discontinuations. The page includes details on end of support dates, migration plans, and access restrictions for new customers, improving transparency for AWS users

24:01 - Generative AI spending overtaking security

A report suggests that some organizations are prioritizing generative AI spending over security budgets. This trend raises concerns about potential security risks, especially as AI adoption introduces new vulnerabilities. The shift in spending priorities is more pronounced in larger companies, while smaller businesses still tend to focus on security investments.

29:15 - Cloud storage bucket misconfiguration

A study revealed that 660,000 misconfigured cloud storage buckets have exposed 200 billion files across multiple cloud providers. This highlights ongoing issues with cloud security practices, despite efforts by providers to improve default security settings. The problem appears to be worsening, with a 30% increase in exposed buckets compared to the previous year.

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In Season 4, Episode 20, Karl and Jon are joined by AWS Ambassador and Community Builder, Jenn Bergstrom for a wide-ranging discussion on key developments in cloud and infrastructure. They explore AWS CloudTrail network activity events for VPC endpoints, strategies for enhancing application resiliency using Amazon Q Developer, and how AWS security services can be mapped to MITRE frameworks for improved threat detection and mitigation. The episode also touches on AWS’s push for chip production in the UK amid the growing energy demands of AI, and the country’s increasing reliance on nuclear power to support data centers. Wrapping up on a lighter note, the trio jokes about launching “Nuclear Reactor as a Service” for AWS’s mobile data centers—complete with trailer-sized reactors to power them anywhere.

06:44 - AWS Cloud Trail Network Activity events for VPC Endpoints

The article discusses the introduction of Cloud Trail Network Activity events for VPC Endpoints. The hosts debate whether this feature is new or was previously announced. They discuss the importance of having proper auditability for cloud services from day one and question why Cloud Trail integration isn't a standard feature for new AWS services.

11:31 - Enhancing application resiliency using Amazon Q developer https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/devops/how-to-enhance-your-application-resiliency-using-amazon-q-developer/

This article focuses on how Amazon Q developer can be used to improve application resiliency. Jen, as a chaos engineering practitioner, explains how this tool can help identify single points of failure and provide recommendations to improve architecture. The hosts discuss the potential of Q to upskill junior architects and its integration with existing dev tools.

18:27 - Mapping AWS security services to Mitre frameworks

The article discusses how AWS security services map to Mitre frameworks for threat detection and mitigation. The hosts talk about the importance of these frameworks in the security community and recent funding issues with Mitre. They also discuss the EU's creation of its own vulnerability database and the mapping of AWS services to different aspects of the Mitre framework.

28:56 - AWS pushing UK chip plans amid AI energy crunch

This article focuses on AWS's promotion of their custom silicon, including Graviton chips, in response to the increasing energy demands of AI workloads. The hosts discuss the benefits of ARM-based chips in terms of energy efficiency and performance, and how this relates to the sustainability of data center growth for AI applications.

37:56 - UK's need for more nuclear power to support AI and data centers

The final article discusses Amazon's stance on the need for more nuclear power in the UK to support AI and data center growth. The hosts debate the pros and cons of nuclear energy, its safety compared to other power sources, and the potential for small-scale reactors to power individual data centers.

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In Season 4, Episode 19, Karl and Jon are joined by Rob Pankow, Simplyblock CEO, to discuss the new AWS EBS snapshot acceleration feature, the evolution of AI agents, AWS’s guide for responsible AI adoption in financial services, and how to use Amazon Q Business to gain insights from AWS Trusted Advisor. They also touch on cloud hyperscaler earnings and market share—before realizing they had spent more time talking about Jon’s t-shirt than the actual AWS news.

04:55 - AWS EBS snapshot acceleration feature

This new feature allows users to accelerate the transfer of data from an Amazon EBS snapshot to a new EBS volume. It offers two tiers of initialization rates, ranging from 100-200 Mbps and 200-300 Mbps, with associated costs. While it provides faster restoration and initialization, especially beneficial for disaster recovery and high-performance computing, it comes with additional costs that may be significant for large-scale users.

15:19 - AI agents and their development

The article discusses the concept of AI agents, which are more advanced than foundation models and can perform tasks beyond their initial training data. It explores how to build AI agents using JavaScript and highlights their potential impact on various industries. The discussion touches on the challenges of widespread adoption and the need for reliability in production environments.

23:36 - AWS guide for responsible AI adoption in financial services

AWS has released a guide on governance, risk, and compliance for responsible AI adoption within the financial services industry. The guide, available through AWS Artifact, aims to help financial institutions navigate the complexities of implementing AI technologies while adhering to regulatory requirements and best practices. The article's disappearance from the AWS Security blog raised questions about potential updates or revisions to the guide.

30:21 - Using Amazon Q Business for AWS Trusted Advisor insights

This article explores how Amazon Q Business can be used to obtain faster and more actionable insights from AWS Trusted Advisor. The setup involves creating a custom business application, integrating with Trusted Advisor data, and connecting to project management tools like Jira. While the concept is promising, the implementation requires significant effort and may not be as seamless as desired.

39:08 -Cloud hyperscaler earnings and market share

The article discusses the recent earnings announcements from major cloud providers (AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud). It highlights the continued growth of the cloud industry, with AWS maintaining its market leadership despite slower growth rates. The discussion touches on the inconsistent reporting methods between providers and the significant financial resources required to build and maintain a hyperscale cloud infrastructure.

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In Season 4, Episode 18 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Hero Renato Losio. They discuss the introduction of tiered pricing for Amazon CloudWatch logs, new logging destinations, and standardized billing for the init phase in AWS Lambda; the launch of just-in-time node access via AWS Systems Manager; the use of AWS Transfer Family and GuardDuty for enhanced malware protection; the ongoing AI data center boom and its potential slowdown; and Jon’s return to the group, gracing them once more despite his rise as an internationally recognized tech conference speaker.

08:46 - AWS Lambda introduces tiered pricing for Amazon CloudWatch logs and additional logging destinations

AWS is now charging for the init phase of Lambda functions across all runtimes, which was previously free for some. This change is seen as a standardization effort but also as a price increase. While it may force developers to optimize their init phase, there are concerns about the impact on costs, especially for larger-scale users.

16:11 - AWS Lambda standardizes billing for init phase

This new feature allows for temporary, just-in-time access to nodes, improving security by reducing standing access. While the functionality is praised, especially for large enterprises and highly regulated industries, the pricing ($10 per node per month) is considered expensive. The feature includes approval workflows and integration with communication tools like Slack.

23:10 - Introduction of just-in-time node access using AWS Systems Manager

This new feature allows for temporary, just-in-time access to nodes, improving security by reducing standing access. While the functionality is praised, especially for large enterprises and highly regulated industries, the pricing ($10 per node per month) is considered expensive. The feature includes approval workflows and integration with communication tools like Slack.

31:44 - Using AWS Transfer Family and GuardDuty for malware protection

The article describes how to use AWS Transfer Family (for SFTP) and GuardDuty for malware scanning of uploaded files. While the solution is praised for its architecture and implementation, there are criticisms about the continued use of SFTP and questions about why AWS doesn't offer this as a managed service.

38:54 - AI data center boom and potential slowdown in big tech companies' data center investments

The article discusses recent news about big tech companies like AWS and Microsoft pulling back on some data center investments. The podcast hosts and guest are not particularly concerned, viewing this as part of the normal cyclical nature of data center investments. They suggest that factors like improved hardware efficiency and geopolitical issues may be influencing these decisions rather than a true slowdown in AI-related growth.

Guest was Renato Losio https://cloudiamo.com/

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In Season 4, Episode 17 Karl & Jon are joined by Community Builder and User Group Lead, Damien Jones.They discuss AWS Advanced Payment Option, Amazon Redshift Discounted Pricing, Prompt Optimization in Amazon Bedrock, AWS Well-Architected Generative AI Lens, AWS SkillBuilder Trivia and then the guys joked about Jon's cat being deeply unimpressed with his AWS summit presentation practice, suggesting the audience might have a similar reaction.

07:25 - AWS now allows customers in Europe to pay For their usage in advance

AWS now allows customers in Europe to pay for their usage in advance. This option doesn't offer discounts but allows customers to prepay their AWS bills. The hosts discussed potential use cases, such as for businesses with seasonal usage patterns or those wanting to simplify their finance processes.

15:07 - Announcing Serverless Reservations, a new discounted pricing option for Amazon Redshift Serverless

Amazon Redshift now offers a new discounted pricing option for service reservations. This applies to Redshift Serverless and provides cost savings for customers who can commit to longer-term usage. The hosts discussed how this could make Redshift Serverless more viable for production use cases.

23:30 - Prompt Optimization in Amazon Bedrock now generally available

Amazon Bedrock's prompt optimization feature is now generally available. This tool helps users create more efficient prompts for AI models, potentially reducing costs by minimizing token usage. The hosts discussed the importance of effective prompt engineering in AI applications.

31:41 - Announcing the AWS Well-Architected Generative AI Lens

AWS announced a new Well-Architected Lens focusing on generative AI. This lens provides guidance for designing and implementing generative AI solutions using AWS best practices. The hosts expressed surprise that this hadn't been introduced earlier, given the growing importance of AI in cloud computing.

37:49 - Game on: Introducing AWS Skill Builder Trivia

AWS introduced a new gamified learning tool called SkillBuilder Trivia. This free feature allows users to create and participate in trivia sessions using AWS-related questions. The hosts discussed its potential use in user group meetings and as a team-building tool for organizations adopting AWS.

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In Season 4, Episode 16 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Hero, Sathyajith Bhat. They discuss Amazon CloudFront Anycast static IPs for Apex domains, AWS simplifying VPC peering billing, AWS Backup restore testing, sustainability challenges with AI and hyperscale data centers, CMA probe into cloud provider dominance and licensing costs and the guys went off on a tangent about the carbon footprint of generating AI action figure dolls.

08:53 - Amazon CloudFront now supports Anycast static IPs for Apex domains

This new feature allows users to point their Apex (naked) domains directly to CloudFront without using CNAME flattening or alias records. It simplifies DNS configuration and reduces the number of IPs needed for allowlisting. The feature is particularly useful for organizations still using basic DNS providers and those requiring IP whitelisting for CDNs.

15:08 - AWS simplifies VPC peering billing

AWS has made changes to simplify billing for VPC peering by separating inter-availability zone data transfer charges from VPC-to-VPC traffic. This change makes it easier for customers to understand their costs related to VPC peering and inter-AZ data transfer. While it doesn't affect the actual charges, it provides more clarity in billing statements.

21:22 - AWS Backup restore testing and its importance

AWS Backup now offers automated restore testing, allowing users to validate their backups regularly. This feature is crucial for ensuring data recoverability and meeting various compliance standards. The article emphasizes the importance of testing backups and provides insights into how the restore testing process works within AWS Backup.

31:04 - Sustainability challenges with AI and hyperscale data centers

The article discusses the growing concern over the massive energy consumption of AI and hyperscale data centers. It highlights the conflict between tech companies' sustainability pledges and the increasing power demands of AI workloads. The discussion touches on various potential solutions, including nuclear power and carbon capture technologies, while acknowledging the complexity of the issue.

40:04 - CMA probe into cloud provider dominance and licensing costs

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is investigating the dominance of major cloud providers. AWS and Google are claiming that Microsoft's licensing practices for running Windows servers on their clouds are unfair. The article discusses AWS's claim that 50% of Azure workloads would move to other clouds if licensing costs were more favorable, though this claim is met with skepticism by the podcast participants.

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In Season 4, Episode 15 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder and core member of the Armenia UG*, Tigran Gevorgyan. They discuss Meta's Llama 4 models on Amazon SageMaker, prompting for best price performance with AWS AI models, patched vulnerability in the Amazon EC2 SSM agent, using OpenSearch and Managed Grafana for telemetry data correlation, updates to the AWS Well-Architected Framework and then the guys started discussing the merits of different sports teams' merchandise, completely forgetting they were supposed to be talking about AWS news.

09:02 - Meta's Llama 4 models on Amazon SageMaker JumpStart

The article discusses the availability of Meta's Llama 4 models on Amazon SageMaker JumpStart. The speakers highlight the importance of model naming conventions and note that SageMaker is getting new models, which is significant given the recent focus on Bedrock. They discuss the differences between Bedrock and SageMaker, with SageMaker offering more control and customization options.

15:26 - Prompting for best price performance with AWS AI models

This article from the AWS Machine Learning blog focuses on optimizing price performance through efficient prompting. The discussion compares the costs of OpenAI's GPT models with Amazon's Nova models, highlighting potential cost savings. The speakers also touch on the differences in prompting techniques between the two systems and the potential challenges of transitioning from GPT to Nova.

22:37 - Amazon EC2 SSM agent vulnerability patched

The article discusses a recently patched vulnerability in the Amazon EC2 SSM agent. The speakers explain the nature of the vulnerability, which involved privilege escalation via path traversal. They emphasize the importance of keeping systems updated and note that while the vulnerability required multiple steps to exploit, it's crucial to address such issues promptly.

28:29 - Correlating telemetry data with Amazon OpenSearch Service and Amazon Managed Grafana

This article from the AWS Big Data blog discusses using OpenSearch and Managed Grafana for telemetry data correlation. The speakers debate the complexity and cost of this solution, particularly for Kubernetes environments. They suggest considering alternatives like AWS X-Ray or Datadog, depending on specific needs and budget constraints.

34:53 - New guidance in AWS Well-Architected Tool

The podcast discusses recent updates to the AWS Well-Architected Framework, including 78 new best practices. The speakers emphasize the importance of staying updated with these best practices and encourage solution architects and DevOps professionals to utilize this resource. They also criticize the pricing structure of the Well-Architected Tool, which is tied to AWS support subscription levels.

*AWS Armenia user group (https://www.linkedin.com/company/aws-user-group-armenia/), and community day (https://aws-community-day.am/)

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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.

20:35 - Amazon Bedrock Guardrails announces the general availability of industry-leading image content filters

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.

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In Season 4, Episode 13 Karl & Jon are joined by Sam Waweru They discuss Amazon Application Recovery Controller's new AWS FIS recovery action, AWS CloudFormation's targeted resource scans, Secrets Management, AWS's detailed geographic information, S3 bucket data leak and then the guys joked about Jon's ever-changing office furniture, wondering if he'd finally settle on a therapist's couch given how often he needs therapy after recording the podcast.

03:11 - Amazon Application Recovery Controller announces AWS FIS recovery action for zonal autoshift

This new feature allows users to simulate the loss of an AWS availability zone, helping to validate multi-AZ architectures and disaster recovery plans. It's particularly useful for industries like finance and healthcare that require rigorous testing of failover scenarios. The feature can help identify overlooked issues in complex environments with multiple microservices.

09:43 - AWS CloudFormation now supports targeted resource scans in the IaC generator

This update to the IAC generator allows users to specify which types of resources they want to include in their CloudFormation templates. This makes the tool more viable for real-world use, as it reduces the amount of unnecessary resources included in the generated templates. The feature is particularly useful for those working within the AWS ecosystem, though it may not sway users away from other tools like Terraform.

15:38 - Why Secrets Management Should Be A Central Pillar Of Cloud Security

The article discusses the importance of proper secrets management in cloud security. It covers common ways secrets are exposed, such as hardcoded credentials and misconfigured cloud storage. The piece also outlines best practices, including centralizing secret storage, implementing least privilege access, and automated secret rotation. The discussion highlighted the ongoing challenges of secrets management and access control in cloud environments.

23:50 - Detailed geographic information for all AWS Regions and Availability Zones is now available

AWS has released more explicit information about the geographic locations of its regions and availability zones. While much of this information could be inferred before, it's now clearly stated, potentially to appease regulators. The information includes specific countries and cities for regions and edge locations, which can help organizations select locations to reduce latency and meet compliance requirements.

29:52 - Juicy customer data’ leaked from Nine

The article reports on a data leak from a misconfigured S3 bucket, exposing customer names, addresses, and contact information. While the leaked data wasn't as "juicy" as the headline suggested, it highlights the ongoing issue of misconfigured cloud storage. The incident emphasizes the importance of proper access controls, regular audits, and careful management of third-party contractors who may have access to sensitive data.

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In Season 4, Episode 12 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS DevTools Hero and User Group Lead Johannes Koch. They discuss AWS CodePipeline new feature, AWS KMS CloudWatch metrics, Amazon Q Business browser extension upgrades, AWS SNS potential abuse, AI-powered features in Amazon Connect and then the guys started comparing their gym routines, completely forgetting they were supposed to be talking about AWS news.

03:55 - AWS CodePipeline supports invoking pipeline execution with a new action type

The new feature allows direct execution of other CodePipelines within an existing pipeline. This enables better orchestration of complex deployments, especially in enterprise environments. The speakers discussed the evolution of CodePipeline and its positioning in the AWS ecosystem.

17:23 - AWS KMS CloudWatch metrics help you better track and understand how your KMS keys are being used

This feature helps track and understand KMS key usage through CloudWatch metrics. The discussion touched on the importance of monitoring KMS usage for cost optimization and security purposes. The speakers noted that this feature should have been available earlier.

25:17 - AWS announces new upgrades to the Amazon Q Business browser extension

The update allows users to access company knowledge bases and handle images/attachments within the browser extension. The speakers discussed the potential benefits for businesses but also raised concerns about data security and AWS's strategy in targeting end-users.

34:05 - AWS SNS Abused To Exfiltrate Data & Phishing Attack

The article discussed how AWS Simple Notification Service could potentially be used to exfiltrate data in certain scenarios. The speakers agreed that while possible, this requires multiple security failures and emphasized the importance of following security best practices.

41:01 - Introducing the next generation of Amazon Connect: AI-powered interactions that strengthen customer relationships and improve business outcomes

AWS introduced new AI capabilities in their contact center solution, Amazon Connect. The speakers discussed the potential improvements in customer service, analytics, and efficiency that these features could bring to contact centers.

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In Season 4, Episode 11 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Joe Stech. They discuss Amazon EC2 allowing AMIs now integrating with AWS Config, Amazon DynamoDB on-demand capacity mode, long-term backup options for Amazon RDS and Amazon Aurora, DeepSeek R1 model, misconfigured AWS S3 bucket exposing US nurses' data and then the guys started debating whether to call it "Glacier Potato" or "Deep Freeze Fries" as the next AWS storage tier!

04:00 - Amazon EC2 Allowed AMIs now integrates with AWS Config

This feature allows easier monitoring of the impact of enabling allowed AMIs in EC2. It's particularly useful for regulated and secure environments where only approved, hardened images can be used. The integration with AWS Config simplifies the process of tracking and auditing AMI usage across accounts.

07:52 - Demystifying Amazon DynamoDB on-demand capacity mode

The article addresses 11 myths about DynamoDB's on-demand capacity mode, covering cost, performance, scaling, and implementation misconceptions. The discussion highlights that many of these "myths" are not widely held beliefs among experienced users, but may be helpful for those less familiar with the service or dealing with outdated information.

19:00 - Long-term backup options for Amazon RDS and Amazon Aurora

The article outlines various options for long-term database backups beyond the standard 35-day retention period. These include manual snapshots, using AWS Database Migration Service, exporting snapshots to S3, and database-specific dump tools. The discussion emphasized that while long-term backups are rarely used for recovery, they may be necessary for compliance and auditing purposes.

27:26 - DeepSeek-R1 now available as a fully managed serverless model in Amazon Bedrock

The DeepSeek R1 model is now available as a fully managed serverless model in Amazon Bedrock. This means users don't need to run the model themselves, and it's now priced per token like other managed models. The discussion touched on potential concerns about the model's Chinese origins and data security.

34:26 - Misconfigured AWS S3 Bucket Exposes Us Nurses' Data

A misconfigured S3 bucket led to the exposure of sensitive data belonging to 86,000 US nurses. The discussion highlighted that while such incidents have become less common due to AWS's improved security measures, there might be a potential increase in similar incidents due to the rise of AI-assisted coding by less experienced developers.

Our guest's blog: https://joeste.ch
and: https://learn.arm.com

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In Season 4, Episode 10, Karl & Jon are joined once again by AWS Hero, Brian Tarbox. They discuss automating Amazon RDS credential rotation with AWS Secrets Manager, Microsoft Amazon Q Business integrations, an enhanced local IDE experience for AWS Step Functions, a new agentic coding experience within Amazon Q Developer, the ongoing UK Competition and Markets Authority probe, and the guys joke that Amazon Q Business is the new Clippy (or Qlippy!).

04:08 - Automating Amazon RDS credential rotation with AWS Secrets Manager
The article discusses a complex process for managing credential rotation for RDS instances with read replicas using Secret Manager. The hosts criticize the approach as overly complicated and question why this isn't a built-in feature, given that both read replicas and secret rotation are recommended best practices.

10:31 - Microsoft 365 for Word and Outlook integrations for Amazon Q Business
This integration is compared to Microsoft's old Clippy feature. The hosts question its usefulness, especially for those already using Microsoft's Copilot. They discuss the challenges of AI-generated content matching a user's tone and style.

18:15 - Enhanced local IDE experience for AWS Step Functions
The article introduces improvements to the Step Functions experience in VS Code. While the functionality is acknowledged as potentially useful, there's criticism about it being limited to VS Code and not available in other IDEs. The discussion touches on the complexity of large Step Functions workflows and the balance between visual and code-based approaches.

24:24 - Agentic coding experience within Amazon Q Developer CLI
This feature introduces AI-assisted coding within the command-line interface. The hosts express skepticism about its necessity and usefulness, with concerns raised about potential security risks of giving AI access to the shell environment.

31:18 - UK Competition and Markets Authority probe into AWS and Microsoft cloud market dominance
The article discusses the ongoing investigation into cloud market competition in the UK. The hosts note that the major players (AWS and Microsoft) refute the concerns, while smaller providers endorse the findings. They discuss the complexity of fairly assessing the cloud market and the potential outcomes of such investigations.

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In Season 4, Episode 9 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Craig Johnson. They discuss Centralized Root Access Management for Organizations, Anthropic Claude 3.7 Sonnet, ways to grant cross-account access in AWS, Q Developer, AWS being named a leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for data integration tools and the guys go off on a tangent about chainsaws!

04:43 - AWS Introduces Centralized Root Access Management for Organizations

AWS has introduced centralized route access management for organizations, allowing easier management of root users across multiple accounts. While not entirely new, this feature consolidates existing capabilities and aligns with best practices for securing root accounts. It's particularly useful for large organizations managing numerous AWS accounts.

10:00 - Anthropic's Claude 3.7 Sonnet is now available in Amazon Bedrock

The latest version of Anthropic's Claude AI model is now available in Amazon Bedrock. It offers improved capabilities, including extended thinking modes. However, its availability is still limited to certain US regions, which may be problematic for users concerned with data sovereignty or those outside the US.

16:48 - Four ways to grant cross-account access in AWS

The AWS Security blog outlines four methods for granting cross-account access. The article provides insights into the nuances of each method, such as the differences between trusting an entire account versus a specific role. While informative, the article doesn't offer specific recommendations for which method to use in different scenarios.

20:08 - AWS Chatbot is now named Amazon Q Developer

AWS has rebranded its Chatbot service as Amazon Q Developer, adding it to the growing Amazon Q product line. This change is seen as primarily a marketing move, with some concerns about potential confusion and the actual benefits of integrating generative AI features into what was previously a straightforward chatbot service.

26:24 - Amazon Web Services named a Leader in the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Integration Tools

AWS has been positioned in the leaders' quadrant of Gartner's Magic Quadrant for data integration tools. While this recognition highlights AWS's growing presence in the data integration space, the discussion also touched on the limitations and potential biases of Gartner's Magic Quadrant methodology.

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In Season 4, Episode 8 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS User Group Lead for "Leeds User Group, Edmund Craske. They discuss Amazon SES Virtual Deliverability Manager tiered pricing, AWS CloudFormation 2024 year in review, free automated tool to hunt for exposed AWS secrets in public repos, AWS Fargate on a budget, best practices to respond to security risks across AWS organizations and Jon shows off his AWS swag blanket that keeps him warm while he waits for his CloudFormation stacks to deploy.

08:05 - Amazon SES now offers tiered pricing for Virtual Deliverability Manager

Amazon SES now offers tiered pricing for its Virtual Deliverability Manager (VDM) feature. The new pricing structure makes it cheaper for high-volume email senders, with rates decreasing as the number of emails sent increases. While this change benefits large-scale users, the hosts suggest that for small to medium businesses, other email services might be more suitable due to SES's complexity and stringent requirements.

15:14 - AWS CloudFormation: 2024 Year in Review

AWS CloudFormation saw numerous improvements in 2024, including faster deployments (up to 40% quicker), improved error handling, and streamlined troubleshooting. The discussion compared CloudFormation to Terraform, with the hosts noting that while CloudFormation has made progress, Terraform still has advantages in certain areas. They highlighted CloudFormation's strengths in handling rate limits and its deployment graph visualization.

23:47 - Check out this free automated tool that hunts for exposed AWS secrets in public repos

A new open-source tool has been released to scan public repositories for exposed AWS secrets. The hosts discussed the tool's educational purpose and compared it to existing solutions like GitHub's built-in secret scanning. They emphasized the importance of avoiding long-lived credentials and implementing proper security measures to prevent accidental exposure of secrets.

29:48 - AWS Fargate on a Budget

Exploreing cost-saving strategies for running AWS Fargate. The hosts praised the article for its practical approach to reducing Fargate costs by up to 70% for short-lived tasks. They discussed the use of Fargate Spot instances and best practices for handling task interruptions and deregistration delays.

34:10 - Best practices to respond to security risks across your AWS Organizations

This article, which mysteriously disappeared from the AWS blog, covered security best practices for AWS organizations. The hosts speculated on reasons for its removal but noted that the content seemed valuable and not controversial. They discussed the importance of automating security responses, the AWS Solutions Library for security guidance, and the potential benefits of AWS's security incident response services for organizations with high security requirements.

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In Season 4, Episode 7 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Ryan Cormack. They discuss AWS Step Functions, reshaping AWS CloudFormation stacks with stack refactoring, AWS Verified Access support for non-HTTP resources, AWS's full-year profit and revenue growth, AWS documentation updates and future plans and the guys think Mark Zuckerberg's AI predictions are about as accurate as his metaverse hype – both seem to exist in a virtual reality!

05:43 - AWS Step Functions expands data source and output options for Distributed Map

This update allows Step Functions to process different file formats from S3, including JSONL and delimited files (semicolon and tab). It improves the ability to handle large datasets and reduces the need for data manipulation before processing. The distributed map feature can now handle up to 10,000 concurrent executions, making it powerful for big data processing.

10:45 - Reshape your AWS CloudFormation stacks seamlessly with stack refactoring

This new feature allows users to more easily break down large CloudFormation stacks into smaller, more manageable stacks. It addresses the issues of slow updates and potential errors in large stacks. While not entirely seamless, it provides a much-needed solution for those stuck with large CloudFormation stacks and offers a way to improve infrastructure management.

16:19 - AWS Verified Access support for non-HTTP resources is now generally available

This feature allows users to connect to private resources like databases without needing bastion hosts or jump boxes. It provides a more secure, token-scoped access method integrated with single sign-on providers. While it requires a client on the user's machine and currently lacks Windows support, it's a step towards simplifying secure access to private resources in AWS.

23:25 - AWS sees full-year profit and revenue growth as AI and public cloud demand soars

AWS reported significant growth in revenue (19% to $28.8 billion) and profits (up to $10.6 billion) compared to the previous year. The growth is attributed to increased demand for AI and public cloud services. While the exact contribution of AI services to this growth is unclear, the company plans to invest heavily in infrastructure to support AI and related technologies.

31:59 - AWS Documentation update — progress, challenges, and what’s next for 2025

AWS is improving its documentation with new features like decision guides to help users choose the right services. The company is also exploring AI integration to enhance documentation searchability and summarization. While AWS documentation is generally considered good, there's room for improvement in areas like search functionality and providing more comprehensive examples.

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In Season 4, Episode 6 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Dave Hall. They discuss Dynamo DB innovations, cost optimization highlights, migration to AWS MediaConvert, S3 Bucket security risks, AWS Lambda and Serverless computing and it looks like the AWS Community Builders are drinking 'Dirty Lambda' cocktails and playing buzzword bingo while nervously refreshing their renewal applications!

05:24 - 2024: A year of innovation and growth for Amazon DynamoDB

They discuss various improvements to Amazon DynamoDB in 2024, including significant price reductions for on-demand throughput and global tables. Other innovations mentioned include zero ETL integrations with Redshift and SageMaker Lakehouse, and improvements to DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX). The speakers debate the practical value of some features like DAX, with Jon suggesting many teams may not need it.

12:19 - re:Invent 2024 Cost Optimization highlights that you were not expecting

They discuss the unexpected cost optimization opportunities from re:Invent 2023. Key points include new features for Bedrock, intelligent tiering for FSX for Open ZFS, and improvements to SageMaker scaling. The speakers particularly highlighted the blurring lines between EFS and FSX, and the benefits of new auto-scaling capabilities for cloud applications.

20:03 - Migrating workflows from Amazon Elastic Transcoder to AWS Elemental MediaConvert

They discuss the upcoming discontinuation of Amazon Elastic Transcoder and the need to migrate to AWS Elemental Media Convert. Jon explains the differences and advantages of Media Convert, including better codec support and higher resolution capabilities. The speakers emphasize the importance of this migration for users of Elastic Transcoder.

26:02 - Abandoned AWS S3 buckets can be reused in supply-chain attacks that would make SolarWinds look 'insignificant'

They talk about the potential security risks associated with abandoned AWS S3 buckets, as these buckets can be reused in supply chain attacks. Dave explains that this is not a new issue and advises against exposing S3 buckets publicly, recommending the use of CloudFront as a protective measure.

31:19 - A Decade Of AWS Lambda — Has Serverless Delivered On Its Hype

They discuss the adoption of serverless in enterprises versus smaller businesses, noting that perception might be skewed due to how costs appear on bills. They also touch on the lack of GPU support in serverless offerings and strategies for optimizing serverless costs.

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In Season 4, Episode 5 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Hero, Peter Sankauskas. They discuss Amazon S3 metadata, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, DeepSeek R1, Amazon Simple Email Service, AWS survey on AWS service usage and trends and Jon finally got to go Apple reaction crazy for our 100th episode!

06:14 - Amazon S3 Metadata is now generally available

This feature, announced at re:Invent, is now generally available. It provides automated metadata for S3 objects, potentially reducing the need for manual metadata management. However, it's currently only available in three US regions and has a complex pricing structure that may be challenging to calculate.

10:52 - AWS Elastic Beanstalk adds default support of EC2 Launch Template when creating new environments

Elastic Beanstalk, which has seen renewed development recently, now supports EC2 launch templates when creating new environments. This update aligns with the deprecation of launch configurations. The speakers discussed Beanstalk's position as a starter service and its potential limitations for more advanced users.

14:46 - DeepSeek-R1 models now available on AWS

AWS quickly made DeepSeek's efficient AI models available on Bedrock following recent media attention. This move is seen as reactionary but necessary to compete with other AI providers. The pricing model differs from other Bedrock offerings, being based on infrastructure costs rather than per-token pricing.

20:17 - Amazon SES celebrates 14 years of email sending and deliverability

The Simple Email Service's 14th anniversary was discussed, with mixed opinions on its usefulness. While it has improved over time, some users find third-party email services more convenient, particularly due to SES's initial restrictions and approval processes.

27:03 - Answers for AWS survey

Peter Sankowskas discussed his annual survey of AWS service usage and sentiment. The survey provides insights into which services are popular, trending, or declining in the AWS ecosystem. Notable findings include high satisfaction with services like SQS and DynamoDB, and interesting trends in CI/CD tool preferences.

Peter's survey for this year: https://answersforaws.com/survey/ Guest was Peter Sankauskas

https://www.linkedin.com/in/petersankauskas

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In Season 4, Episode 4 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Bojan Zivic. They discuss observability in ECS, Amazon EventBridge, AWS Backup best practices, AWS security best practices to mitigate ransomware attacks, architecting with multiple AWS regions for enhanced resilience and Jon found his missing piece of the puzzle - a Lego Millennium Falcon!

05:37 - AWS Adds Container Insights with Enhanced Observability to Elastic Container Service

AWS has added Container Insights with enhanced observability to ECS, providing a more cost-effective alternative to third-party solutions like DataDog. This feature offers out-of-the-box dashboards and metrics, making it easier for users to monitor their container environments without the need for extensive setup or additional tools.

10:03 - Amazon EventBridge announces direct delivery to cross-account targets

EventBridge now supports direct delivery to cross-account targets, simplifying event-driven architectures across multiple AWS accounts. This feature reduces latency, eliminates the need for complex routing setups, and allows for more streamlined and efficient event processing in multi-account environments.

14:03 - 4 AWS Backup best practices for reliable data protection

They discuss four key AWS backup best practices: balancing retention periods and storage costs, optimizing management with tagging, implementing cross-regional replication, and setting RPO and RTO goals. The discussion also highlighted the importance of testing backups and the challenges in accurately predicting backup costs due to AWS's incremental backup pricing model.

22:57 - AWS Releases Best Security Practices To Mitigate Ransomware Attacks

AWS released best practices to mitigate ransomware attacks, particularly focusing on S3 buckets. Recommendations include implementing short-term credentials, using MFA, monitoring for anomalous activity, and restricting SSE-C usage when unnecessary. The discussion emphasized the importance of balancing security measures with cost considerations and practical implementation.

28:53 - Enhance the resilience of critical workloads by architecting with multiple AWS Regions

They discuss enhancing workload resilience by using multiple AWS regions. While the concept sounds appealing, the discussion revealed that multi-region architectures are complex, expensive, and often unnecessary for most applications. The speakers suggested that multi-AZ setups are usually sufficient for most use cases, and multi-region architectures are more relevant for large-scale, critical applications.

Guest was Bojan Zivic

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bojan-zivic-65431033/

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In Season 4, Episode 3 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Miguel Calles. They discuss AWS Elastic Beanstalk, AWS launching a new region in Mexico, Amazon Q Developer, interview with AWS CEO Matt Garman, ransomware attack on unsecured AWS S3 buckets and once again they got onto the subject of swag, this time AWS Community Builder swag, with renewal time looming...

04:56 - AWS Elastic Beanstalk adds additional Spot allocation strategies

AWS has introduced new spot allocation strategies for Elastic Beanstalk, including capacity optimized prioritized, lowest price, and price capacity optimized. This addition provides users with more options for optimizing their instances based on capacity and cost requirements.

12:12 - AWS Launches Infrastructure Region in Mexico

AWS is investing over $5 billion in a new Mexico Central region, which will create about 7,000 full-time jobs and add an estimated $10 billion to Mexico's GDP. This expansion will better serve Latin America with improved latency and data residency options for customers in the region.

18:24 - Unlocking AWS Console: Diagnosing Errors with Amazon Q Developer

Amazon Q Developer now offers a feature to help diagnose and solve AWS console errors. It provides step-by-step solutions for common issues, potentially saving developers time and improving the user experience for those less familiar with AWS.

25:53 - Why CEO Matt Garman is willing to bet AWS on AI

AWS's approach to AI, with Garman emphasizing the importance of investing in all aspects of AI, including large language models, inference, and practical applications. He likens the potential impact of AI to that of the internet revolution.

33:18 - AWS S3 feature abused by ransomware hackers to encrypt storage buckets

A new ransomware attack method targeting AWS S3 buckets was discussed. Attackers use leaked IAM credentials to upload their own encryption keys, lock down buckets using SSE-C, and then use lifecycle policies to delete the contents. The importance of proper key management and security practices was emphasized.

Guest was Miguel Calles

Mastering AWS Serverless book https://masteringawsserverlessbook.com
Serverless Security book https://serverlesssecuritybook.com
Serverless CISO website https://serverlessciso.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/miguel-a-calles-mba/

https://github.com/miguel-a-calles-mba/

https://miguelacallesmba.medium.com/

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In Season 4, Episode 2 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Ambassador & Community Builder, Niklas Westerstråhle. They discuss new configurable Point in Time Recovery periods for Amazon DynamoDB, AWS Compute Optimizer, automating Systems Manager patching reports, optimizing container workloads for sustainability, AI hallucination and potential fixes and Niklas becomes the first LogiCast guest to sport the coveted AWS gold jacket while recording!

07:08 - Announcing configurable point-in-time recovery periods for Amazon DynamoDB

12:21 - AWS Compute Optimizer now expands idle and rightsizing recommendations for Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling groups

17:23 - Automate Systems Manager patching reports via email and slack notifications in an AWS Organization

25:00 - Optimize your container workloads for sustainability

32:04 - Can AWS really fix AI hallucination? We talk to head of Automated Reasoning Byron Cook

Guest was Niklas Westerstråhle

https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklaswesterstrahle/

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In Season 4, Episode 1 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Gabriel Torres. They discuss AWS Community Builder program benefits and application process, Amazon CloudFront, AWS Backup's new search and item-level recovery features, decreasing storage volumes for RDS databases, troubleshooting AWS Systems Manager patching using Amazon Bedrock, Jeff Barr stepping down as lead AWS evangelist/blogger after 20 years and Karl & Jon are envious of Gabriel's summer weather in Ecuador!

06:39 - Amazon CloudFront Introduces Support for VPC Origins and Static IPs

13:22 - AWS Backup launches support for search and item-level recovery

18:32 - Shrink storage volumes for your RDS databases and optimize your infrastructure costs

23:53 - Troubleshooting AWS Systems Manager patching made easy with Amazon Bedrock’s automated recommendations

30:49 - And that’s a wrap!

Guest was Gabriel Torres

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gtorreswm/

https://gabrieltorreswm.medium.com/

https://github.com/gabrieltorreswm

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In Season 3 Episode 42 we have something a little different for the season finale. Karl & Jon attended the recent AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas from 2-6th December. On Tuesday 3rd December they attended the AWS Community Builder mixer in the AWS Community Hub in Buddy V's restaurant in The Venetian. While you won't hear from Jon in this episode, he did man the camera while Karl interviewed 16 AWS Community members about their experience at re:Invent, including AWS Community Builder program manager Jason Dunn. Check out the episode to find out what our AWS Community Builder peers got up to at re:Invent.

01:20 - Jason Dunn

01:52 - Stephen Sennett

03:04 - Raphael Manke

04:13 - Ashish Kumar

04:49 - Matt Martz

05:57 - Andres Moreno

06:53 - Robin Ford

08:00 - Ivan Casco

08:47 - Ryan Cormack

09:44 - Martyn Kilbryde

10:33 - Jenn Bergstrom

11:32 - Thomas Taylor

12:18 - Marin Radjenovic

13:46 - Amelia Hough-Ross

14:37 - Christophe Limpalair

15:49 - Ryan Pothecary

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In Season 3, Episode 41 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Abhishek Maurya. They discuss AWS Graviton Savings Dashboard, AWS Transfer Family Web Apps, AWS Data Transfer Terminals, AWS D-SQL and database price cuts, stolen AWS credentials from misconfigured S3 bucket and the guys wondered if AWS Community Builders get taller when they become AWS Heroes...

06:19 - Accelerate your AWS Graviton adoption with the AWS Graviton Savings Dashboard

13:29 - AWS Transfer Family Web Apps: Simplified S3 Data Access through the Browser

17:31 - AWS launches Data Transfer Terminals so users can drop off data to the cloud

23:30 - AWS cuts database prices almost 50% and adds distributed scaling capabilities

29:10 - Crooks stole AWS credentials from misconfigured sites then kept them in open S3 bucket

Guest was Abhishek Maurya

https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhitnc/

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In Season 3, Episode 40 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Chetan Hirapara. They discuss Lambda, CloudFormation Deployments, Anthropic, Amazon Q Developer plugins, Amazon Bedrock Agents and Karl suggests that you should choose a cloud provider based on your favourite colour....

06:53 - AWS Lambda turns 10: A rare look at the doc that started it

• Overview of the original PR FAQ document for Lambda

• Lambda was the first functions-as-a-service offering

• Lambda originally only supported Node.js, now supports many more languages and frameworks

• Billing granularity has improved from 250ms increments originally to 1ms now

• Cold start times for Java apps reduced by 90% with SnapStart

15:49 - Peek inside your AWS CloudFormation Deployments with timeline view

• It provides a waterfall view of CloudFormation deployments

• Helps identify bottlenecks and long-running operations

• Can help optimize deployments by splitting stacks, parallelizing, etc.

21:11 - Amazon considering further investment in Anthropic

• Amazon invested $4 billion in AI startup Anthropic in March 2022

• Reportedly wants Anthropic to use AWS Inferentia chips instead of Nvidia

• Anthropic was co-founded by former OpenAI executives

• Alphabet has also invested significantly in Anthropic

28:08 - Amazon Q Developer plugins now generally available for the AWS Management Console

• Plugins allow Q Developer to interface with third-party services like Datadog and Whiz

• Provides easy access to information without leaving the AWS console

• Limited to fairly simple questions currently

33:50 - How Amazon Bedrock Agents work

• Agents are like small orchestration software tools

• Have capabilities like memory, prompting users, invoking APIs

• Built using LLMs like Titan - Continuously run to provide answers to users

Guest was Chetan Hirapara

https://www.linkedin.com/in/chetan-hirapara-90344345/

https://www.youtube.com/@upskillwithchetan

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In Season 3, Episode 39 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Muhammad Rashid. They discuss Lambda VS Code IDE, Ephemeral jobs on ECS/Fargate, CloudFront/WAF billing change, Bedrock Prompt Management, AWS earnings results and Karl wonders if he may have coined the phrase 'Remote Working Natives'

07:27 - AWS enhances the Lambda application building experience with VS Code IDE and AWS Toolkit

New features in AWS Lambda - VS Code IDE and AWS Toolkit enhancements for building Lambda applications

12:32 - Ephemeral Jobs Longer than the Lambda Timeout

Running ephemeral jobs longer than the Lambda timeout - Using ECS and Fargate for ad hoc, long running background tasks

17:31 - Amazon CloudFront no longer charges for requests blocked by AWS WAF

CloudFront no longer charges for requests blocked by WAF - Small billing change but reduces costs for customers

23:16 - Amazon Bedrock Prompt Management is now generally available

Amazon Bedrock Prompt Management now generally available - Manages and chains prompts for more advanced AI workflows

28:39 - Amazon’s cloud unit records highest profit margin in at least a decade

AWS Q3 earnings results - AWS revenue growth remains strong, posts highest profit margin in over a decade

Guest was Muhammad Rashid

https://www.youtube.com/@codewithmuh

https://www.linkedin.com/in/muhammad-rashid-daha/

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In Season 3, Episode 38 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Anna Astori. They discuss Q Developer, Amazon VPC, AWS WAF, celebrating 10 years of Amazon ECS, Amazon return to office policy and once again Karl tries to extract trade secrets from our guest!

03:05 - AWS launches in-line Q Developer AI coding assistant to take on Microsoft’s Github Copilot

The speakers discuss the launch of AWS's Q Developer, an AI coding assistant to compete with GitHub Copilot. Jon is skeptical about the usefulness compared to IntelliSense. Anna agrees there are pros and cons. The new integration with CodeWhisperer model 3.5 could improve it.

13:13 - Amazon Virtual Private Cloud launches new security group sharing features

Jon explains the benefits of the new VPC security group sharing feature for connecting resources across VPCs more securely.

17:30 - How to mitigate bot traffic by implementing Challenge actions in your AWS WAF custom rules

The article explains how to use WAF challenge actions to mitigate bot traffic. Jon provides an overview of how rate limiting and bot control in WAF work.

23:52 - Celebrating 10 Years of Amazon ECS: Powering a Decade of Containerized Innovation

They discuss EC2 Container Service turning 10 years old. Jon explains the pricing and simplicity benefits of ECS compared to Kubernetes.

29:40 - Amazon workers 'appalled' by AWS CEO’s return to office remarks, urge policy reversal

Employees wrote an open letter criticizing the mandated return to 5 days a week in office. Anna and Jon discuss the discrimination concerns and why hybrid doesn't work.

Guest was Anna Astori

https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-astori/

https://annaeastori.medium.com/
https://x.com/AmaMidzu

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In Season 3, Episode 37 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Ryan Pothecary. They discuss CloudQuest and AWS Jam, AWS Session Manager, Amazon CloudWatch Evidently and AppConfig, Amazon going nuclear, Amazon's returning to office policy and Karl hopes Amazon can finally realise the Back to the Future Mr Fusion reactor...

06:22 - Enhance your real-world skills with AWS Cloud Quest and AWS Jam

• CloudQuest provides gamified learning for AWS certifications like Cloud Practitioner

• Jams are in-person problem solving events, Logicata is hosting a Jam soon

• Pricing for CloudQuest seems expensive compared to alternatives like Udemy courses

13:49 - Secure SSH Access to EC2 Instances with AWS Session Manager

• Session Manager provides secure remote access without exposing SSH ports

• It logs all activity for auditing and compliance

• Allows access through console, CLI, port forwarding

22:29 - Support for Amazon CloudWatch Evidently ending soon

• Evidently allowed testing variations of apps/websites to improve performance

• Being replaced by Amazon AppConfig which provides similar functionality

• Shows AWS consolidating services and giving notice before deprecation

27:01 - Amazon goes nuclear, to invest more than $500 million to develop small modular reactors

• To provide power for energy-hungry data centers and AI/ML workloads

• Investing in grid power, not owning reactors directly

• Small modular reactors easier to build and operate than large ones

33:24 - Amazon AWS CEO: Quit if you don't want to return to office

• Strong statement against remote work from Amazon leadership

• Cites need for in-person collaboration and innovation

• Unlikely to work as well outside the US due to logistics

• Remote teams can still innovate without being co-located

• Impact on attracting talent remains to be seen

Guest was Ryan Pothecary

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanpothecary/

https://dev.to/ryanpothecary

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In Season 3, Episode 36 Karl & Jon discuss Optimize CPUs, AWS CodePipeline, Amazon ElastiCache for Valkey, AWS Console-to-Code, departure of Matt Wood and the guys go off on a tangent about kids destroying things...

02:31 - Amazon EC2 now supports Optimize CPUs post instance launch

07:58 - AWS CodePipeline introduces new general purpose compute action

12:13 - Announcing Amazon ElastiCache for Valkey

18:05 - Convert AWS console actions to reusable code with AWS Console-to-Code, now generally available

24:20 - Amazon Web Services VP of AI, Matt Wood, is leaving the company

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In Season 3, Episode 35 Karl & Jon discuss Storage Browser for S3, Graviton 4-powered Amazon EC2 instances, Chatbops, Amazon GuardDuty, Elasticsearch and the guys go off on a tangent about bananas...

02:10 - Amazon Introduces Storage Browser for S3

The hosts discuss the launch of a new Storage Browser for Amazon S3 and how it provides an easier way for non-technical users to upload and download objects from S3 without needing access to the AWS console.

06:54 - Now available: Graviton4-powered memory-optimized Amazon EC2 X8g instances

The hosts talk about the announcement of new Graviton 4-powered Amazon EC2 instances.

13:35 - Ten features for efficiently managing your AWS applications from Microsoft Teams and Slack using AWS Chatbot

The hosts talk about using the AWS Chatbot to manage AWS services through Microsoft Teams and Slack. They talk about the benefits of chatops and doing tasks through chat rather than a browser or console.

24:28 - Get to know Amazon GuardDuty Runtime Monitoring for Amazon EC2

The hosts talk about some newer capabilities in Amazon GuardDuty like runtime monitoring for EC2 instances. They talk about the security benefits of having integrated tools.

28:54 - AWS Open-Source Brouhaha About Elasticsearch Takes Another Turn

The hosts discuss the ongoing dispute between AWS and Elastic over Elasticsearch being open source.

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In Season 3, Episode 34 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Abhishek Gupta. They discuss Graviton Spot compute, CLI v2 Linux support, AWS Backup visibility, CodeCommit/Cloud9 deprecation, UK AWS investment and they welcome their first guest from outer space.

05:09 - Amazon ECS now supports AWS Graviton-based Spot compute with AWS Fargate

14:05 - Linux Support Updates for AWS CLI v2

19:08 - Gain visibility of AWS backup activities using Amazon Managed Grafana

25:50 - Dear AWS, how do I build & develop purely on AWS right now?

36:04 - Chancellor announces £8 billion Amazon Web Services investment, as she vows to make every part of Britain better off

Guest was Abhishek Gupta

https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhi8968/

https://medium.com/@abhi133182

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In Season 3, Episode 33 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Christophe Limpalair. They discuss prompt engineering, CloudWatch Logs, Patch Manager, Magic Quadrant for AI Code Assistants, number of servers used to power EC2 and Karl assumes everything is about AI when it isn't...

04:24 - Implementing advanced prompt engineering with Amazon Bedrock

13:42 - Using Generative AI to Gain Insights into CloudWatch Logs

21:16 - Visualize AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager information using Amazon QuickSight

27:46 - AWS named as a Leader in the first Gartner Magic Quadrant for AI Code Assistants

34:29 - Amazon uses nearly half a million servers to power EC2, researcher estimates

Guest was Christophe Limpalair:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/christophelimpalair/

https://cybr.com

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In Season 3, Episode 32 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Rishab Kumar. They discuss Validation API for Step Functions, Lambda Layers, Quick Setup programmatic deployment, new certifications and courses, Challenger for Observability and the Logicata guys get serious neon sign envy...

Articles:

04:53- Announcing Validation API for AWS Step Functions

The new validation API for AWS Step Functions allows validating state machines before deployment to catch errors early. It was noted this could be useful to integrate into CI/CD pipelines.

09:19 - Why You Should Use AWS Lambda Layers

Using Lambda layers allows packaging dependencies separately from function code. This enables faster deployments when only code changes, limits package size so the console editor can still be used, and allows sharing dependencies between functions

16:51 - Deploy AWS Systems Manager Quick Setup programmatically across your AWS Organization

AWS Systems Manager Quick Setup can now be deployed programmatically via CloudFormation, CDK, CLI etc. This makes it easier to enable SSM access across an organization or onboard new accounts.

23:35 - New courses and certification updates from AWS Training and Certification in August 2024

New AWS certifications and courses were announced, including AI/ML related ones like Certified Machine Learning Engineer Associate. This reflects the growing demand for cloud skills in these areas.

30:37 - AWS named as a Challenger in the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Observability Platforms

AWS was named a Challenger in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Observability, reflecting their improved capabilities and execution in this space even if not yet a leader.

Guest was Rishab Kumar:

https://linkedin.com/in/rishabkumar7https://rishabkumar.com/https://x.com/rishabincloudhttps://youtube.com/@rishabincloud

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In Season 3, Episode 31 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Luis Valdivia. They discuss MacOS CI/CD, Upgrading Lambda Functions, Lambda Loop Detection, Chatbot for Security Events, ALB Misconfiguration Exposure and Jon describes how he's training his kids in the art of medieval combat...

Articles:

05:04 - Add macOS to your continuous integration pipelines with AWS CodeBuild

They discuss a new AWS CodeBuild feature that allows adding MacOS to continuous integration pipelines for building iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and MacOS applications and talk about challenges with using MacOS for builds.

15:48 - Leverage Amazon Q to upgrade Lambda runtime functions

They discuss using Amazon Q to help upgrade Lambda runtimes like moving from Python 3.7 to 3.12 and debate whether AI like Q is ready to fully take over coding.

22:35 - AWS Lambda introduces recursive loop detection APIs

They discuss a new recursive loop detection API in AWS Lambda and whether it is necessary and helpful for developers.

29:01 - Manage security events in Slack, Teams, or Amazon Chime using AWS Chatbot and Amazon Q

They discuss using AWS Chatbot with Amazon Q to manage security events in Slack/Chime.

33:28 -Thousands of Apps Using AWS ALB Exposed to Attacks Due to Configuration Issue

They discuss a report about potential misconfigurations exposing thousands of AWS environments due to issues with Application Load Balancers.

Guest was Luis Valdivia:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/luis-valdivia-humareda/

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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.net
https://dev.to/wparad

View Details

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

View Details

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 - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jwtechdev/

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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/

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In Season 3, Episode 26 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Igor Soroka.

Topics 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

View Details

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/

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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

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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

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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/

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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

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In Season 3, Episode 20 Karl & Jon discuss Amazon ECR, the fact that Amazon S3 No Longer Charges for some HTTP Error Codes, AWS managed applications, Multi-Region Disaster Recovery, Andy Jassy's AWS leadership announcement and Karl makes Jon speechless for once...

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

01:14 - Amazon ECR adds pull through cache support for GitLab.com

08:10 - Amazon S3 will no longer charge for several HTTP error codes

12:41 - How to use AWS managed applications with IAM Identity Center: Enable Amazon Q without migrating existing IAM federation flows

17:02 - Multi-Region Disaster Recovery with Amazon EKS and Amazon EFS for Stateful workloads

24:52 - Andy Jassy makes AWS leadership announcement

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In Season 3, Episode 19 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder and AWS User Group Leader, Raphael Manke. They discuss AWS Resilience Hub's drift detection, AWS Budgets, Amazon Bedrock Studio, customising AI on AWS, Amazon’s investment of nearly $9 billion in Singapore and Karl angles for some AWS User Group Karlsruhe stickers...

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

05:21 - AWS Resilience Hub expands application resilience drift detection capabilities

11:15 - AWS Budgets now supports resource and tag-based access controls

16:30 - Build generative AI applications with Amazon Bedrock Studio (preview)

23:51 - Amazon tempts enterprises to customize AI on AWS

30:00 - Amazon’s AWS to double down on Singapore with additional $9 billion cloud investment

Guest was Raphael Manke:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/raphael-manke-a61912114/
• https://github.com/RaphaelManke

View Details

In Season 3, Episode 18 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Praveen Sambu. They discuss Amazon Q, Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS Notifications, AWS S3 Storage Bucket Incident, AWS Revenue and Karl struggles to pronounce Ars Technica without sounding rude...

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

03:32 - Amazon Q Business, now generally available, helps boost workforce productivity with generative AI

10:58 - Amazon EC2 simplifies visibility into your active AMIs

14:49 -Set up notifications for Amazon RDS pending maintenance actions

19:10 - AWS S3 storage bucket with unlucky name nearly cost developer $1,300

25:04 - AWS hits $100B revenue run rate, expands margins, delivers most of Amazon's profit

Guest was Praveen Sambu

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/praveen-sambu-598141114/

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In Season 3, Episode 17 Karl & Jon discuss Amazon Inspector hybrid mode, AWS CodeBuild supporting GitHub Action runners, IAM Access Analyzer, Amazon Managed Grafana, AWS Summit London 2024 and Karl's Dad makes an unintentional guest appearance...

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

02:47 - Amazon Inspector agentless vulnerability assessments for Amazon EC2 are now Generally Available (GA)

08:39 - AWS CodeBuild now supports managed GitHub Action runners

15:03 - Evaluating public and cross account access at scale with IAM Access Analyzer for Amazon S3

20:18 - How to monitor AWS WAF logging centrally using Amazon Managed Grafana

26:15 - AWS Summit London 2024: All the news and updates live

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In Season 3, Episode 16 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Hero and AWS Ambassador, Brian Tarbox. They discuss Anthropic’s Claude 3 Opus revolutionizing generative AI on Amazon Bedrock, AWS CloudFormation ChangeSets, optimizing Amazon RDS snapshot costs, Snowmobile, why certification alone isn’t enough in the dynamic world of cloud engineering and this week's tangents included trains and boats and planes!

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

03:51- Anthropic's Claude 3 Opus model now available on Amazon Bedrock

11:35 - AWS CloudFormation ChangeSets now offer enhanced change visibility for deployments

17:12 - Programmatic approach to optimize the cost of Amazon RDS snapshots

23:42 - Amazon cloud unit kills Snowmobile data transfer truck eight years after driving 18-wheeler onstage

29:35 - Certification is not enough

Guest was Brian Tarbox:

• https://briantarbox.com/

View Details

In Season 3, Episode 15 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Rich House. They discuss Amazon Bedrock in Asia Pacific (Sydney), AWS IAM Identity Center, AWS Tools for Amazon RDS Cost Optimization, US-EAST-1 Region Insights, Amazon Engineer’s Cybersecurity Efforts and Jon proves he is less adept than Mr Miyagi at catching flies...

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

06:07 - Amazon Bedrock is now available in the Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region

11:46 - AWS IAM Identity Center now offers a streamlined AWS access portal and shortcut links

18:10 - AWS tools to optimize your Amazon RDS costs

28:50 - US-EAST-1 region is not the cloudy crock it's made out to be, claims AWS EC2 boss

32:34 - How one Amazon engineer is making the internet a safer place for all of us (and cats, too)

Guest was Rich House:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/rich-house/

View Details

In Season 3, Episode 14 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Edmund Craske. They discuss AWS Compute Optimizer, per-second billing for EC2 RHEL Instances, Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments, Amazon’s $150 Billion Data Center Investment, Amazon’s Investment in Anthropic and Jon gets sidetracked with his plumbing, again...

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

04:56 - AWS Compute Optimizer introduces memory customizability for EC2 rightsizing recommendations

11:22 - Announcing per-second billing for EC2 Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)-based instances

14:44 - Achieve faster switchover for Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments with large number of connections

20:37 - Amazon bets $150 billion on data centers required for AI boom

27:42 - Amazon Pumps Another $2.75 Billion Into Anthropic

Guest was Edmund Craske

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/edmundcraske

View Details

In Season 3, Episode 13 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Vijaya Nirmala Gopal.

They discuss DynamoDB's AWS PrivateLink support, Secrets Manager integration with Redshift Serverless, a 7-day window for returning Savings Plans, AWS Lambda cold start issues, cost savings of transitioning to AWS from on-premises and Karl speculated that cold starts may be worse in Canada...The articles discussed in this week episode are:

04:11 - Amazon DynamoDB now supports AWS PrivateLink

09:00 - AWS Secrets Manager announces support for Amazon Redshift Serverless data warehouse

13:49 - AWS announces a 7-day window to return Savings Plans

21:15 - Is AWS Lambda Cold Start Still an Issue?

28:32 - Moving from on premises to the cloud with AWS delivers significant cost savings, report finds

Guest was Vijaya Nirmala Gopal

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/vijayanirmalagopal-5a54159a/

View Details

In Season 3, Episode 12 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Stephen Sennett. They discuss updates to AWS CloudFormation ,AWS Backup, Claude models, Step Functions vs. Lambda Functions, 'builder studio' down under and the guys get sidetracked discussing swag, again...

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

06:15 - Experience up to 40% faster stack creation with AWS CloudFormation

10:06 - AWS Backup now supports restore testing for Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) Snapshots Archive

15:56 - Anthropic’s Claude 3 Haiku model is now available on Amazon Bedrock

22:08 - When to use Step Functions vs. doing it all in a Lambda function

29:23 - Amazon opens first 'builder studio' down under to accelerate tech innovation

Guest was Stephen Sennett

• https://linkedin.com/in/ssennettau

View Details

In Season 3, Episode 11 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Serverless Hero, Danielle Heberling. They discuss AWS WAF dashboard, Windows authentication on Linux containers, documentation processes, free data transfer out to internet when moving out of AWS, Nuclear-Powered Data Centers and Jon prepares his tin foil hat...

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

03:05 - Introducing the AWS WAF traffic overview dashboard

09:24 - Windows authentication with gMSA on Linux containers on Amazon ECS with AWS Fargate

13:40 - Reduce project delays with a docs-as-code solution

19:48 - Free data transfer out to internet when moving out of AWS

24:47 - Amazon's AWS Acquires Nuclear-Powered Data Center in Pennsylvania for $650 Million, Expanding Cloud Computing Dominance

Guest was Danielle Heberling

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/deeheber/
• https://danielleheberling.xyz/
• https://twitter.com/deeheber
• https://github.com/deeheber
• https://dev.to/deeheber

View Details

In Season 3, Episode 10 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Serverless Hero, Ran Isenberg. They discuss AWS Lambda, AWS CodeStar Connections & AWS Service Catalog, logs in Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon RDS for MySQL & Amazon RDS for MariaDB, Cloud Cybersecurity Checkup for SMB in 2024 and the guys go off on tangents about Ikea and Lego...

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

03:07 - AWS Lambda improves responsiveness for configuring stream and queue-based event sources

08:45 -Streamline Platform Engineering using AWS CodeStar Connections with AWS Service Catalog

17:51 - Accelerate troubleshooting with structured logs in Amazon CloudWatch

23:28 - Trigger an AWS Lambda function from Amazon RDS for MySQL or Amazon RDS for MariaDB using audit logs and Amazon CloudWatch

29:10 - How to Do a Cloud Cybersecurity Checkup for Your SMB in 2024: Benefits, Checklists, Requirements, and More

Guest was Ran Isenberg

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ranisenberg/

https://www.ranthebuilder.cloud/

https://twitter.com/IsenbergRan

https://github.com/ran-isenberg

https://dev.to/ranisenberg

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In Season 3, Episode 9 Karl & Jon discuss AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store, LLRT, Terraform State files, migrating Cognito users to a new user pool, AWS Cloud learning skills and Jon offers identity management tips that could land you in jail...

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

01:32 - AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store now supports cross-account sharing

07:47 - AWS Introduces an Experimental Low Latency Runtime for Faster, More Efficient Serverless Apps

13:26 - Best practices for managing Terraform State files in AWS CI/CD Pipeline

23:08 - What’s the best way to migrate Cognito users to a new user pool?

30:42 - Learn AWS Cloud skills based on your unique learning style

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In Season 3, Episode 8 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Benjamen Pyle.They discuss Control Tower, AWS CodePipeline, AI, renewable energy, and Jon has a rant about the hidden message behind Thomas the Tank Engine!

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

03:12 - AWS Control Tower introduces APIs to register Organizational Units

08:29 - AWS CodePipeline adds support for Branch-based development and Monorepos

15:21 - Knowledge Bases for Amazon Bedrock now supports Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL and Cohere embedding models

17:41 - Amazon Web Services signs 98.4MW wind PPA in Oregon

22:40 - 7 ways Amazon is using AI to build a more sustainable future

Guest was Benjamen Pyle:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamenpyle/

https://www.binaryheap.com/

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In Season 3, Episode 7 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Steve Woodard. They discuss CloudFormation, CDK Migration and Product Overlap Paralysis, IPv4 address charges, the 13 Rs, 4 tech predictions and Jon outs Karl as a MAMIL...

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

03:48 - Import entire applications into AWS CloudFormation

11:25 - AWS Launches CDK Migrate and CloudFormation IaC Generator for Infrastructure as Code Adoption

18:58 - IPv4 address rentals to mint millions of dollars for AWS

26:15 - The 13 Rs Of Cloud Computing

30:16 - 4 tech predictions for 2024 and beyond, according to Amazon CTO Dr. Werner Vogels

Guest was Steve Woodard:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevewoodardpi/

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In Season 3, Episode 6 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder and AWS Ambassador, Martyn Kilbryde. They discuss AWS Console-to-Code, ECS, security reports, AWS Certification, Amazon cloud unit revenue and Karl recalls the time he accidentally invented the Lager Lamp...

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

03:07 - AWS Console-to-Code: Generating Code for Console Actions

11:17 - 5 DevOps Use Cases for Amazon ECS

16:20 - Datadog Report Surfaces Pair of Sophisticated AWS Attacks

25:07 - AWS Certification retirements and launches

31:43 - Amazon cloud unit speeds up revenue growth as clients adopt AI services

Guest was Martyn Kilbryde

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/martyn-kilbryde/
• https://makit.net/

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In Season 3, Episode 5 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder Amelia Hough-Ross. They discuss Lightsail, Amazon RDS Multi-AZ, Cloud cost optimization, serverless pricing in AWS, Hyperautomation and Karl tries to get Amelia to share national secrets...

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

02:56 - Announcing IPv6 instance bundles and pricing update on Amazon Lightsail

09:37 - Amazon RDS Multi-AZ with two readable standbys: Under the hood

13:53 - Cloud cost optimization at scale part 1

20:36 - Decode serverless pricing in AWS to avoid high costs

25:58 - Free Up Your Human Talent With Hyperautomation on AWS

Guest was Amelia Hough-Ross

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ameliahoughross/

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In Season 3, Episode 4 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Matt Martz. They discuss debugging databases with OpenAI, generative infrastructure as code with Application Composer, automating object processing in Amazon S3 directory buckets, slashing Data Transfer Costs in AWS, tagging controls with AWS Config and AWS Organizations and Karl recalls his favourite inappropriate Panda acronym.

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

02:54 - AWS is readying LLM-based debugger for databases to take on OpenAI

09:30 - Using generative infrastructure as code with Application Composer

16:51 - Automate object processing in Amazon S3 directory buckets with S3 Batch Operations and AWS Lambda

22:25 - Slashing Data Transfer Costs in AWS by 99%

27:02 - Implementing automated and centralized tagging controls with AWS Config and AWS Organizations

Guest was Matt Martz

• https://twitter.com/martzcodes
• https://linkedin.com/in/martzcodes
• https://github.com/martzcodes
• https://matt.martz.codes/

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In Season 3, Episode 3 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Serverless Hero, Allen Helton. They discuss Container Orchestration, code coverage, automating the delivery of AWS Backup Audit Manager reports, AWS to Shut down Aurora Serverless v1, detecting PII data in Amazon Aurora with Amazon Comprehend and Karl goes off on a tangent about how much Patrick Duffy earned acting in Dallas.

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

05:20 - Container Orchestration: AWS ECS vs. AWS EKS — Choosing the Right Path for Your Workloads

12:45 - Looking beyond code coverage with Amazon CodeWhisperer

20:23 - Automate the delivery of AWS Backup Audit Manager reports

26:02 - AWS to Shut down Aurora Serverless v1, Their Sole Relational Database with Scaling Capacity to Zero

31:11 - Detect PII data in Amazon Aurora with Amazon Comprehend

Guest was Allen Helton: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allenheltondev/

https://www.readysetcloud.io/blog/

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In Season 3, Episode 2, Karl & Jon are joined by fellow AWS Community Builder, Jason Andrews from ARM. They discuss AWS Fourth-Generation Graviton Processor, prompt engineering with Amazon CodeWhisperer, how to prevent creation of noncompliant cloud resources, reducing Cloud costs, Magic Quadrant and Jon recycle's a previous guest's jokes!

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

03:45 - AWS Unveils Fourth-Generation Graviton Processor with R8g EC2 Instances

13:30 - Best Practices for Prompt Engineering with Amazon CodeWhisperer

20:12 - How to use AWS Config proactive rules and AWS CloudFormation Hooks to prevent creation of noncompliant cloud resources

25:15 - The AWS Calculator and Other Free Tools to Reduce Your Cloud Costs

28:35 - AWS, Microsoft, Google Lead Gartner’s Cloud Services Magic Quadrant

Guest was Jason Andrews
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-andrews-7b05a8/

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In Season 3, Episode 1, Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Hero and Host of the Boston AWS User Group, Brian Tarbox. They discuss Adam Selipsky Amazon’s AI vision, IAM Access Analyzer, Free Tier API and Jon goes off on a tangerine tangent...

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

07:30 - AWS chief Adam Selipsky talks Amazon’s AI vision, cloud cost cutting

24:17 - AWS Adds Automated Detection of Unused IAM Roles, Users, and Permissions

29:46 - AWS Exposes Free Tier API to Help Developers Avoid Unexpected Bills

Guest was Brian Tarbox:

https://briantarbox.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/briantarbox/

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In Season 2, Episode 42, Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Ambassador, and Co-Host of the AWS UK User Group, Jon Topper. They discuss Amazon's Q, an A.I. Chatbot for Companies, Amazon S3 Express One Zone, AWS Control Tower, SaaS Quick Launch for AWS Marketplace and Karl tried his best not to confuse the Jons...

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

06:39 - Amazon Introduces Q, an A.I. Chatbot for Companies
15:26 - AWS launches high-speed Amazon S3 Express One Zone object storage tier

20:27 - AWS Control Tower adds new controls to help customers meet digital sovereignty requirements

27:48 - Announcing SaaS Quick Launch for AWS Marketplace

Guest was Jon Topper:

https://www.topper.me.uk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jtopper/

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In Season 2, Episode 41, Karl & Jon are joined by Sumon Molla Selim (SumonMSelim). They discuss Amazon WorkSpaces Thin Client, AWS Step Functions HTTPS endpoints and the new TestState AP, automatic restore testing and validation in AWS Backup, Amazon ElastiCache Serverless for Redis and Memcached,, AWS’s Cost Optimization Hub and new customisation options in its Compute Optimizer and... Jon said the S word but we don't have a beeper...

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

04:13 - AWS unveils new enterprise hardware to provide businesses with easy-to-use virtual desktops

12:20 - AWS Step Functions launches support for HTTPS endpoints and a new TestState API

19:22 - Automatic restore testing and validation now available in AWS Backup

24:30 - Amazon ElastiCache Serverless for Redis and Memcached is now available

29:29 - AWS reveals new Cost Optimization Hub, adds welcome customisations to Compute Optimizer

Guest was Sumon Molla Selim

• https://www.sumonselim.com
• https://twitter.com/sumonmselim?s=21&t=32vvPJEcoe2F2l72dARQ9w
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/SumonMSelim/
• https://www.facebook.com/SumonMSelim
• https://github.com/SumonMSelim
• https://stackoverflow.com/users/1334933/muhammad-sumon-molla-selim

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In Season 2, Episode 40, Karl & Jon discuss Amazon CloudFront KeyValueStore, AWS CloudFormation features, how to use multiple instances of AWS IAM Identity Center, how Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers are using purified wastewater for their cooling systems, 5 Generative AI Predictions and a wishlist from AWS re:Invent 2023 and Jon makes an interesting analogy between CloudFormation and sausage dogs.

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

02:21 - Introducing Amazon CloudFront KeyValueStore: A low-latency datastore for CloudFront Functions

09:11 - AWS CloudFormation simplifies resource import with a new parameter for ChangeSets

17:22 - How to use multiple instances of AWS IAM Identity Center

24:10 - AWS using reclaimed wastewater for data center cooling at 20 locations

28:38 - 5 Generative AI Predictions And A Wishlist From AWS re:Invent 2023

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In Season 2, Episode 39, Karl & Jon are joined by Johannes Koch. They discuss how to build AI apps with PartyRock and Amazon Bedrock, advanced logging controls for AWS Lambda functions, AWS Step Functions to recover from failures, Amazon CodeCatalyst using AWS IAM Identity Center, how cloud experts weigh in with 2023 AWS re:Invent predictions and Johannes tells us what German sweet treats he is taking to Vegas to sweeten up his contacts.

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

04:17 - Build AI apps with PartyRock and Amazon Bedrock

10:46 - Introducing advanced logging controls for AWS Lambda functions

18:01 - Introducing AWS Step Functions redrive to recover from failures more easily

20:54 - Amazon CodeCatalyst now supports single sign-on using AWS IAM Identity Center

29:58 - Cloud experts weigh in with 2023 AWS re:Invent predictions

Follow our guest, Johannes Koch here:

https://www.lockhead.info

https://www.youtube.com/@cicdonaws

https://www.linkedin.com/in/johannes-koch-353b2158/

https://twitter.com/@lockhead

https://lockhead.info/index.php/2023/11/16/experiencing-genai-using-partyrock-the-best-applications-ive-seen-until-now/

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSEiMZ6cyJva8Y9ZyUdGg6v5NNSfKTeSf

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In Season 2, Episode 38, Karl & Jon are joined by Andres Moreno. They discuss registration for AWS Certified Data Engineer, reducing MTTR for the serverless workloads, powering Amazon RDS with AWS Graviton3, how to use Amazon Bedrock to manage social postings, how Cryptojackers steal AWS credentials from GitHub and that Jon suffers through his illness for the cause...

The articles discussed in this week episode are:

03:56 - Registration open for AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate beta exam

09:33 - Lowering MTTR with Amazon CloudWatch and AWS X-Ray

17:47 - Powering Amazon RDS with AWS Graviton3: Benchmarks

21:10 - How I Used Amazon Bedrock to Write, Schedule, and Post My Tweets

28:46 - Cryptojackers steal AWS credentials from GitHub in 5 minutes

Follow our guest, Andres Moreno here:

Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/andmoredev/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/andmoredev
Website - https://www.andmore.dev/

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In Season 2, Episode 37, Karl & Jon discuss the AWS Cloud Institute virtual program, Systems Manager Patch Compliance Status, AWS Trusted Advisor, the Ofcom cloud report and why AWS isn't adding new languages to CodeWhisperer just yet.

The articles we discussed in this week's episode are:

• 01:15 - AWS releases Cloud Institute virtual program to train developers
• 09:24 - Identify AWS Systems Manager Patch Compliance Status with AWS CloudTrail Lake
• 14:41 - Auto-remediate best practice deviations detected by AWS Trusted Advisor
• 20:07 - Ofcom cloud report: What interventions could the CMA take against AWS and Microsoft?
• 26:40 - Why AWS isn't adding new languages to CodeWhisperer just yet

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In Season 2, Episode 36, Karl & Jon discuss Amazon DataZone, Multi Arch infrastructure, Amazon Bedrock, AWS MadPot and MFA by default. And Karl went off on a tangent about canal boats.

These are the articles that we discussed in this episode:

• 01:45 Amazon DataZone Now Generally Available – Collaborate on Data Projects across Organizational Boundaries
• 07:36 The Insider’s Guide to Building a Multi-Arch Infrastructure
• 15:03 What is Amazon Bedrock? 4 ways it can help businesses use generative AI tools
• 21:48 AWS stirs the MadPot – busting bot baddies and eastern espionage
• 26:18 AWS kicks off cloud race to mandate MFA by default

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In Episode 35 of Season 2, Karl & Jon discuss the recent big Amazon AI announcements - the launch of Amazon Bedrock into General Availability and the Amazon investment in Anthropic. They also touch on deploying container applications using CodeCatalyst and AppRunner, tips to pass AWS Solutions Architect Professional and some of the latest announcements from AWS Training & Development, and Jon reveals his inner trainspotter...

Articles discussed in this episode:

• 01:33 - Amazon Bedrock is now generally available as AWS enterprise GenAI efforts get serious
• 07:40 - Amazon takes $4bn minority stake in AI safety research startup Anthropic
• 11:27 - Deploying container application using Amazon CodeCatalyst and AWS App Runner
• 18:05 - Conquering a Mountain: 5 Tips to Pass AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional
• 26:03 - New courses and certification updates from AWS Training and Certification in September 2023

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In Episode 34 of Season 2, Karl & Jon talk about Amazon's new cloud storage offerings unveiled at AWS Storage Day, the introduction of AWS Dedicated Local Zones, setting up memory metrics for Amazon EC2 instances using AWS Systems Manager, AWS's IPv4 challenges, and a cryptojacking campaign that exploits less-used AWS services to stay hidden. Also, Jon re-grounds himself while Karl enjoys some big numbers.

Here are links to the articles discussed:

• 01:05 Amazon Unveils New Cloud Storage Offerings at AWS Storage Day via Steve McDowell on Forbes
• 09:32 AWS Introduces Dedicated Local Zones for Sovereignty Requirements via Renato Losio on InfoQ
• 14:31 Setup memory metrics for Amazon EC2 instances using AWS Systems Manager via Sibasankar Behera and Erik Weber on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud Operations & Migrations Blog
• 20:45 AWS: Cannot Escape IPv4 via neveragain.de
• 27:21 AWS cryptojacking campaign abuses less-used services to hide via Lucian Constantin on CSO Online

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In Episode 33 of Season 2, Karl & Jon are joined by fellow AWS Community Builder Igor Soroka. They discuss the general availability of AWS SAM support for HashiCorp Terraform, a centralized dashboard for AWS Config and AWS Security Hub, AWS Lambda's deprecation of the Go runtime, and how to stand out in the cloud job market with digital badges from AWS Education Programs.

Here are links to the articles discussed:

• 06:02 AWS SAM support for HashiCorp Terraform now generally available via Eric Johnson on the Amazon Web Services Compute Blog
• 14:02 Centralized Dashboard for AWS Config and AWS Security Hub via Jegan Sundarapandian and Snehal Nahar on the Amazon Web Services Cloud Operations & Migrations Blog
• 21:43 AWS Lambda Deprecates Go Runtime via Renato Losio on InfoQ
• 27:17 Seeking a cloud job? Stand out with a digital badge from AWS Education Programs via Amazon Web Services Training & Certification Blog

Follow Igor here:

https://www.soroka.tech/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/igor-soroka/

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In Episode 32 of Season 2, Karl & Jon are joined by fellow AWS Community Builder Manoj L. They discuss AWS WAF Bot Control, chaos engineering, AWS EC2 Classic, saving on AWS costs, AWS FinOps, and Karl forgets both Jeff Barr & Corey Quinn's names in the same episode!

Here are links to the articles discussed:

• AWS WAF Bot Control now protects against distributed proxy-based attacks via Amazon Web Services news
• Any Day Can Be Prime Day: How Amazon.com Search Uses Chaos Engineering to Handle Over 84K Requests Per Secondvia Seth Eliot on Amazon Web Services community
• AWS shuts down its first-gen compute and network infrastructure via Simon Sharwood on The Register
• Key ways to save on AWS costs via Simon Turner on Information Age
• Cloud Costs: 10 Essential AWS FinOps Best Practices to Know via Tim King on Solutions Review

Follow Manoj here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/manoj-l-a9a58432/

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In Season 2 Episode 31 Karl & Jon discuss how AWS have scrapped Honeycode, how to regain access to an EC2 instance if you lost your keypair, the AWS acquisution of Fig, using S3 for Laravel storage and whether FinOps is fit for purpose in the era of CloudFlation. Karl also waffles on about this year's poor fig crop...

Here are the links to the articles discussed:

• 01:13 -  Muted response speaks volumes as AWS scraps low-code Honeycode
• 08:43 - Lost Your EC2 Key Pair? Here’s How to Regain Access to Your Instance
• 12:48 - Amazon Web Services acquires Fig, a YC grad that boosts the command line for devs
• 20:59 - Using AWS S3 for Laravel Storage
• 26.10 - Is FinOps fit for purpose in the fight against ‘cloudflation’?

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In Season 2 Episode 30, Karl & Jon are joined by fellow AWS Community Builder Davide de Paolis. They delve into the latest in the AWS ecosystem, including the inauguration of the first international AWS Skills Center in Cape Town, a comparison between ECS and EKS with five key differences, The Guardian's adoption of serverless Postgres, insights into loving AWS despite growth slowdown, and AWS's continued dominance in the cloud market.

Here are links to the articles discussed:

• AWS brings in-person, interactive learning to Cape Town with the first international AWS Skills Center via Amazon
• ECS Vs. EKS: 5 Key Differences and How to Choose on DevOps.com
• Aurora Serverless – a migration story on The Guardian
• AWS: Five Reasons to Love It Despite Growth Slowdown via Bob Evans on Acceleration Economy
• AWS leads the cloud via David Manners on Electronics Weekly

Follow Davide de Paolis here:

https://dev.to/dvddpl

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Season 2 Episode 29 sees the triumphant return of Karl to the podcast. This week he and Jon discuss AWS' new Cyber Insurance platform, new controls added to AWS Security Hub, Microsoft's change to the M365 licence that now allows it to run on AWS Workspaces, AWS's Monitoring and Observability efforts, and more talk about Cloud Repatriation.

Here are the links to the topics discussed:

• 5 Value Propositions That Make AWS Cyber Insurance Transformative for Customers via Chris Hughes on Acceleration Economy
• AWS Security Hub launches 12 new security controls via Amazon Web Services (AWS) news
• Amazon WorkSpaces finally supports Office 365, but why now? via Gabe Knuth on Techtarget
• AWS named as a Challenger in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Application Performance Monitoring and Observability via Kavya Pillutla
• No backing away from the cloud via Mike Loukides on CloudTweaks

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In Episode 28 of Season 2 Jon flies solo again, and laments the lack of Karl's presence.

He welcomes fellow AWS Community Builder Omkar Kadam, where they discuss Lambda Proactive initialisations, Fargate's Seekable OCI, DevOps best practices on AWS, Cloud IaaS spending topping $100 billion for the first time and using the cloud to enhance sustainability activities. Omkar also has an exciting announcement, in a first for LogiCast.

Here are the links to the topics discussed:

• https://dev.to/aws-heroes/goodbye-cold-starts-hello-proactive-initialization-28j7
• https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2023/07/aws-fargate-container-startup-seekable-oci/
• https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/architecture/lets-architect-devops-best-practices-on-aws/
• https://siliconangle.com/2023/07/18/gartner-worldwide-iaas-spending-topped-100b-first-time-2022/
• https://bernardmarr.com/commitment-to-sustainability-is-a-key-message-at-aws-london-summit-2023/

Connect with Omkar:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/omkarokkadam/
• https://medium.com/@omkarokkadam
• https://dev.to/omkarokkadam

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In Season 2 Episode 27 Jon tries his hand at hosting, with mixed results. He welcomes fellow AWS Community Builders Girish Mukim and Matt Morgan, where they discuss FSx for NetApp ONTAP supporting immutable WORM state, an overview of AWS CodePipeline, Detecting recursive loops in AWS Lambda, AWS Organisations with Service Control Policies and another look at the Prime Video team's recent re-architecting of the QoS monitor.

Here are the links to the topics discussed:

• https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-amazon-fsx-for-netapp-ontap-now-supports-worm-protection-for-regulatory-compliance-and-ransomware-protection/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=logicata_aws_weekly_news_roundup_issue_151&utm_term=2023-07-14
• https://www.techrepublic.com/article/aws-codepipeline-review/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=logicata_aws_weekly_news_roundup_issue_151&utm_term=2023-07-14
• https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/detecting-and-stopping-recursive-loops-in-aws-lambda-functions/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=logicata_aws_weekly_news_roundup_issue_151&utm_term=2023-07-14
• https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/mt/achieving-operational-excellence-with-design-considerations-for-aws-organizations-scps/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=logicata_aws_weekly_news_roundup_issue_151&utm_term=2023-07-14
• https://thenewstack.io/amazon-prime-videos-microservices-move-doesnt-lead-to-a-monolith-after-all/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=logicata_aws_weekly_news_roundup_issue_151&utm_term=2023-07-14

Follow Girish on his socials:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/girish-mukim/
• https://www.youtube.com/c/AWSLearn

Follow Matt on his socials:

• https://mattmorgan.cloud/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-morgan-0344a51/

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In Season 2 Episode 26, Karl & Jon welcome fellow AWS Community Builder Maria Christidi Noble. They discuss the latest developments in the world of AWS, including live tailing for AWS CloudWatch logs, AWS's embrace of generative AI, the introduction of EC2 Instance Connect Endpoint, notable departures from AWS leadership, and the expansion of the AWS Re/Start program to Portugal.

Here are links to the topics discussed:

• 04:46 Amazon Introduces Live Tail in CloudWatch Logs for Real-Time Exploration of Logs via Renato Losio on InfoQ
• 11:38 AWS: Embracing the Power of Generative AI via Brad Anderson on ReadWrite
• 16:06 EC2 Instance Connect Endpoint Enables Secure Connectivity between Public and Private Networks via Steef-Jan Wiggers on InfoQ
• 25:02 5 Top AWS Executives Who Resigned, Departed In 2023 via Mark Haranas on The Channel Company
• 30:47AWS re/Start, the free cloud workforce training programme, expands to Portugal via Amazon news

Follow Maria on her socials:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-christidi-noble/

• https://medium.com/@noble_maria
• https://dev.to/maria_noble_a2e33ee181c17

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In Season 2 Episode 25, Karl & Jon, together with fellow AWS Community Builder Martyn Kilbryde, discuss the latest updates from AWS Training and Certification, explore testing AWS Lambda functions with AWS SAM remote invoke, reprocessing messages in Amazon SQS's dead-letter queue, uncover the security and privacy measures of the world's largest cloud provider, and learn about AWS's new AppFabric.

Here are links to the articles discussed:

02:08 New courses and updates from AWS Training and Certification in May and June 2023 on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Training and Certification Blog

08:04 Testing AWS Lambda functions with AWS SAM remote invoke via Eric Johnson on the Amazon Web Services Compute blog

15:50 Amazon SQS Supports Reprocessing Messages from Dead-Letter Queue via Renato Losio on InfoQ

24:01 AWS: How security and privacy works inside the world’s largest cloud provider via Lewis Maddison on TechRadar

27:24 AWS announces AWS AppFabric on Amazon Web Services (AWS) news

You can find Martyn here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/martyn-kilbryde/

https://makit.net/

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In Logicast Season 2 Episode 24, we delve into the latest developments in the world of AWS, including dedicated hosts on AWS Outposts, time skipping in testing Step Functions, the battle between AWS Elastic Beanstalk and Fargate, upcoming updates to AWS certifications, and the cost research behind AWS Spot Instances.

Here are links to the articles discussed:

• 01:02 AWS makes its hybrid cloud behave a bit more like normal, boring, on-prem servers via Simon Sharwood on The Register
• 08:03 Testing Step Functions: how to skip time when testing Timeout and Wait states via Yan Cui on Dev.to
• 12:41 AWS Elastic Beanstalk vs. Fargate: What Are the Differences? via Christopher Tozzi on ITPro Today
• 17:51 Coming soon: updates to AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam via Andre Zoutte on the Amazon Web Services Training and Certification blog
• 24:08 Exploring the Cost Efficiency of AWS Spot Instances: A Research Investigation via Aditya Kulkarni on InfoQ

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Join us on the latest episode of Logicast as we explore secure connectivity with EC2 Instance Connect, discover free money-saving tips for business owners, delve into the consequences of an S3 bucket leak, unravel the confusion around cloud costs, and discuss the recent Amazon cloud service outage.

Here are links to the articles discussed:

• 03:17 Secure Connectivity from Public to Private: Introducing EC2 Instance Connect Endpoint via Sheila Busser on Amazon Web Services compute blog
• 10:53 Dear Business Owner, Here is a FREE Way to Save Thousands on Amazon EC2 Hosting via John Rampton on Entrepreneur Media
• 19:23 Lantum S3 bucket leak is prescription for chaos for thousands of UK doctors via Lindsay Clark on The Register
• 25:34 A confusion that costs via Brian Tarbox on dev.to
• 29:00 Amazon cloud services back up after big outage hits thousands of users via Samrhitha A and Chavi Mehta on Reuters

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In Season 2 Episode 22, Karl & Jon welcomed fellow AWS Community Builder Armielyn Obinguar as their guest. Together they discussed the top secret AWS Snowblade server, reducing AWS S3 KMS costs, other Cloud Optimization techniques and tips, and AWS training badges and certifications. Jon also earned a new middle name…

Here are the links to the topics discussed:

• 02:14 AWS teases mysterious mil-spec 'Snowblade' server, via Simon Sharwood on The Register
• 08:45 Reducing AWS Key Management Service costs by up to 99% with S3 Bucket Keys, via Will Calvin on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• 12:20 What's missing in your cloud optimization projects, via David Linthicum on InfoWorld
• 19:04 10 tips to prepare simultaneously for AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner and AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate exams, via Trevor Harvey on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Training and Certification Blog
• 26:42 Build your serverless knowledge and earn digital badges, via Riaz Panjwani and Dylan S. on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Training & Certification Blog

Follow Armielyn here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/armielyn-obinguar-9229561b0/

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In Episode 21 of our second season Karl and Jon welcome fellow AWS Community Builder Abhishek Maurya to talk about Snowball Edge and AWS's Large Data Migration Service, Jon shamelessly self-promotes his article about Lambda's use-cases, granting least-privileged access to EC2 servers, Chris Vonderhaar's sudden exit from AWS, Elastic's new agreement with AWS, TikTok & AWS Certifications.

The articles that inspired this week's episode are:

• 04:47 - New – Snowball Edge Storage Optimized Devices with More Storage and Bandwidth via Jeff Barr on the AWS News Blog
• 13:50 - AWS Lambda Use Cases: When You Should Use It? via Jon Goodall on the Logicata blog
• 21:18 - How to grant least privilege access to third-parties on your private EC2 instances with AWS Systems Manager via Stephanie Mbappe and Erik Weber on the AWS Cloud Migrations and Operations blog
• 26:02 Amazon confirms abrupt departure of AWS data center chief Chris Vonderhaar via Todd Bishop on GeekWire
• 29:26 Elastic Signs Strategic Collaboration Agreement with AWS to Accelerate Global Cloud Adoption via Business Wire

Connect with Abhishek here:
LinkedIn
Topmate

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In Episode 20 of Season 2, Karl & Jon together with guest Jon Zeolla discuss AWS IAM roles and how to use them, using Amazon CloudWatch Internet Monitor, backup strategies for Amazon DynamoDB, developing a serverless Slack App, and how EC2 is exploited in new cryptomining attacks.

Here are links to the articles discussed:

• 02:42 AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) Roles and How to use Them via Mariusz Michałowski on DevOps.com
• 07:27 Use Amazon CloudWatch Internet Monitor for greater visibility into online experiences via Kelvin Ting and Richi Kumari on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud Operations and Migrations blog
• 14:30 Backup strategies for Amazon DynamoDB via Ted Zamborsky on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Database blog
• 17:00 Developing a serverless Slack app using AWS Step Functions and AWS Lambda via Eric Johnson on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Compute blog
• 24:05 AWS EC2 exploited in new cryptomining attacks via SC Media

Follow Jon's socials here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonzeolla/

https://jonzeolla.com/

https://seisollc.com/

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In Episode 19 of Season 2, Karl & Jon welcome yet another guest onboard - fellow AWS Community Builder Ben Ellis. They discuss some best practices to optimize Amazon EC2 spot instances, building CIS hardened Golden Images and Pipelines, getting data to the cloud faster, leaky buckets, and reasons to love the cloud.

Here are links to the topics discussed:

• 02:44 Best practices to optimize your Amazon EC2 Spot Instances usage via Sheila Busser on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• 09:01 Building CIS hardened Golden Images and Pipelines with EC2 Image Builder via Yogesh Aggarwal and Jason Livingston on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud Operations and Migrations blog
• 13:14 Getting Data to the Cloud Faster with AWS Snowball Edge Devices via Brian Beeler on StorageReview.com
• 20:44 Another security calamity for Capita: An unsecured AWS bucket via Paul Kunert on The Register
• 27:09 Gartner: Stop worrying and love the cloud, with all its outages and lock-in via Simon Sharwood on The Register

Follow Ben's socials here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/benellis80/

https://twitter.com/benb1n

https://www.elliscloud.dev/

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In episode 18 of season 2, Karl & Jon discuss Tina Turner's "Private Dancer", private access to the AWS Management Console, Graviton processors and AWS Nitro SSDs, AWS Lambda for the containers developer, implementing cross-account CI/CD and the EU's draft legislation on cybersecurity labelling.

Here are links to the articles discussed:

• Private Access to the AWS Management Console is generally available via Amazon web Services News
• New Storage-Optimized Amazon EC2 I4g Instances: Graviton Processors and AWS Nitro SSDs via Jeff Barr on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• AWS Lambda for the containers developer via Massimo Re Ferre and Chris Greenwood on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• Implementing cross-account CI/CD with AWS SAM for container-based Lambda functions via Eric Johnson on Amazon Web Services blog
• EU draft rules propose tougher cybersecurity labelling rules for Amazon, Google, Microsoft via Foo Yun Chee on Reuters

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In Episode 17 of Season 2, Karl & Jon welcome another guest on the podcast - fellow AWS Community Builder Matthew Wilson. They discuss the new Athena Provisioned Capacity, how to scan AWS Lambda functions with Amazon Inspector, ChatAWS, understanding cloud costs in 2023, and Prime Video switching from serverless to EC2 and ECS.

Here are links to the articles discussed:

• AWS Introduces Athena Provisioned Capacity via Steef-Jan Wiggers on InfoQ
• How to scan your AWS Lambda functions with Amazon Inspector via Vamsi Vikash Ankam and Gabriel Santamaria on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• ChatAWS: Deploy AWS Resources Seamlessly With ChatGPT via Banjo Obayomi on DZone
• The essential need to understand cloud costs in 2023 via TechNative
• Prime Video Switched from Serverless to EC2 and ECS to Save Costs via Rafal Gancarz on InfoQ

Follow Matthew on his socials:

• https://twitter.com/matt_codes
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewcodes

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In Season 2 Episode 16, Karl & Jon welcome another guest Danielle Heberling to join the podcast. They discuss new features of Amazon Guard Duty, the differences between ECS and Lambda, reducing data archiving costs, layoffs, and cloud revenue.

Here are links to the articles discussed:

• AWS Announces Three New Amazon GuardDuty Capabilities to Help Customers Protect Container, Database, and Serverless Workloads via Business Wire
• AWS ECS vs. AWS Lambda: Top 5 Main Differences via Rodolfo Ortega on DZone
• Reduce data archiving costs for compliance by automating Amazon RDS snapshot exports to Amazon S3 via Burak Alakus on Amazon Web Services blog
• Amazon’s Mass Layoffs Have Begun, And They Include AWS - Should Investors Be Worried? via Forbes
• Amazon’s 18% cloud revenue growth impresses even as margin narrows via Jordan Novet on CNBC

Follow Danielle Heberling's socials:

https://www.danielleheberling.xyz/

https://twitter.com/deeheber

https://github.com/deeheber

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In Episode 15 of Season 2 Karl & Jon welcome their first ever guest, fellow AWS Community Builder Johannes Koch! Then they talk about VPC Lattice in General Availability, Cloud Native development, saving money on your Lambda bill, Amazon Bedrock and AWS's growth for 2022/2023

Here are links the topics discussed:

• Amazon VPC Lattice Now GA with New Capabilities for Service-to-Service Connectivity via Renato Losio on InfoQ
• Modernizing? Containers are Not Enough; You Need Cloud Native via Lee Atchison on Cloud Native Now
• Understanding techniques to reduce AWS Lambda costs in serverless applications via James Beswick on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• AWS: 2023 Growth May Be Just 6% via Jason M. Lemkin on SaaStr
• Amazon Unleashes Bedrock: The Game-Changing AI Cloud Service Powering the Future of Tech via Chris Bibey on Yahoo Finance

Johannes' socials:

https://www.lockhead.info

https://www.youtube.com/@cicdonaws

https://www.linkedin.com/in/johannes-koch-353b2158/

https://twitter.com/@lockhead

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In Season 2 Episode 14, Karl & Jon forget how many articles to discuss and talk about Lambda response streaming, the Well Architected Framework, the new MediaConnect Gateway, EC2 Image Builder (whilst Jon rants about the 1990's), AWS trying to close the digital skills gaps and cloud repatriation gets even more air time.

Here are links to the topics discussed:

• Introducing AWS Lambda response streaming via Julian Wood on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• Announcing updates to the AWS Well-Architected Framework via Haleh Najafzadeh on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• AWS launches new gateway to connect on-prem with the cloud via Jenny Priestley on TVBEurope
• Implementing up-to-date images with automated EC2 Image Builder pipelines via Sheila Busser on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• New data shows digital skills are more needed than ever—AWS has 600+ free cloud courses that can help on Amazon
• Just because on-prem is cheaper doesn’t make the cloud a money pit via Tobias Mann on The Register

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In unlucky episode 13 Karl & Jon talk about Terraform security, AWS Organizations features, the new Lambda SnapStart feature, optimising costs on CodeBuild, AWS using renewable fuel in their backup generators, Manx vs. Mancs, and whether episode 13 is going to be unlucky (spoiler alert, Karl's phone rang, so maybe it was?)

Here are the links to the articles discussed:

• Terraform Security Best Practices via Nigel Douglas on Sysdig
• Simplified multi-account governance with AWS Organizations all features via Nivedita Tripathi on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• Using AWS Lambda SnapStart with infrastructure as code and CI/CD pipelines via James Beswick on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• Strategies to optimize the costs of your builds on AWS CodeBuild via Matt Laver, Leandro Cavalcante Damascena, and Rafael Ramos on Amazon Web Services blog
• Amazon Web Services begins transition to renewable energy sources via Business & Finance Media Group

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Now that they're back in their sheds, Karl & Jon talk about unit testing serverless apps, cleaning up after yourself in cloudwatch, write-through caches in PostgreSQL, the correct pronoucieation of "cache", EC2 IAM security, AWS being affected by the Amazon layoffs, and tuna sandwiches

Here are links to the topics discussed:

• Unit Testing AWS Lambda with Python and Mock AWS Services via Kevin Hakanson and Tom Romano on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• Delete Empty CloudWatch Log Streams via Vinod Kisanagaram and Rich McDonough on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL Adds Write-Through Cache to Improve Logical Replication Performance via Renato Losio on InfoQ
• AWS Introduces Global Condition Context Keys to Improve EC2 Security via Renato Losio on InfoQ
• AWS Layoffs On The Way As Amazon Cuts 9,000 Employees via Mark Haranas on The Channel Company

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In the LogOff special Jon and Karl talk about Tapas, S3, Rust, multi account strategies for SMBs, and Pi.

Here are links to the topics discussed:

• AWS previews Mountpoint, a specialized open source Rust client to mount S3 storage into the file system via Tim Anderson on DevClass
• AWS Chatbot Now Integrates With Microsoft Teams via Sébastien Stormacq on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• Multi-account strategy for small and medium businesses via Alex Torres on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• AWS S3: You can check out but can never leave via Chris Mellor on Blocks and Files
• Celebrate Amazon S3’s 17th birthday at AWS Pi Day 2023 via Sébastien Stormacq on Amazon Web Services blog

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In Season 2 Episode 10, Karl & Jon discuss the new AWS Application Composer, new AWS Observability Training, going serverless on AWS Lambda, AWSMonitoring with EventBridge, and how AWS delivers on the latest Graviton3 price and performance.

Here are links to the topics discussed:

• AWS Application Composer Now Generally Available – Visually Build Serverless Applications Quickly via Channy Yun on Amazon Web Services blog
• Build Cloud Operations skills using the new AWS Observability Training via Alex Livingstone on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• Going Serverless on AWS Lambda? Recognize Potential Risks via Sarabjeet Chugh on The New Stack
• AWS Monitoring with EventBridge via Andreas Wittig on cloudonaut
• AWS Delivers on Latest Graviton3 Price/Performance Promise via Michael Vizard on DevOps.com

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In Season 2 Episode 9, Karl & Jon discuss new AWS Lambda Powertools, tips on how to protect Amazon EC2 instances, Cloud frameworks and best practices, improvements on Amazon Aurora, principles of shared responsibility, and a helium stunt by Jon.

Here are links to the articles discussed:

• Introducing AWS Lambda Powertools for .NET via Julian Wood on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• Tips to Protect Amazon EC2 Instances on Droidmen
• Cloud incident response: Frameworks and best practices via Dave Shackleford on TechTarget
• Improve application availability on Amazon Aurora via Lili Ma and Szymon Komendera on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• Principle of Shared Responsibility in Cloud-Native Applications via Lee Atchison on Container Journal

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In episode 8 of season 2, Karl and Jon discuss becoming AWS Community Builders, EKS on Snowball Edge, detecting Solar Panel damage with Amazon Rekognition, using porting advisor for Graviton, maintaining Code Quality with Amazon Code Catalyst and developing portal Lamba functions. Karl also channels his inner Muppet while waffling about Kubernetes in space.

Here are links to the articles discussed:

• Amazon Releases Elastic Kubernetes Service for Snowball Edge via Matt Campbell on InfoQ
• Detecting solar panel damage with Amazon Rekognition Custom Labels via Ramakant Joshi, Shekar Tippur, and Anand Iyer on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• Using Porting Advisor for Graviton via Sheila Busser on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• Maintaining Code Quality with Amazon CodeCatalyst Reports via Imtranur Rahman and Wasay Mabood on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• Developing portable AWS Lambda functions via Pascal Vogel on Amazon Web Services blog

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In episode 7 season 2, Karl & Jon discuss scaling, step functions, creating custom health checks, a blog by Jeff Barr, and why AWS is all about sustainable open source.

Here are the links to the topics discussed:

• Scaling an ASG using target tracking with a dynamic SQS target via Sheila Busser on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• Implementing reactive progress tracking for AWS Step Functions via Benjamin Smith on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• How to create custom health checks for your Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling Fleet via Sheila Busser on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• New Graviton3-Based General Purpose (m7g) and Memory-Optimized (r7g) Amazon EC2 Instances via Jeff Barr on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• AWS: Why We Support Sustainable Open Source via David Nalley on The New Stack

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In Episode 6, Karl & Jon discuss S3 buckets - once more, visualizing VPC resources, scaling PHP applications, CloudWatch-ing, CloudTrail-ing, and Jon's bush pruning exploits.

Here are the links to the articles:

• Amazon S3 to apply security best practices for all new buckets on Help Net Security
• New – Visualize Your VPC Resources from Amazon VPC Creation Experience via Channy Yun on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• Scaling PHP Applications on AWS via Adriano Cataluddi on the Logicata blog
• Using Amazon CloudWatch metrics to monitor time to expiration for Reserved Instances | Amazon Web Services via Greg Gooden on Amazon Web Services blog
• AWS Patches Undocumented APIs Bypassing CloudTrail Event Logging via Renato Losio on InfoQ

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In Episode 5, Karl & Jon discuss AWS Database innovations, deployment pipeline reference architectures, Amazon Managed Grafana, Serverless Development and Chat GPT. Karl also goes off on a tangent about his bid to be alcohol-free for 2023!

Here are the articles that inspired this week's episode:

• AWS doubles down on innovations that redefine the database management experience, via Elizabeth Solomon on The Register
• New – Deployment Pipelines Reference Architecture and Reference Implementations via Sebastien Stormacq on the AWS News Blog
• Monitoring Amazon RDS and Amazon Aurora using Amazon Managed Grafana via Elamaran Shanmugam, Munish Dabra, Ravi Mathur, and Shankar Rajagopalan on the AWS Cloud Operations & Migrations blog
• The Risks of Moving Too Quickly with Serverless Development, via Allen Helton on dev.to
• AWS CTO Slams ChatGPT: ‘Not Concerned About The Truth’, via Mark Haranas on CRN

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n Episode 4, Karl & Jon discuss launch templates, Lambda functions, event-driven architectures, incident response automations, expanding US-EAST-1, and Jon's cat decides she doesn't want to listen to him any more.

Here are the links to the articles discussed:

• Amazon EC2 Launch Templates now support AWS Systems Manager parameters for AMIs on Amazon Web Services (AWS) news
• AWS Lambda Functions – Unlock the Potential of The Powerful tool AWS on DroidMen
• Let’s Architect! Designing event-driven architectures via Luca Mezzalira, Laura Hyatt, Vittorio Denti, and Zamira Jaupaj on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• How to Automate Incident Response with PagerDuty and AWS Systems Manager Incident Manager via Dennis Osentoski on Amazon Web Services blog
• AWS expanding its footprint at site of infamously flaky US-EAST-1 region via Laura Dobberstein on The Register

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In Episode 3,Karl & Jon discuss SAM & cloudformation linting, secure CI/CD practices using AWS tools, cost visualisation using AWS managed Grafana, a shocking AWS bill, AWS's slowing growth, and a bit of plumbing.

Here are links to the articles discussed:

• 01: 17 - Validate AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM) templates with CloudFormation Linter to speed up development via Amazon Web Services (AWS) news
• 05:00 - Setting up a secure CI/CD pipeline in a private Amazon Virtual Private Cloud with no public internet access via MJ Kubba on Amazon Web Services blog
• 13:13 - Visualize and gain insights into your AWS cost and usage with Amazon Managed Grafana via Munish Dabra and Chris Strzelczyk on Amazon Web Services blog
• 18:07 - It Happened to Me: How I Suddenly Owed AWS $13,000 via Jessica Wachtel on The New Stack
• 26:06 - Oh dear, AWS. Cloud growth slowing as customers get a dose of cost reality via Lindsay Clark on The Register

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In episode 2 of our second season, Karl & Jon discuss Cloud Observability, ECS automated rollbacks, Step Functions Distributed Maps, Lambda concurrency, zero trust access to AWS and rice cookers.

Here are the links to the topics discussed:

• 01:35 Zero Trust Access to Corporate Applications with AWS Verified Access via Nsikan Essien on InfoQ
• 08:00 Amazon ECS Adds Automated Rollbacks via Matthew Campbell on InfoQ
• 12:00 AWS Introduces Step Functions Distributed Map for Large-Scale Parallel Data Processing via Renato Losio on InfoQ
• 16:56 Introducing maximum concurrency of AWS Lambda functions when using Amazon SQS as an event source via Julian Wood on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• 23:15 Why cloud observability will be critical in 2023 on VentureBeat

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In the first episode of season 2 Karl & Jon discuss S3's new default encryption, CI/CD with GitLab and EKS Graviton runners, CloudWatch, Serverless observability, go off the deep end ranting about what DevOps actually is, and talk about shredding Vespa's.

Articles discussed:

• https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/amazon-s3-encrypts-new-objects-by-default/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=logicata_aws_weekly_news_roundup&utm_term=2023-01-06
• https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/devops/unlock-the-power-of-ec2-graviton-with-gitlab-ci-cd-and-eks-runners/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=logicata_aws_weekly_news_roundup&utm_term=2023-01-06
• https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/mt/integrate-amazon-cloudwatch-alarms-with-amazon-cloudwatch-metrics-insights/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=logicata_aws_weekly_news_roundup&utm_term=2023-01-06
• https://dev.to/aws-heroes/serverless-in-2023-a-shift-in-focus-30gp?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=logicata_aws_weekly_news_roundup&utm_term=2023-01-06
• https://devops.com/why-sres-are-critical-to-devops/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=logicata_aws_weekly_news_roundup&utm_term=2023-01-06

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In Episode 11, Karl and Jon discuss the weather (again), troubleshooting networking connectivity, CI/CD, cost optimisations and a new feature to reduce the leakiness of S3 buckets.

Here are links to the articles:

• Configuration driven dynamic multi-account CI/CD solution on AWS via Anshul Saxena and Libin Roy on Amazon Web Services blog
• Improved Supply Chain Visibility and Actionable Insights with AWS Supply Chain via Steef-Jan Wiggers on InfoQ
• How to use AWS Well-Architected with AWS Trusted Advisor to achieve data-driven cost optimization via Jun-Tin Yeh and Stephen Salim on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• Troubleshoot network connectivity to Amazon RDS databases using VPC Reachability Analyzer via Baji Shaik and Sudip Acharya on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog
• AWS strains to make Simple Storage Service not so simple to screw up via Thomas Claburn on The Register

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In Episode 10 Jon & Karl discuss Blue/Green deployments, low code Serverless development, EventBridge pipes, personal growth from AWS and complain about the cold weather.

Here's the list of articles discussed:

• AWS Announces Blue/Green Deployments for MySQL on Aurora and RDS via Renato Losio on InfoQ
• AWS launches Application Composer, a low-code tool for building serverless apps via Frederic Lardinois on TechCrunch
• Enhanced Serverless Development with Terraform and AWS SAM via Nsikan Essien on InfoQ
• Amazon EventBridge Pipes Supports Point-to-Point Integrations between Event Producers and Consumers via Steef-Jan Wiggers on InfoQ
• Securing Lambda Function URLs using Amazon Cognito, Amazon CloudFront and AWS WAF via Marcia Villalba on Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog

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In Episode 9 Jon & Karl discuss Water Positivity, AWS Lambda Vulnerability scanning & recap some of the announcements from Re:Invent 2022. Jon also goes on about delivery vans turning right, and Karl side-steps the weekend's football result.

Here's the links to the articles discussed:

• AWS Plans to be Water Positive by 2030 via Alexandra Garfinkle on Yahoo Finance
• Amazon Inspector now scans AWS Lambda functions for vulnerabilities via Marcia Villabla on Amazon Web Services Blog
• Adam Selipsky at Re:Invent 2022 via Karl Robinson on Logicata Blog

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In Episode 8, Karl & Jon discuss Amazon SNS, AWS region selection for sustainability, that Appsync vulnerability, AWS Nitro for legacy EC2 instances and the new AWS India region. And Karl does remarkably well considering he just got back from a stag weekend!

Here are links to the articles discussed:

Introducing payload-based message filtering for Amazon SNS via Julian Wood on Amazon Web Services blog

How to select a Region for your workload based on sustainability goals via Sam Mokhtari, Isha Dua, and Amit Khanal on Amazon Web Services blog

AWS discloses AppSync vulnerability via Richard Chirgwin on iTnews

AWS gives older EC2 instances a legacy lifeline via Simon Sharwood on The Register

AWS launches new cloud infrastructure region in India, will invest $4.4B via Maria Deutscher on SiliconAngle.com

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In Episode 7 Karl & Jon discuss RDS events, migrating elastic IPs between regions, CloudFormation vs Terraform, RDS & Aurora region migration and Re:Invent 2022 predictions. They also go off on a tangent about Croc charms and 1970s TV cigar advertisements…

• Amazon RDS events now include attributes for filtering with Amazon SNS
• AWS Supports Transfer of IP Addresses Between Accounts
• Cloudformation or Terraform: Which Iac Platform Is the Best Fit for You?
• Migrate Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS to a new AWS Region
• 10 Predictions And A Wishlist From AWS Re:Invent 2022

Here's an additional article we referred to:

Kelsey Hightowers Repos: https://github.com/kelseyhightower/nocode https://github.com/kelseyhightower/kubernetes-the-hard-way

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In episode 6 Karl & Jon discuss AWS Resource Explorer, EventBridge Scheduler, EC2 Replace Root Volume, AWS Global Accelerator versus Amazon CloudFront, and some AWS best practices.

Here are the links that inspired this week's episode:

• https://www.infoq.com/news/2022/11/ec2-replace-root-volume/
• https://www.techtarget.com/searchcloudcomputing/tip/Compare-AWS-Global-Accelerator-vs-Amazon-CloudFront
• https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/introducing-aws-resource-explorer-quickly-find-resources-in-your-aws-account/
• https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/introducing-amazon-eventbridge-scheduler/
• https://www.logicata.com/blog/aws-best-practices-for-edtech/

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In episode 5 Karl & Jon discuss leaky S3 buckets, the new AWS us-east-1 architecture, multi-region python package publishing pipelines, public cloud spending and the Gartner magic quadrant for cloud infrastructure and platform services. There's also a questionable scaffolding pun...

Here are the articles that inspires this week's episode:

• New open-source tool scans public AWS S3 buckets for secrets
• AWS Support will no longer fall over with US-EAST-1, after architectural rebuild
• Create a Multi-Region Python Package Publishing Pipeline with AWS CDK and CodePipeline
• Gartner: Spending on public cloud services will exceed $591B in 2023
• AWS Named as a Leader in the 2022 Gartner Cloud Infrastructure & Platform Services (CIPS) Magic Quadrant for the 12th Consecutive Year

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In episode 4, Karl & Jon discuss serverless graph databases, Lambda secrets, Amazon RDS backup storage costs, Cloudwatch synthetic monitoring, and datacenter diesel generators. Jon is in a different shed, and Karl goes off on a tangent about Southend Pier...

Here are the articles that inspired this week's episode:

• How serverless is transforming graph databases
• AWS Introduces AWS Parameters and Secrets Lambda Extension to Improve Performances and Security
• Demystifying Amazon RDS backup storage costs
• Monitoring the availability and health of on-premises application using AWS CloudWatch Synthetics
• AWS buys 100+ diesel generators... and that's just for Irish datacenters

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In episode 3, Karl & Jon discuss data center carbon emissions, desktop as a service, edge computing, Identidy and Access Management, and API Gateway.  They also touch on beard grooming disasters and how their dessert choices reflect their personalities…

Here are the articles which inspired this episode:

• Uptime Institute tool shows emissions savings of migrating workloads
• AWS targets desktop virtualization rigs with lift and shift to cloudy DaaS
• AWS Snowball edge compute capacity snowballs beyond 100 vCPUs, 400GB of memory
• IAM Role Trust Update – What You Need to Know
• AWS API Gateway Pricing Explained

And Jon also referred to this article about Crunch and DaaS

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In Episode 2, Jon and Karl discuss chaos engineering, connected cars, and SQL database backups on AWS.  They also touch on AWS Serverless Application Model connectors, and how Cloud Native Computing is good for the environment.  And they get interrupted by Jon's cat, Mouse.

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The very first episode of the Logicast AWS News Podcast, brought to you by Logicata.  This week we talk about what AWS actually is, the new AWS Filecache service, health & wellness apps, taps (!) and AWS Compute Optimizer.