On The Cloud Pod this week, Jonathan reveals his love for “Twilight.” Plus GCP kicks off Google Cloud Next and announces Google Distributed Cloud, and Azure admits to a major DDoS attack. 

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

• After a few awkward keynotes, Google Cloud Next kicks off days one and two, highlighting new features and announcing Google’s $10 billion investment in cybersecurity advancements.
• At Google Cloud Next, GCP announced the Google Distributed Cloud: A network of hardware and software to help organizations improve cloud strategies. 
• After tooting its horn for reduced DDoS attacks in 2021, Azure reveals details about the largest DDoS attack in its history. This 2.4 terabits/second attack was launched in late August against an Azure customer in Europe. 

Top Quotes  

• “It is kind of crazy, because [Google Distributed Cloud] is an open source project that’s basically how to run Google Cloud in your own data center. It’s probably a smart risk, because I do believe workloads will just eventually end up on Google Cloud.”
• “The tools have the functionality built in, but unless you’re offering that as a service to your end users … and thinking about the holistic management of the settings, the deployment and the full lifecycle of those things, it’s the difference between enabling your business to be secure and just shooting it in the foot.”

AWS: Keeping Quiet This Week for Google Cloud Next

• ️‍♀️ Amazon Fraud Detector can now store event datasets and use this historical data to boost performance for ML models — all at a 56% reduction in price.  
• AWS Console Mobile Application has (finally) added ECS, which will allow users to view and manage a select set of resources to support incident responses from their devices. Clearly someone at AWS listens to TCP and has heard Justin’s many complaints about this. 
• CDK8s (say that five times fast) is now generally available and supports the Go programming language. Using CDK8s, you can define your K8 applications and apply K8 YAML to any cluster. 
• Tired of accidentally deleting your backup with your cloud formation stack? The newly released AWS Backup Vault Lock solves this problem by using safeguards to ensure users store their backups using a Write-Once-Read-Many (WORM) model. 

GCP:  Thank U Google Cloud Next

• Ahead of Google Cloud Next, GCP makes Artifact Registry generally available for Java, Node.js, and Python packages. Users can host their internal codes as packages to their centralized private repository, which simplifies and secures software delivery pipelines. 
• ☁️ GCP announces Google Distributed Cloud — a network of hardware and software infrastructure aimed to help companies transition to the cloud. This distributed cloud is built on Anthos, and includes Google Cloud Edge (available in preview), which brings GCP infrastructure and services closer to where you generate your data. Additionally, new service Google Distributed Cloud Hosted (in preview in H1 2022) provides businesses with a secure way to modernize on-premise infrastructure, building on GCP’s vision of digital sovereignty. 
• Google is trying to make it easier for companies to use AI by expanding Contact Center AI (CCAI) and Document AI (DocAI). With intuitive, out-of-the-box solutions, customers can get results faster and increase productivity.
• Google sets its sights on manufacturers with its new Product Essentials, an AI solution that allows businesses to personalize customer experiences, manage and update products over-the-air, and predict parts and services issues. 
• Google drops $10 billion to further its Invisible Security vision. This investment includes the creation of the Cybersecurity Action Team, which is tasked with supporting security and digital transformation of governments, critical infrastructure, enterprises, and small businesses. 
• Google users can now measure and reduce their environmental impact with newly released tools like Carbon Footprint, the Sustainability Cloud (created in partnership with Salesforce), and a new sustainability category for the Active Assist Recommender. 
• ✨ Other highlights from day one of Google Cloud Next include the Google Cloud Cortex Framework (AKA the SAP thing), Vertex AI Workbench, and the New Partner Advantage program, which is expected to rollout in Q1 2022. 
• As part of the new Workspace, Google is rolling out AppSheet — a no-code app and automation development platform — to email inboxes everywhere. Google has also expanded its Chat integration with Trello to support Jira. 
• GCP’s new integration with Looker and Tableau allows users to access Looker tables and data sets with Tableau. 
• ️ The PostgreSQL interface for Cloud Spanner is now in preview. This update allows schemas and queries built against the PostgreSQL interface to be shipped to another Postgres environment (and avoid that sweet, sweet lock-in.)
• Google releases a host of developer tools to make engineers’ lives easier, including Tau VMs, GKE Autopilot, Cloud Shell Editor, and more! 
• ️ To help manage workloads that can’t be easily containerized in virtual machines, Google is introducing Anthos for VMs and other tools to simplify the developer experience. 

Azure: Breaking DDoS Records — and not the Good Ones

• Azure Virtual Desktop users can now start using Windows 11. The virtual desktop still supports multi-session use, and the Windows updates include a revamped control panel, cleaner UI, and graphic effects. 
• After bragging about its reduction in DDoS attacks in the first half of 2021, Azure reports a record-breaking 2.4 terabits/second attack on an Azure customer in Europe. At 140% higher than the 2020 1 TBps attack, this was the highest network volumetric event detected on Azure. Yikes. 

TCP Lightning Round

⚡ Redeeming himself after missing last week’s round, Ryan wins the point with a “LOTR” reference. This leaves the points at Justin (16), Ryan (9), Jonathan (12), Peter (1). 

Other Headlines Mentioned:

• AWS CloudFormation customers can now manage their applications in AWS Systems Manager 
• AWS Network Firewall Adds New Configuration Options for Rule Ordering and Default Drop 
• Amazon QuickSight adds support for Pixel-Perfect dashboards  
• Amazon ECS Anywhere now supports GPU-based workloads
• AWS Marketplace now supports viewing agreements and canceling and extending offers for Professional Services
• Amazon OpenSearch Service (successor to Amazon Elasticsearch Service) now comes with an improved management console 
• Generally available: Azure Service Tag Discovery API 
• General availability: Azure Monitor container insights portal experience update  

 Things Coming Up

• State of FinOps Update 
• HashiConf – October 19th-October 22nd – Virtual
• Announcing the Government & Education Summit, Nov 3-4, 2021 
• Microsoft Ignite – November 2–4, 2021
• AWS re:Invent – November 29th – December 3rd – Las Vegas