On The Cloud Pod this week, AWS releases OpenSearch and EKS Anywhere, Google Cloud is now available in the Toronto region, and Microsoft deals with two critical security issues. 

A big thanks to this week’s sponsors:

• Foghorn Consulting, which provides full-stack cloud solutions with a focus on strategy, planning and execution for enterprises seeking to take advantage of the transformative capabilities of AWS, Google Cloud and Azure.

• JumpCloud, which offers a complete platform for identity, access, and device management — no matter where your users and devices are located. 

This week’s highlights

• AWS releases OpenSearch (previously Elasticsearch) and makes EKS Anywhere generally available — to those who run VMware. 
• Google Cloud opens a Toronto region, expanding its core Google portfolio into three new zones. How aboot that?
• Security issues continue to plague Microsoft, with critical vulnerabilities exposed in both its ACI and OMI features. Hopefully new hire, Charlie Bell, can help them out. 

Top Quotes  

  “I hope that the reason [AWS is] integrating with VMware only is because they’re deeply integrating with that platform and they can spin up new VMs, deploy new infrastructure, and provide the scaling you need to make EKS Anywhere work the way it works in the cloud.”

“Everything now is driven by the cloud in a big way, where you pay by the drip. So now I need to make the drip as efficient as possible. And if I can give you dedicated silicon to do that, that’s the best thing for me. And so it’s quite interesting.”

General News: Jump On It 

• The Cloud Pod sponsor, JumpCloud, raises $159 million in its Series F round, bringing its total funding to $350 million. Remote working has catalyzed growth for this cloud directory service, now valued at $2.56 billion. Take that, AD.

Amazon Web Services: New Features, Who Dis?  

• Amazon Elasticsearch is now OpenSearch. In addition to the new name, AWS has also added a host of new features like advanced security, SQL query syntax, updated reporting capabilities, and more. Overall, we are super happy with this first release! 
• ✨ Amazon EKS Anywhere is now generally available… as long as you use it on top of VMware. EKS (almost) Anywhere helps users manage any Kubernetes cluster, and offers automation tooling for cluster lifecycle support. This comes two weeks late for Justin, who included it in his predictions draft. Bummer. 
• Livestreamers rejoice! AWS is launching EC2 T1 instances for live multi-stream video transcoding, which will provide resolution up to 4K Ultra HD. Using GPUs for graphics processing — what an idea!

Google Cloud Platform: Google Welcomes Toronto to the Family 

• ️ In addition to giving users dedicated CPUs, GCP is now offering CPU allocation controls which will allow users to do background processing for their asynchronous tasks in Cloud Run container instances.  
• Break out the maple syrup because Google Cloud is now open in Toronto. Toronto is Google’s 28th cloud region, and customers in its three zones can now enjoy improved BCP capabilities, as well as the core Google portfolio. 
• A new Google Cloud documentation feature allows users to run code samples in a cloud shell without leaving the page. No more switching between documentation and terminal windows! 

Azure: Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right, but Maybe Charlie Bell Can?

• ⛏️ Palo Alto Networks security research team, Unit42, finds another security issue for Microsoft in its Azure Container Instances (ACI) feature. Malicious users could potentially exploit this issue to steal customer secrets, and even use the ACI infrastructure for crypto mining. Ouch.
• OMIGOD. After hacking Cosmos DB, Wiz says Hold my beer, and exposes more critical vulnerabilities in OMI — a common component for many Microsoft services — which could allow attackers to remotely execute arbitrary code within the network. 
• Charlie Bell is officially a Microsoft employee. According to an announcement from September 15, Bell has been tasked to lead a new engineering organization to address cybersecurity issues — once Bell’s non-compete contract has been figured out, that is.  

TCP Lightning Round

⚡ With a final dunk on Microsoft’s ACI security issue, Justin snags the point this week, leaving the scores at Justin (15), Ryan (8), Jonathan (10), Peter (1). 

Other Headlines Mentioned:

• Amazon Aurora now supports AWS Graviton2-based T4g instances 
• AWS Health Aware (AHA) is now available for Organizational and Personal AWS Accounts to customize Health Alerts 
• AWS CodeBuild now supports a small ARM machine type
• Amazon SES now supports emails with a message size of up to 40MB
• Amazon CodeGuru Reviewer enhances security findings generated by GitHub Action by adding severity fields and CWE tags 

 Things Coming Up

• State of FinOps Update 
• Azure Data Governance Event – September 28th 
• SnykConf 2021 October 5-7 – Virtual Conference – FREE Registration
• KubeCon – October 11-15th
• Google Cloud Next – October 12-14, 2021 – Register Now – Virtual 
  • Just released: The Google Cloud Next session catalog is live. Build your custom playlists
• HashiConf – October 19th-October 22nd – Virtual
• Announcing the Government & Education Summit, Nov 3-4, 2021 
• AWS Re:Invent – November 29th – December 3rd – Las Vegas