Now AWS Chatbot helps executing commands from Slack (beta)

AWS Chatbot is an interactive AWS service agent which makes it simple to observe and communicate with your AWS resources in your Slack channels and Amazon Chime chat rooms. You can get alerts and execute commands to return diagnostic data, call AWS Lambda functions, and produce AWS support cases so that your team can cooperate and answer to events immediately using AWS Chatbot. AWS Chatbot handles AWS service notifications from Amazon SNS, and sends them to Amazon Chime and Slack chat rooms so teams can examine and take action on them straight away, no matter of location. Now AWS Chatbot assists executing AWS commands and tasks from Slack. AWS Chatbot guides commands with the help of common AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) syntax that you can use from Slack on desktop or mobile devices. Additionally by executing commands, you can fetch Amazon CloudWatch logs by only selecting the “Show logs” button on CloudWatch Alarms notifications in Slack. AWS Chatbot helps tasks for showing logs for AWS Lambda and Amazon API Gateway. To begin with commands, configure AWS Chatbot with Slack in the AWS Chatbot console with the predefined IAM policy templates and type “@aws help“ in the Slack channel. If you already utilize AWS Chatbot for sending notifications to Slack, you will require to design a new IAM role or update the current one with more permissions to activate executing commands. You can check blog post that gives you a step-by-step guide to assists you begin with executing commands in AWS Chatbot. To get the further information on AWS Chatbot, refer documentation

Amazon QuickSight introduces themes, conditional formatting

Amazon QuickSight is completely organised quick, cloud-powered business intelligence service which is simple to provide insights to all in your organisation. Amazon QuickSight allows you simply design and broadcast interactive dashboards which covers ML Insights. You can acquire dashboards from any device, and embedded into your applications, portals, and websites. Amazon QuickSight lets you to provide each person access to the data they require, while just paying for what you utilise according to Pay-per-Session pricing. Now Amazon QuickSight permits you to add themes and customisation equivalent to your corporate branding or application look and feel. Themes let creator of QuickSight dashboards to modify their selected background, text, data, and gradient colours and also spacing and borders of visuals. Go through this documentation to know about themes in Amazon QuickSight. Additionally, Amazon QuickSight also assists conditional formatting in tables, pivot tables and KPI charts. You can modify text and background colours depends on field values in the dataset, with solid or gradient colours. Further you can show data values with a set of assisted icons depends on applied conditions. Read this documentation to know further on conditional formatting in Amazon QuickSight. Now these all features are accessible in Enterprise Edition and Standard Editions in every Amazon QuickSight AWS Regions - US East (N. Virginia and Ohio), US West (Oregon), EU (Frankfurt, Ireland and London), and Asia Pacific (Seoul, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo).

Amazon Redshift Spectrum introduces in 5 more AWS regions

Amazon Redshift Spectrum is a feature of Amazon Redshift that expands analytics to data saved in your Amazon S3 data lake, excluding the need of loading or transforming data. You can easily set up, automates majority of your administrative activities, and gives quick performance at any scale. Amazon Redshift Spectrum helps open data formats, like Parquet, ORC, JSON, and CSV. Further it also assists querying nested data with complex data types like struct, array, or map. You can query data over Redshift and Amazon S3 to get specific insights which are not feasible to get by querying independent datasets. You can execute analytic queries against petabytes of data saved locally in Redshift, and straight against exabytes of data saved in Amazon S3. Now this Amazon Redshift Spectrum feature is available in 5 more AWS Regions – EU (Paris, Stockholm), Middle East (Bahrain), Asia Pacific (Hong Kong), and the AWS GovCloud (US-West) Region. With these new 5 regions, Amazon Redshift Spectrum is accessible in 19 AWS Regions across the globe : US East (N. Virginia, Ohio), US West (Oregon, N. California), AWS GovCloud (US West), Canada (Central), South America (Sao Paulo), Middle East (Bahrain), EU (Frankfurt, Ireland, London, Paris, Stockholm), and Asia Pacific (Hongkong, Mumbai, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo). To get further information on Amazon Redshift Spectrum, read documentation.

Now Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling helps Instance Weighting

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling supports you keep application accessibility and lets you to automatically scale EC2 instances as per the terms you specify. The fleet management features of EC2 Auto Scaling can be utilised to retain the condition and accessibility of your fleet. Further you can utilise the dynamic and predictive scaling features of EC2 Auto Scaling to add or remove EC2 instances. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling can find when an instance is unhealthy, terminate it, and replace it with a new one. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling certifies that your application each time has the correct number of compute, and provisions capacity with Predictive Scaling. Now Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling allows you contain instance weights in Auto Scaling groups (ASGs) which are configured to provision and scale over different instance types. Instance weights specify the capacity units which all instance type would give to your application's performance, offering flexibility for instance type choice which can be covered in your ASG. While using instance weights, you assign the required capacity for the ASG in the units of your option, like virtual CPUs, memory, storage, throughput, or comparative performance for an instance type. The weight you define for an instance type is the number of units that the instance type set forth towards the required capacity. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is obtainable in each AWS commercial AWS regions and AWS GovCloud (US) Regions. To get the further details on instance weighting in EC2 Auto Scaling, go through this documentation.

AWS CloudFormation introduces Drift Detection assistance in StackSets

AWS CloudFormation makes it simple for developers and systems administrators to design and handle a group of related AWS resources, provisioning and updating them in an organized and expected manner. You can utilize AWS CloudFormation’s sample templates or design your personal templates to specify the AWS resources, and any linked dependencies or runtime parameters, essential to execute your application. You don’t require to solve the sequence for provisioning AWS services or the subtleties of making those dependencies work. AWS CloudFormation StackSets expands the functionality of stacks by allowing you to create, update, or delete stacks over different accounts and regions with just one operation. AWS CloudFormation StackSets assists drift detection, so now you can check aggregated drift results for your StackSets and their stack instances from one view in one account. Drift detection allows you examine that the actual configuration of application resources equates their configuration intent. To get start with CloudFormation StackSets, refer console by selecting a StackSet and choosing 'Detect drift' in the 'Actions' drop-down menu. This functionality is obtainable in the following AWS Regions : US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (N. California), US West (Oregon), Canada (Central), Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Asia Pacific (Seoul), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), EU (Frankfurt), EU (Ireland), EU (London), EU (Paris), and South America (São Paulo). Besides, Drift detection in StackSets reveals new APIs which are accessible through the AWS SDKs and the AWS CLI. To read further, visit API reference and documentation.

How AWS Backup Works with Other AWS Services

AWS Backup is an organised backup service that  makes it simple to centralise and automate the backup of data over multiple AWS services in the cloud and on premises using AWS Storage Gateway. You can centrally configure backup policies and observe backup actions for several AWS resources, like Amazon EBS volumes, Amazon RDS databases, Amazon DynamoDB tables, Amazon EFS file systems, and AWS Storage Gateway volumes using AWS Backup service. AWS Backup combines and automates backup activities earlier executed service-by-service, separating the requisite to write custom scripts and manual methods. You can write backup policies which automate backup schedules and retention management using couple of clicks in the AWS Backup console. AWS Backup gives a completely managed, policy-based backup solution, clarifying your backup management, allowing you to fulfil your business and regulatory backup compliance needs.



How AWS Backup Works with Other AWS Services
Multiple AWS services give backup features which assist you save your data and these features contain Amazon EBS Snapshots, Amazon RDS Snapshots, Amazon DynamoDB backups, and AWS Storage Gateway Snapshots.

All per-service backup capabilities constant to be accessible and operate as regular. For example, you can create snapshots of your EBS volumes with the use of Amazon EC2 API. AWS Backup gives a general method to control backups over different AWS services both in the AWS Cloud and on premises. AWS Backup gives a centralised backup console which provides backup scheduling, retention management, and backup monitoring.

AWS Backup utilises current backup potentials of AWS services to execute its centralised features. Suppose, when you design a backup plan, AWS Backup utilises the EBS snapshot powers while designing backups for you as per your backup plan.

Security in AWS Backup :

AWS keeps Cloud security at higher priority. As an AWS user, you advantage from a data centre and network architecture which is created to fulfil the needs of the security-sensitive organisations.

Security is equally important for you and AWS. The shared responsibility model defines this as security of the cloud and security in the cloud :

• Security of the cloud – AWS is responsible for securing the infrastructure which executes AWS services in the AWS Cloud. Besides, AWS gives you with services that you can utilise safely. Third-party auditors frequently check and certify the success of our security as part of the AWS compliance programs.
• Security in the cloud – Your job is resolved by the AWS service which you utilize. Further you are liable for other elements covering the sensitivity of your data, your company’s needs, and relevant laws and regulations.

Limitations when working with AWS Backup :

Resource	Limit
Number of backup vaults per account	100
Number of backup plans per account	100
Number of versions per backup plan	2,000
Number of concurrent backup jobs per resource	1
Number of resource assignments per backup plan	100*
Number of metadata tags per saved resource	50
Number of recovery points per backup vault	1,000,000

AWS Backup Advantages :

1. Centralised Backup : AWS Backup Configures backup policies from a central backup console, clarifying backup management and creating it simple to certify that your application data across AWS services is backed up and secured. Utilise AWS Backup’s central console, APIs, or command line interface to backup, restore, and set backup retention policies across AWS services in the cloud and on premises with the help of AWS Storage Gateway.

2. Automated Backup : AWS Backup gives automated backup schedules, retention management, and lifecycle management, excluding the requirement for custom scripts and manual actions. Backup Automation will save your time and money as AWS Backup’s completely organised and policy-based solution. You can implement backup policies to your AWS resources by only tagging them, making it simple to apply your backup strategy over each your AWS resources and certifying that all your application data is correctly backed up.

3. Enhance Backup Compliance : Implement your backup policies, encrypt your backups, and audit backup action from a centralised console to support fulfil your backup compliance needs. Backup policies make it easy to associate your backup strategy with your internal or regulatory needs. AWS Backup protects your backups by encrypting your data in transit and at rest. Combined backup action logs over AWS services makes it simpler to execute compliance audits. AWS Backup is PCI and ISO compliant and HIPAA eligible.

Hope this article helps you to perceive the AWS Backup information in brief. Stay connected to our blog page for upcoming news and updates related to AWS and its services. And if you have any queries, then please feel free to connect with us at www.cloud.in

Now Amazon RDS for SQL Server assists further instance sizes

Amazon RDS for SQL Server is an organised service which is created for developers who need the attributes and potentials of SQL Server for designing a new application. Besides, you can relocate current applications which use SQL Server to Amazon RDS excluding rewriting the application thoroughly. As Amazon RDS for SQL Server gives you straight access to the native potentials of the SQL Server edition you have described, your applications and tools should run smoothly. Amazon RDS for SQL Server makes it simple to set up, operate, and scale SQL Server database deployments in the cloud. Now, Amazon RDS for SQL Server db.m5 and db.r5 instance classes are obtainable in 8xlarge and 16xlarge sizes. With assistance for these new instance sizes, users who are now utilising either m4.10xlarge, m4.16xlarge, r4.8xlarge, or r4.16xlarge have an simple upgrade path to the recent generation of instances. M5 instances are the latest generation of general purpose instances and give enhanced performance across last generation M4 instances. The M5 instance group gives a balance of compute, memory, and network resources, and is a perfect suit for many database workloads. Whereas R5 instances are the latest generation of memory optimised instances which give 5% extra memory per vCPU and up to 20% boosted CPU performance over R4 instances. R5 instances are perfect fit for working memory intensive database workloads covering transaction processing, data warehousing, and analytics. To begin with, go through the AWS Management Console. And to know about pricing and regional availability, check out pricing page.

AWS App Mesh expands default limits on multiple resources

AWS App Mesh is a service mesh which offers application-level networking that makes simple for your services to communicate with each other over different of compute infrastructure. App Mesh systematise how your services communicate, providing you end-to-end visibility and certifying high-availability for your applications. AWS App Mesh makes it simple to execute services by offering uniform visibility and network traffic controls for services created over several kinds of compute infrastructure. Now AWS App Mesh has risen the default limits for a set of App Mesh resources - virtual nodes, backends, routers, and routes. These limit expands make it simpler for you to handle sizeable applications with App Mesh. The number of virtual nodes per mesh, which link to your services, tasksets, or deployments that can be associated to the mesh, expanded from 20 to 200. The number of backends per node; the number of dependent services that a particular service can link with, expanded from 25 to 50. The number of virtual routers per mesh increased from 20 to 200, to allow directing on every mesh linked services. The number of routes per virtual router expanded from 20 to 50, to allow matching on several parameters for routing decisions. The new limits apply in every region where App Mesh is accessible. The higher limits are showed in your accounts automatically, and no added activity needed. To read further on the AWS App Mesh limits, read documentation. And to get the list of AWS Region where App Mesh is accessible, refer the AWS Region table.

Amazon GuardDuty helps Exporting Findings to Amazon S3 Bucket

Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service which non-stop observes for harmful and uncertified action to secure your AWS accounts and workloads. Amazon GuardDuty examine billions of events over your AWS accounts from AWS CloudTrail (AWS user and API activity in your accounts), Amazon VPC Flow Logs (network traffic data), and DNS Logs (name query patterns). The Amazon GuardDuty service is based on machine learning, abnormality detection, and integrated threat intelligence to spot and prioritize potential threats. GuardDuty informs you of the status of your AWS environment by producing security findings that you can view in the GuardDuty console or through Amazon CloudWatch events. Now Amazon GuardDuty users can export findings to Amazon S3 with the help of GuardDuty management console and API. Aggregating findings from across regions is clarified with findings export. After configured from the GuardDuty master account, users can export findings from every linked member accounts and all AWS regions to one user held S3 bucket. The utilized S3 bucket can be in the same account in which GuardDuty is activated, or in any other AWS account. Once Findings export is configured in each Region, Amazon GuardDuty findings are automatically exported from GuardDuty to the configured Amazon S3 bucket. To know further about Findings export, refer GuardDuty User Guide and Amazon GuardDuty Findings. To get the complete list of AWS Region where Amazon GuardDuty is accessible, visit AWS Regions. You can start your 30-day Amazon GuardDuty Free Trial in the AWS Management console with just few clicks.

Now AWS Firewall Manager is accessible in more 5 AWS Regions

AWS Firewall Manager is a security management service that lets you to centrally configure and handle firewall rules over your accounts and applications in AWS Organization. As new applications are designed, Firewall Manager makes it simple to present new applications and resources into compliance by applying a basic set of security rules. Now you have one service to create firewall rules, build security policies, and apply them in a steady, hierarchical manner over your complete infrastructure. You can directly roll out AWS WAF rules for your Application Load Balancers, API Gateways, and Amazon CloudFront distributions with the help of AWS Firewall Manager. Likewise, you can design AWS Shield Advanced protections for your Application Load Balancers, ELB Classic Load Balancers, Elastic IP Addresses and CloudFront distributions. Lastly, you can activate security groups for your Amazon EC2 and ENI resource types in Amazon VPCs using AWS Firewall Manager. Besides, AWS Firewall Manager certifies that all security rules are frequently applied, while new accounts or applications are created. Now this AWS Firewall Manager is accessible in Canada (Central), Asia Pacific (Mumbai), South America (Sao Paulo), EU (Paris) and EU (Stockholm). With these new AWS Region expansion, AWS Firewall Manager is now available in total 16 AWS Regions and all Amazon CloudFront edge locations. To get the complete list of AWS regions and services, refer AWS Region Table. And to know detail on AWS Firewall Manager, go through product page or documentation.

Now Amazon Transcribe’s Speech-to-text feature is available in 8 further languages

Amazon Transcribe is an automatic speech recognition (ASR) service that based on advanced machine learning technologies which can use to convert audio files into text format and to build applications that incorporate the content of audio files. Amazon Transcribe can be utilized for plenty applications. For example, you can transcribe the audio track from a video recording to generate subtitles for the video. Amazon Transcribe can transcribe audio files saved in common formats, like WAV and MP3, with time stamps for each word so that you can simply find the audio in the original source by looking for the text. Amazon Transcribe is constantly learning and enhancing to boost the progress of language. You can examine audio files stored in Amazon S3 with the help of Amazon Transcribe API. Besides, you can send a live audio stream to Amazon Transcribe and get a stream of transcripts in real time. Now Amazon Transcribe is available in further 8 languages - Irish English, Scottish English, Welsh English, Dutch, Farsi, Indonesian, Portuguese, and Tamil languages. With these new supported languages, Amazon Transcribe is now totally available in Modern Standard Arabic, Chinese Mandarin-Mainland, Dutch, Australian English, British English, Indian English, Irish English, Scottish English, US English, Welsh English, French, Canadian French, Farsi, German, Indian Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, US Spanish, and Tamil languages. To get the further information, refer Amazon Transcribe or Documentation.

Now Amazon EC2’s R5 and T3 instance types assists Amazon RDS for SQL Server

Amazon EC2 R5 instance are the memory optimized instances for the Amazon EC2 that are perfect fit for memory concentrated applications like high performance databases, distributed web scale in-memory caches, mid-size in-memory databases, real time big data analytics, and other enterprise applications. And it helps you in the high memory demands of specific applications to boost performance and lower latency. R5 instances gives added memory per vCPU and the highest size, r5.24xlarge, offers 768 GiB of memory, permitting customers to expand and combine their workloads on couple of instances.

Amazon EC2 T3 instances are developed to execute the burstable general purpose workloads at a much lower cost. T3 instances are perfect fit for small to medium sized database workloads. T3 instances which give a baseline level of CPU performance with the potential to burst CPU utilization at any time until desired. T3 instances gives assistance for the new Intel Advanced Vector Extensions 512 (AVX-512) instruction set, providing up to 2x the FLOPS per core differentiated with the last generation T2 instances.

Now onward you can initiate R5 and T3 instance types when utilizing Amazon RDS for SQL Server. It is simple to use these new instance classes by changing your current DB instance in AWS Management Console. To get more details, go through the Amazon RDS User Guide. And to know pricing and regional availability, visit Amazon RDS pricing page.

Now AWS Client VPN available in more AWS Regions

AWS VPN (Virtual Private Network) allows you form a private and secure tunnel from your network or device to the AWS global network. AWS VPN contains two services – AWS Site-to-Site VPN and AWS Client VPN. AWS Client VPN is an organized, elastic VPN service which automatically increase or decrease the number of accessible Client VPN connections depends on user request. Since it executes in the cloud, you don’t require to install and handle a hardware or software VPN solution and also you don’t require to over-provision for top requirement. AWS Client VPN users can join from anywhere to your AWS or on-premises networks. Besides, AWS Client VPN offers fast and secure connectivity to your workforce and business partners with the help of OpenVPN-enabled devices like Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and Linux. Now AWS Client VPN is accessible in Asia Pacific (Seoul), Canada (Central), EU (Stockholm), North America (Northern California) regions. With this launch, AWS Client VPN is obtainable in a total of 14 regions. To get the full list of AWS Region where AWS Client VPN is available, refer AWS Region Table. AWS Client VPN is a pay-as-you-go service. Users can select certificate-based, Active Directory, or multi factor authentication, and benefit from tighter security controls by specifying access control rules depends on Active Directory groups. To get further information, refer AWS VPN product page, administrator and documentation.