Major AWS Updates and Announcements of 2023 February

AWS frequently shares updates regarding their cloud services and solutions (which is evident as they have an extensive list of services & solutions they offer). To summarize the critical monthly updates in a single article, we go through the updates and list the major ones for each month.

Here comes the major update for the AWS 2023 February.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Lambda can now use Amazon DocumentDB change streams as an event source.

AWS Lambda now supports Amazon DocumentDB change streams as an event source, allowing customers to build event-driven applications that react to database changes quickly.

This feature is available in all commercial AWS regions and can be enabled through the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, AWS SAM, or AWS SDK for Lambda. Source

SageMaker Autopilot has added the feature to select algorithms while starting a machine learning training experiment.

Amazon SageMaker Autopilot lets users select underlying training algorithms for Autopilot experiments, providing greater customization and faster results.

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The low-code machine learning service supports auto or manual selection of two training methods and allows users to choose from eight and three algorithms. This new feature is available in all regions where SageMaker Autopilot is available. Source

Customers can now configure maintenance windows for Amazon Aurora Serverless v1.

Amazon Aurora Serverless v1 now offers a maintenance window to schedule maintenance events such as upgrades.

This new feature provides more control to users and can be set easily through the console or the latest AWS SDK or CLI. Aurora Serverless v1 is an on-demand, auto-scaling configuration for Amazon Aurora. Source

Amazon ECS now allows users to delete inactive task definition revisions.

AWS announces the ability to programmatically delete inactive task definition revisions in Amazon Elastic Container Services (Amazon ECS) through a new DeleteTaskDefinitions API or via the Amazon ECS console.

AWS customers can now avoid the accumulation of inactive task definition revisions on Amazon Elastic Container Services (Amazon ECS). Source

AWS Glue Crawlers now support integration with Lake Formation

AWS Glue Crawlers now integrate with Lake Formation for centralized permissions management, simplifying access to data lake targets.

The integration allows customers to use Lake Formation to manage the permissions of the crawler’s access to data lake-managed tables. This capability is generally available in all regions where AWS Glue and Lake Formation are available. Source

AWS Step Functions now supports integration with 35 services, including EMR Serverless.

AWS Step Functions now supports direct integrations with 35 additional AWS services, including Amazon EMR Serverless, AWS IoT RoboRunner, and AWS IoT Fleetwise.

In addition, Step Functions also added support for 1000+ new API actions from new and existing AWS services such as Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon Athena. The enhancements are now available in all AWS Step Functions regions. Source

AWS CloudTrail now offers Amazon Cognito identity pool data events.

Amazon Cognito now allows customers to monitor access-related activities for both guest and authenticated users of their applications.

The service has added data event publishing to AWS CloudTrail logs, giving administrators greater visibility and allowing them to configure CloudWatch Alarms to monitor specific activity and react based on automated workflows.

The new feature is available in all commercial regions where Amazon Cognito identity pools are public, and AWS CloudTrail may charge for recording data events. Source

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling instance refresh now supports rollback.

EC2 Auto Scaling’s instance refresh feature allows you to replace instances in an Auto Scaling group on a rolling basis. AWS EC2 Auto Scaling now allows rollback of illustration refresh to undo changes made when it fails.

Automatic rollback eliminates manual refresh monitoring for success, and manual rollback is also available. The feature is available in all AWS regions and can be accessed through the Management Console, AWS SDKs, and AWS CLI. Source

Automated maintenance is now available on rare degradation for Amazon EC2 Dedicated Hosts.

AWS has introduced the automated host maintenance feature for Amazon EC2 Dedicated Hosts to minimize application downtime in the event of a dedicated host degradation.

In such cases, AWS will automatically reboot EC2 instances running on the affected host and allocate a new one during a scheduled maintenance event.

The maintenance event can be rescheduled, or the instance reboot order can be changed per the user’s preference.

The feature is available in all classic AWS regions except AWS Outposts and AWS Local Zones and is free of charge. Users can find the list of instance types. This feature supports the Dedicated Host Maintenance user guide. Source

Amazon Boosts NAT Gateway’s Capacity for Concurrent Connections to Unique Destinations

AWS has introduced a new feature in their NAT Gateway that allows users to add multiple IP addresses, enabling up to 440,000 concurrent connections to a unique destination.

A destination is unique based on a specific combination of factors, including the destination IP address, the protocol (TCP/UDP/ICMP), and the destination port.

This helps businesses to ensure that their network infrastructure can handle the increased traffic and workload due to the world’s increasing reliance on cloud computing.

This new feature is available in all AWS regions, providing businesses with a significant step forward in network performance and reliability. Source

Jira Service Management Customer Portal Now Connects with AWS Service Management

Jira Service Management Cloud customers can now use the AWS Service Management Connector freely available in Atlassian Marketplace to search, provision, terminate, update, and use self-service actions on AWS Service Catalog products through their customer portal.

This feature allows non-Jira agents to provision resources using AWS Service Catalog integration, while administrators can use existing AWS Service Catalog configurations.

The connector also includes integrations with AWS Systems Manager Incident Manager and AWS Security Hub, making cloud provisioning and resource management more straightforward. Source