On The Cloud Pod this week, Jonathan pulls a classic move from 2020 and doesn’t realize he’s on mute. Also, the team completely destroys an article about the cloud being too expensive for what you get.           

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

• VC firm a16z calls the cloud a “trillion-dollar paradox” in a blog post, noting the pressure cloud computing puts on margins can start to outweigh the benefits. We think there are quite a few holes in their analysis and the Dropbox example doesn’t work.
• AWS releases Step Functions Workflow Studio. Developers new to Step Functions will enjoy being able to build workflows faster. 
• Google announces that Quantum computers from IonQ are now on its marketplace. Developers, researchers and enterprises alike can now access IonQ’s high-fidelity, 11-qubit system via Google Cloud.   

General News: A Trillion-Dollar Paradox 

• Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, known as “a16z,” thinks the cost of cloud computing outweighs its benefits. Dropbox is a terrible example to use in this case.  
• Splunk launches Splunk Security Cloud and announces a billion-dollar investment by a private equity firm. We think it’s having some integration problems in the background — it’s something to keep an eye on.    

Amazon Web Services: Jonathan, You’re On Mute

• AWS launches Step Functions Workflow Studio. This is great for developers new to Step Functions as it reduces the time it takes to build their first workflow.
• AWS invites individual developers and small teams to take the Graviton Challenge. They’re obviously trying to drive adoption. 
• AWS Key Management Service is introducing multi-region keys. A nuisance that has plagued Justin for years has finally been solved. 
• AWS announces a public registry for CloudFormation, providing a searchable collection of textensions. People have been asking for this for a long time so it’s nice to see.   

Google Cloud Platform: Tell Us How To Use It

• Google announces Quantum computers from IonQ are now available in Google Cloud Marketplace. Some use cases for this would be good.    
• ❓ Google has released a new white paper around frameworks that will help devise the strategy that empowers both business and IT teams. We think it needs to fill in the blanks for existing frameworks rather than making new ones. 
• Google announces the general availability of BigQuery row-level security. Very nice but again, no use cases. 
• ️ Google announces support for HTTP/3 to all Google Cloud customers. No insecure data transfers for HTTP/3 is awesome!   
• Google is releasing a new Visual Inspection AI Solution for manufacturers. AWS Lookout is basically the same thing.        

Azure: Attack Of The Blob

• Azure announces the preview of Default Rule Set 2.0 for Azure Web App Firewall. We’re not sure why it’s a premium service only.
• Azure announces the general availability of Azure FX-series Virtual Machines in three regions. This is kind of underwhelming to us. 
• Azure is announcing NFS 3.0 protocol support for Azure Blob storage is now generally available. Another weird legacy announcement from Azure.   

TCP Lightning Round

⚡Leaving the others in the dust, Jonathan takes this week’s point, leaving scores at Justin (10), Ryan (5), Jonathan (8), Peter (1). 

Other Headlines Mentioned:

• Azure Blob index tags now generally available
• General availability: Cross region Restore of SQL/SAP HANA running in Azure VM 
• Amazon Lex announces support for multi-valued slots
• Google Cloud SQL extends PostgreSQL 9.6 version support beyond end-of-life
• Amazon Aurora Serverless v1 supports fast database cloning
• Azure Key Vault Managed HSM is generally available
• Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra) now helps you monitor and improve application read/write performance and throughput by using new Amazon CloudWatch metrics
• AWS announces a new shell for F1 instances with increased FPGA resources and data transfer speeds
• Ferrari Selects AWS as its Official Cloud Provider to Power Innovation on the Road and Track

 Things Coming Up

• Announcing Google Cloud 2021 Summits [frequently updated]
• Amazon re:Inforce — August 24–25 — Houston, TX
• Google Cloud Next 2021 — October 12–14, 2021
• AWS re:Invent — November 29–December 3 — Las Vegas
• Oracle Open World (no details yet)