In our first episode we go through an extended version of our usual What's New segment of the podcast. For this, Arjen is joined by Jean-Manuel and Guy. This episode was recorded on the evening of the 27th of March 2020 (Australian time).

COVID-19

• Working From Home? Here’s How AWS Can Help | AWS News Blog
• Remote Work & Learning | Amazon Web Services (see the offers section for the extended free tiers)
• Amazon’s COVID-19 blog: daily updates on how we’re responding to the crisis
• COVID-19 Global Hackathon 1.0: #BuildforCOVID19 Global Online Hackathon - Devpost

Finally in Sydney

• AWS Control Tower now available in Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region
• Amazon Forecast is now available in three new regions - Asia Pacific (Sydney, Mumbai) and Europe (Frankfurt)
• AWS Migration Hub is now available in the Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region

Serverless

• AWS Lambda@Edge now supports Node 12.x and Python 3.8
• AWS Serverless Application Repository adds support for sharing applications with AWS organizations
• API Gateway offers private integrations with AWS ELB and AWS CloudMap as part of HTTP APIs GA release
• Amplify Console adds command line interface for configuring continuous deployment and hosting

Containers

• Now proactively manage your ECR API use with CloudWatch Metrics and Service Quotas
• Amazon EKS adds envelope encryption for secrets with AWS KMS
• Amazon EKS now supports Kubernetes version 1.15
• Announcing Bottlerocket, a new open source Linux-based operating system purpose-built to run containers
• AWS Elastic Beanstalk Launches Docker on AL2 Platform (Beta)
• AWS App Mesh launches support for end to end encryption
• Amazon ECS supports in Preview updating Placement Strategy and Constraints for existing ECS Services

EC2 & VPC

• Amazon EC2 Hibernation now Lets you Pause and Resume Your Workloads on T2 Instance Types
• Announcing 36% faster EBS-optimized performance on additional AWS Nitro System-based Amazon EC2 instances
• Amazon Lightsail now supports resource monitoring, alarming and notifications
• Use Amazon VPC Endpoint Policies for granular control of Amazon EC2 APIs

Security

• AWS Secrets Manager now supports larger size for secrets and higher request rate for GetSecretValue API
• Introducing AWS Config multi-account, multi-region support for advanced query
• AWS WAF adds Anonymous IP List for AWS Managed Rules
• Amazon GuardDuty Price Reduction
• AWS Site-to-Site VPN now supports certificate authentication for connections to AWS Transit Gateway
• Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM) Adds Support For 1 hour Backup Interval

Dev & Ops

• AWS CodeCommit Introduces git-remote-codecommit, a New Git Credential Helper
• Introducing Customizations for AWS Control Tower solution
• Execute Chef recipes on Linux with AWS Systems Manager
• AWS Control Tower now supports single-step account provisioning
• AWS AppConfig announces integration with Amazon S3
• Amazon CloudWatch now allows you to combine multiple alarms

Databases

• NoSQL Workbench for Amazon DynamoDB is now generally available
• Amazon Aurora with PostgreSQL Compatibility Supports User Authentication with Kerberos and Microsoft Active Directory
• New AWS Certification validates expertise in AWS databases
• Amazon RDS Performance Insights Supports Amazon RDS for MySQL Version 8.0
• Amazon Aurora with PostgreSQL Compatibility supports Amazon Aurora Global Database
• Amazon Redshift launches pause and resume
• Amazon ElastiCache for Redis announces Global Datastore
• Announcing column-level access control for Amazon Redshift

AI / ML

• Amazon Transcribe now supports automatic content redaction
• Announcing Time Expression for Amazon Comprehend Medical
• Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth Now Supports Multi-Label Image and Text Classification and Amazon CloudWatch Events
• Introducing Amazon Personalize Optimizer Using Amazon Pinpoint Events
• AWS RoboMaker simulation now supports GUI streaming for robot and simulation applications

Other cool stuff

• You can now take all AWS Certification exams with online proctoring. See the AWS Certification FAQs
• AWS Cost Explorer now offers Savings Plans Recommendations for Member (Linked) Accounts
• AWS adds the ability for customers to enable AWS Local Zones themselves
• AWS Global Accelerator now supports Bring Your Own IP Addresses and Resource Tagging
• AWS Console Mobile Application Launches a New Android Version
• Amazon Connect announces per-second billing, saving customers up to 5% in telephony costs
• Amazon Connect makes it easier to customize the caller experience by adding attributes to existing contact flow blocks
• Amazon AppStream 2.0 adds support for native application mode on Windows PCs
• Automate index management with Amazon Elasticsearch Service
• Amazon FSx for Lustre CSI Driver Supports New File System Deployment Options
• Amazon Elasticsearch Service announces support for Elasticsearch versions 7.4

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