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:

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/

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

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

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/

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/

In Season 3, Episode 26 Karl & Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder, Igor Soroka. They discuss Amazon GuardDuty, New Lambda Logging Controls, Refactoring to Serverless, Aurora Global Database, the AWS European Sovereign Cloud, and the guys get sidetracked by Catalan taps...

Articles Discussed:

5:33 Amazon GuardDuty Runtime Monitoring Now Supports Ubuntu and Debian Operating Systems 

Key points:

- Previously only supported Amazon Linux

- Helps monitor and respond to potential threats like suspicious network activity, crypto mining, etc.

- Uses existing security agent, 30 day free trial

- Pricing is $1.50 per vCPU for first 500 vCPUs per month, drops for larger volumes

12:45 - New Lambda Logging Controls 

 Key points:

- Can now choose JSON or plaintext formatting

- Can set log levels like debug, error, etc.

- Supported in Python, Java, and Node.js

- Makes logging easier without needing additional libraries

- Can aggregate logs from different functions

18:21 - Refactoring to Serverless from Application to Automation 

Key points:

- Discusses "service factoring", replacing app code with automation

- Serverless allows abstracting away infrastructure details

- Entire architectures can be built using serverless components

- Improves apps through increased automation

24:11 - Using Aurora Global Database for Multi-Region Applications 

Key points:

- Provides hot-hot disaster recovery to secondary region

- Local endpoints provide fast response times

- Engineering to replicate globally is complex

- Useful but expensive to run dual full infrastructure

29:16 - Initial Services for AWS Europe Sovereign Cloud 

Key points:

- New sovereign cloud being built in Germany - Announces initial services like EC2, EKS, Lambda, etc.

- Functionally similar to AWS US GovCloud

- Provides data residency for EU regulations

- Impressive initial service list, no major omissions

Guest was Igor Soroko

https://www.linkedin.com/in/igor-soroka/

https://www.soroka.tech/blog/graphql-serverless-appsync

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/

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 

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