A Global Transaction Identifier (GTID) is a unique identifier created and associated with each transaction committed to a MySQL database. GTIDs are now supported by Amazon Aurora with MySQL 5.7 compatibility, allowing simpler and less error-prone database replication.

The AWS Storage Gateway service now integrates Tape Gateway with Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive storage class, allowing you to store virtual tapes in the lowest-cost Amazon S3 storage class, reducing the monthly cost to store your long-term data in the cloud by up to 75%. S3 Glacier Deep Archive is a new S3 storage class that provides secure, durable object storage for long-term data retention and digital preservation. With this feature, Tape Gateway supports archiving your new virtual tapes directly to S3 Glacier and S3 Glacier Deep Archive, helping you meet your backup, archive, and recovery requirements. 

AWS App Mesh is now generally available and supported for production use.  

AWS customers can now configure and use AWS Transfer for SFTP (AWS SFTP) within their Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) using VPC endpoints, without using public IP addresses or traversing the internet. VPC endpoints for AWS SFTP are powered by AWS PrivateLink, which provides secure, private connectivity between VPCs and AWS services.  

AWS Deep Learning Containers (AWS DL Containers) are Docker images pre-installed with deep learning frameworks to make it easy to deploy custom machine learning environments quickly. AWS DL Containers support TensorFlow and Apache MXNet, with PyTorch coming soon.

AWS Fargate and Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) now support external deployment controllers for ECS services with the launch of task set management APIs. Task sets are a new primitive to allow controlled management of application revision within a single ECS service. You now have new APIs to manage multiple revisions of your application and transitioning from one revision to another.

You can now use Amazon Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes (EKS) to run Windows Server workloads as part of a developer preview. The preview allows you to take advantage of the latest Kubernetes functionality and start validating performance and stability of containerized Windows applications managed by Amazon EKS.

You can now use a new set of open source tools to test your applications locally before deploying to Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS).  

The AWS Toolkit for the IntelliJ IDEA, an open source plug-in that makes it easier to create, step-through debug, build, and deploy Java applications on AWS, is now Generally Available. The toolkit had previously been in developer preview. The toolkit provides deep support for serverless applications at launch with support across other AWS services planned for the future.

We are excited to announce Alexa for Business Blueprints, enabling any Alexa for Business customer to create engaging voice experiences for their organization within minutes and without writing a single line of code. Skill Blueprints are so easy to use, people have used them extensively to create Alexa skills for their households. Now anyone at the office can do the same for their workplace by using one of dozens of easy-to-use Skill Blueprints, generating a private skill in minutes. Alexa private skills are voice-powered capabilities that enhance the Alexa experience, while remaining private to members of an Alexa for Business organization. IT administrators can then review and enable those skills for the company’s users and managed Alexa-enabled devices.