Cloud News Round-up: February 2020

February 2020 updates on AWS Client VPN, AWS Compute Optimiser, and The State of Serverless.

AWS Cloud Updates

As always, we’ll get started by taking a look at recent updates to AWS Cloud.

Registration for AWS Summit 2020 Now Open

That’s right, it’s almost that time of year again! AWS Summit is returning to the International Convention Centre (ICC) in Sydney. Summit will run from April 1 to April 2.

Get ready for two days of educational and inspirational keynotes, breakout sessions, and customer stories. This is the perfect opportunity to discover how cloud technology can help your business lower costs, improve efficiency, and innovate. Click here to register for Summit 2020.

New Desktop Client for AWS Client VPN

This functionality enables users to use Open VPN-based clients to securely access AWS and on-premises networks from anywhere.

This month AWS has launched this functionality as a desktop client, one for windows and one for MacOS. This makes it even easier for users to connect Windows and MacOS clients to AWS.

These client applications can be installed on your desktop or laptop. Both support mutual authentication, username/password via Active Directory, and Multi-Factor Authentication.

AWS Compute Optimiser Now Available in Singapore and Sydney

AWS Compute Optimiser is now available in 11 additional regions including Sydney and Singapore. As of this announcement, the service is available in a total of 16 AWS Regions.

AWS Compute Optimiser recommends optimal AWS Compute resources for your workloads by using machine learning to analyse past workloads. This reduces costs and improves performance.

Cloud and IT News

Alright, lets jump into the latest news stories in AWS, cloud computing and the IT industry as a whole.

How AI is Helping to Battle the Coronavirus Outbreak

A Canadian firm called BlueDot was able to use AI to warn its customers about coronavirus. The warning came in late December of 2019, days before both the CDC and WHO sent out their official notices.

The company’s early-warning system uses artificial intelligence to track over 100 infectious diseases. It does this by analysing roughly 100,000 articles in 65 languages every day. BlueDot uses this data to notify clients about the potential presence and spread of an infectious disease.

Australia Leads the Way in Cloud Adoption

According to the newly released Enterprise Cloud Index there is a growing optimism around emerging and developing technologies in Australia. The Research, commissioned by cloud OS provider Nutanix, studied 2,650 IT decision makers in 24 countries. This included Australia.

The study shows 87% of Australian respondents feel AI and ML are having positive impacts on their organisations. It also revealed 86% of Australian organisations have brought, or plan to bring, public cloud applications back into their organisation. This is well ahead of the global average of 73% percent.

In particular hybrid cloud is very popular, with 91% of Australian organisations favouring this mode. This is compared to 85% of organisations globally.

Useful Cloud Resources

We’ve collected recent reports, articles and white papers containing helpful insights about AWS Cloud, cloud computing and IT in general.

Course Spotlight: AWS Technical Essentials

AWS Technical Essentials is the first step for those beginning their cloud journey. This Course Spotlight article will help you get acquainted with one of the AWS training courses we offer. You’ll get a better idea of what the featured course covers, the skills you’ll learn and the job roles that benefit from taking it.

AWS Launches New Online Course: Architecting Serverless Solutions

Architecting Serverless Solutions is the latest free online training module from AWS. Discover how to combine AWS Lambda and Amazon API Gateway to power serverless applications. You will also learn how to create event-driven, proof-of-concept serverless architecture that uses managed services.

This is an intermediate level course and takes roughly 3 hours to complete.

The State of Serverless Report

While we’re on the topic of serverless, Data Dog has released The State of Serverless report. The report, which examines the serverless usage of thousands of companies, provides insight into how serverless is being used.

Serverless provides the same pay-as-you-go model as public cloud, but it provides specific functions rather than infrastructure. Data Dog’s report focuses on AWS Lambda. As of the start of 2020 Lambda is the most mature and widely adopted serverless platform.

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