Multi region KMS

This month, AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) introduced multi-Region keys.  It is a new capability that lets you replicate keys from one AWS Region into another. With multi region keys, it is easy to move the encrypted data between Regions without having to decrypt and re-encrypt with different keys in each Region. 

Multi region keys are supported for client-side encryption in the AWS Encryption SDK, AWS S3 Encryption Client, and AWS DynamoDB Encryption Client.  The process of creating a CMK in AWS KMS, is depicted in the attached diagram with seven steps process.

This new service simplify any process that copies protected data into multiple Regions, such as disaster recovery/backup, DynamoDB global tables, or for digital signature applications that require the same signing key in multiple Regions.

AWS KMS makes it easy for you to create and manage cryptographic keys and control their use across a wide range of AWS services and in your applications. AWS KMS is a secure and resilient service that uses hardware security modules that have been validated under FIPS 140-2.

Proton GA

 

Last week, AWS announced the general availability (GA) of AWS Proton. It is the first fully managed delivery service for container and serverless applications, which is designed to provide platform teams the management tools, governance, and visibility needed to provide consistent standards and best practices when managing deployments, while helping to increase developer productivity and innovation.

Using infrastructure as code, platform operators can create a template that defines and configures everything needed to provision, deploy, and monitor a service.

Two key features got launched. First, AWS Proton supports multi-account infrastructures. With this new capability, platform operators can use AWS Proton to help configure and manage their architecture securely across multiple AWS accounts. The second feature release supports IAM condition context keys in AWS Proton APIs. With this additional layer of control, operators can designate which developers can create services based on template characteristics.

Product page at https://aws.amazon.com/proton/

App Runner

 Last week, AWS announced the general availability of AWS App Runner.

App Runner is a fully managed container application service that makes it easy for customers without any prior containers or infrastructure experience to build, deploy, and run containerized web applications and APIs in just a few clicks. 

As an end user, it is not required to be tech savvy.  You simply provide source code, a container image, or deployment pipeline; rest will be done by App Runner.  It automatically builds and deploys the web application, load balances traffic, scales on demand, and monitors application health.

Out of the box, App Runner is built for web scale, so there’s no need to re-platform or re-architect as the business grows. It makes it simpler to rapidly deliver innovative solutions and business value.

Documentation is available with three sections (1) Developer Guide, (2) API Reference and (3) Release Notes.  Ref: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/apprunner/

Data Prediction

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur built the Covid prediction data model for India's second wave. 

Our scientists are working on the SUTRA model for charting the trajectory of COVID-19. They have been working on a mathematical model to predict the spread of the virus.

It is important to note that a mathematical model can only predict future with some certainty so long as virus dynamics and its transmissibility don’t change substantially over time. Mathematical models can also provide a mechanism to predicting alternate scenarios corresponding to various policy decisions such as non-pharmaceutical interventions.

 It is quite accurate and in sync with the current date. Ref: https://www.sutra-india.in/

CloudFront functions

 

Amazon CloudFront Functions is ideal for lightweight CloudFront content delivery network customization.  It can run on every request to enable high scale and latency sensitive operations like HTTP header manipulations, URL rewrites/redirects, and cache key normalization. For example, you can use CloudFront Functions to rewrite requests to language specific versions of your site based on the Accept-Language header of the incoming request. You can also use CloudFront Functions to validate custom tokens to authorize incoming requests.

As these functions run at all of CloudFront’s edge locations, they can scale instantly to millions of requests per second with minimal latency overhead.  It is built for lightweight HTTP(S) transformations and manipulations, allowing you to deliver richer, more personalized content with low latency to your customers.

CloudFront Functions is natively built-in to CloudFront, allowing you to easily build, test, and deploy viewer request and viewer response functions entirely within CloudFront.

Few useful sample code repository is available at https://github.com/aws-samples/amazon-cloudfront-functions

Goodbye Python2.7

 

Python is one of the powerful language recently used in the industry.  Why? Because, it is dynamically typed with garbage collected concepts. Also, it supports multiple programming paradigms like structured, procedural, object-oriented and functional programming.

Coming back to AWS Cloud world, Python plays a vital role.  

Few key dates and updates of AWS Lambda Python 2.7 deprecation

• January 1, 2020 - Python Software Foundation (PSF) officially sunset Python 2.7
  
  
• July 15, 2021 - AWS Lambda will end support for Python 2.7
• You will not be able to create new Python 2.7 functions after this date
  
  
• September 30, 2021 - Unable to update existing Python 2.7 functions
• Invokes to existing functions will not be affected
• Existing function runtime can still be changed
  
  
• Resources:
• AWS Blog: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/announcing-end-of-support-for-python-2-7-in-aws-lambda/
• PSF Migration Guide: https://docs.python.org/3/howto/pyporting.html

It is high time to take an immediate action against the existing Python 2.7 Lambda functions in your firm.

AWS CloudShell

 As we know, there are 3 ways to connect AWS infrastructure.  They are:

1. AWS Console (web based interface)
2. AWS CLI (Command Line Interface)
3. AWS API (Application Program Interface)

Non technical users prefer to use AWS Console.  Scripting engineers are used to leverage CLI.  Third option API is used by application engineers.

Recently, start of the year, AWS CloudShell is available to use as attached.

AWS CloudShell is a browser-based, pre-authenticated shell that the user can launch directly from the AWS Management Console. It runs any AWS CLI commands against AWS services using your preferred shell (Bash, PowerShell, or Z shell). Cool thing is no need to download or install command line tools.

Happy Cloud Access in simple way!