AWS Week in Review – October 24, 2016

Another busy week in AWS-land! Today's post included submissions from 21 internal and external contributors, along with material from my RSS feeds, my inbox, and other things that come my way. To join in the fun, create (or find) some awesome AWS-related content and submit a pull request!

Monday October 24	We launched the AWS Server Migration Service. We launched AWS Config in the China (Beijing) Region. We announced that the First AWS Certification Study Guide is Now Available. The AWS Database Blog talked about Caching Hudl's News Feed with Amazon ElastiCache for Redis. The AWS Mobile Development Blog talked about Streaming Videos to Millions of Mobile App Users via Amazon CloudFront. The AWS Mobile Development Blog showed you how to Customize Amazon Cognito User Pool Authentication Flow. Werner welcomed Adrian Cockcroft to the AWS Team. cloudonaut.io wrote about AWS CloudFormation Update Evaluation – YAML, Cross-Stack References, Simplified Substitution. AWS Community Hero Eric Hammond published a CloudFormation template for an AWS Git-backed Static Website that deploys CodeCommit Git repo updates automatically. Shahar from Eyeview shares some Pros and Cons between Amazon DynamoDB and Aerospike. Scott Lowe wrote about Managing AWS Infrastructure with Ansible. The AWS Podcast released an episode discussing three AWS “Black-Belt Tips.” FittedCloud Blogged about Machine Learning driven Capacity Optimization in AWS DynamoDB. Kim Schmidt added another video to her Amazon Aurora Deep Dive Chapter 2.0: Amazon Aurora's Architecture, Section 2.4, entitled Understanding Amazon Aurora's Logging, Storage, Caching, and Indexing. The AWS Government, Education, & Nonprofits Blog wrote about Busting the Myths about Storing Data in the Cloud.
Tuesday October 25	We announced that Amazon Route 53 Now Supports DNS Queries over IPv6 Networks. We announced that AWS Marketplace Now Supports Self-Service Listings for Software Vendors. We announced that Amazon WorkMail Now Supports Interoperability with Microsoft Exchange Server. We announced Regional Expansion of EC2 Instances (R3 and D2). The AWS Partner Network Blog explained How Premier APN Partner BlazeClan Helps Customers Innovate on AWS. The AWS DevOps Blog talked about Building End-to-End Continuous Delivery and Deployment Pipelines in AWS and TeamCity. The AWS Startup Collection shared Five Tips Every Startup Should Know for Building Strong Relationships and PR Buzz. Joel from GorillaStack wrote about Amazon's push to be 100% renewable powered. Eric Jonas wrote about PyWren – Scientific Computing Using AWS Lambda. Ben Curtis of Honeybadger wrote about Managing Application Secrets in EC2. CloudHealth Technologies shared a case study:Cloudreach drives policy enabled governance of their customers' cloud and provides visibility into their spend with CloudHealth Cloudability released their annual re:Invent Survival Guide for 2016 - learn the tips to make sure you get the most out of the year's biggest tech event. The AWS Government, Education, & Nonprofits Blog wrote about The IACP Recap: Technology's Role in Transforming the Future of Policing (with the help of AWS Ninjas). 1Strategy wrote about Using AWS Lambda to Automatically Snapshot Your Instances. Batchly wrote about AWS Spot Instances: Retention Strategies for Sustained Spot Usage. Botmetric wrote about the Role of AWS in Digital Transformation: A Technology Enabler in Every Vertical. TriNimbus reminded everyone that What Happens in Vegas…Ends up on the Cloud. DZone Cloud Zone talked about Building a Real-Time Customer Engagement Solution on AWS. DZone Cloud Zone advised their readers to Stop Developing Cloud Applications Without Taking IAM Security Precautions. Gathering Clouds shared Top Videos and Resources for AWS Security Training.
Wednesday October 26	We published a Utility to Opt-In to Longer Resource IDs Across All Regions. We announced that AWS CodePipeline is now Available in the Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region. You can now Enable Access Control Scenarios using Microsoft Network Policy Service with Microsoft AD. We announced that Amazon WorkMail now supports Email Redirection to External Email Addresses. The AWS DevOps Blog talked about AWS Config: Checking for Compliance with new Managed Rule Options. The AWS Database Blog asked Fact or Fiction: Google Big Query Outperforms Amazon Redshift as an Enterprise Data Warehouse? Brandon Hilkert wrote about using AWS Lambda and Slack to monitor Sidekiq. CloudHealth Technologies published a blog about the best practices for managing Amazon Elastic MapReduce. The AWS Government, Education, & Nonprofits Blog wrote about Campus on the Cloud: Join us at EDUCAUSE. Cloud Technology Partners advised you  Not to Let Company Politics Derail Your Cloud Plans.
Thursday October 27	We announced that EC2 Auto Recovery is now available in the AWS GovCloud (US) Region. The AWS Database Blog introduced AWS Schema Conversion Tool 1.0.500. The AWS Developer Blog showed you how to do VPC Configuration for an AWS Elastic Beanstalk Environment using the AWS Toolkit for Eclipse. The AWS Government, Education, & Nonprofits Blog talked about Automating Compliance: Architecting for FedRAMP High and NIST Workloads in AWS GovCloud (US). The AWS Security Blog showed you How to Enable MFA Protection on Your AWS API Calls. The Amazon Mobile App Distribution Blog showed you How to Build a Calendar Reader for Alexa. Daniel Kang from COLDBREW CLOUD launched coldbrew-cli, an open source Docker container deployment automation tool for ECS. Cloud Technology Partners explained how VMware + AWS Gives Customers the Best of Both Worlds. Cloudability shared their 2016 AWS re:Invent Survival Guide. Flux7 asked Is the New US East Ohio AWS Region a Fit for You. iotSky explained How We Build the iotSky Backend Using AWS Lambda.
Friday October 28	We announced that AWS Elastic Beanstalk Supports Amazon Linux AMI 2016.09 and New Instance Types. The AWS Big Data Blog explored Using pgpool and Amazon ElastiCache for Query Caching with Amazon Redshift. The Amazon Mobile App Distribution Blog showed you How to Build a Portable Voice Controlled Drone for Under $500. Zane W. and Sriram G. from Trulia provide an Overview on how they optimized a critical data proessing workflow on AWS. Bronze Drum shared a Case Study: Assured Guaranty High Performance MatLab Risk Modeling on AWS. CloudcCheckr shared Pro Tips for AWS re:Invent 2016. TriNimbus published the Nightmare on Cloud Street: Halloween Stories…from the Darkside. Cloud Academy talked about WordPress Cloud Hosting: Shifter Goes Serverless.
Saturday October 29	Botmetric took the time to Debunk 7 Myths About AWS Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery. Serverless Code shared a Recap of the Third ServerlessConf.
Sunday October 30	The A Cloud Guru blog wrote about Adopting Serverless - Architectures and Security.

New & Notable Open Source

• aws-git-backed-static-website is a Git-backed static website generator powered entirely by AWS.


• rds-pgbadger fetches log files from an Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL instance and generates a beautiful pgBadger report.


• aws-lambda-redshift-copy is an AWS Lambda function that automates the copy command in Redshift.


• VarnishAutoScalingCluster contains code and instructions for setting up a shared, horizontally scalable Varnish cluster that scales up and down using Auto Scaling groups.


• aws-base-setup contains starter templates for developing AWS CloudFormation-based AWS stacks.


• terraform_f5 contains Terraform scripts to instantiate a Big IP in AWS.


• claudia-bot-builder creates chat bots for Facebook, Slack, Skype, Telegram, GroupMe, Kik, and Twilio and deploys them to AWS Lambda in minutes.


• aws-iam-ssh-auth is a set of scripts used to authenticate users connecting to EC2 via SSH with IAM.


• go-serverless sets up a go.cd server for serverless application deployment in AWS.


• awsq is a helper script to run batch jobs on AWS using SQS.


• respawn generates CloudFormation templates from YAML specifications.

New SlideShare Presentations

• Fast Data at Scale with Amazon ElastiCache for Redis.


• Testing Applications with AWS Device Farm.


• Amazon Redshift: Performance Tuning and Optimization.


• Storage with Amazon S3 and Amazon Glacier.


• The Lifecycle of an AWS IoT Thing.


• Real-time Data Processing Using AWS Lambda.


• A Data Culture with Embedded Analytics in Action.


• Data Warehousing with Amazon Redshift.


• Build Scalable and Secure Mobile Applications with AWS.


• Mobile Software in AWS Marketplace.


• Best Practices for IoT Security in the Cloud.


• Amazon ECS Deep Dive.


• Add User Sign in and Management to your Apps with Amazon Cognito.


• Mobile Web and App Development with AWS.


• Deep-Dive: Building Native iOS and Android Application with the AWS Mobile SDK.

New Customer Success Stories

• AlbemaTV – AbemaTV is an Internet media-services company that operates one of Japan's leading streaming platforms, FRESH! by AbemaTV. The company built its microservices platform on Amazon EC2 Container Service and uses an Amazon Aurora data store for its write-intensive microservices-such as timelines and chat-and a MySQL database on Amazon RDS for the remaining microservices APIs. By using AWS, AbemaTV has been able to quickly deploy its new platform at scale with minimal engineering effort.


• Celgene – Celgene uses AWS to enable secure collaboration between internal and external researchers, allow individual scientists to launch hundreds of compute nodes, and reduce the time it takes to do computational jobs from weeks or months to less than a day. Celgene is a global biopharmaceutical company that creates drugs that fight cancer and other diseases and disorders. Celgene runs its high-performance computing research clusters, as well as its research collaboration environment, on AWS.


• Under Armour – Under Armour can scale its Connected Fitness apps to meet the demands of more than 180 million global users, innovate and deliver new products and features more quickly, and expand internationally by taking advantage of the reliability and high availability of AWS. The company is a global leader in performance footwear, apparel, and equipment. Under Armour runs its growing Connected Fitness app platform on the AWS Cloud.

New YouTube Videos

• This is My Architecture – Check Point Software Technologies.


• This is My Architecture – Palo Alto Networks.


• re:Invent 2016 Global Partner Summit.

Upcoming Events

• November 1 (San Francisco, California) – Security | AWS Loft Architecture Week| SF AWS Pop-up Loft.


• November 3 (Doral, FL) – AWS User Group – Doral Kickoff Meetup.


• November 8 (London, England) – AWS Enterprise Summit London.


• November 9 (New York, New York) – Security | AWS Loft Architecture Week | NY AWS Pop-up Loft.


• November 10 (Webinar) – Introduction to Three AWS Security Services.


• November 10 (Webinar) – Tune Your Cloud: Optimizing AWS Reserved Instances (Cloud Cruiser).


• November 10 (Hamburg, Germany) – Hamburg AWS User Group 2016/11.


• November 14 (Munich, Germany) – Munich AWS User Group November 2016 @ AWS Loft Munich.


• November 23 (Cardiff, Wales) – Meetup #4 of the AWS South Wales User Group.

Help Wanted

• AWS Careers.

Stay tuned for next week! In the meantime, follow me on Twitter and subscribe to the RSS feed.