AWS IoT Events is now generally available and supported for production use.  Customers already using IoT Events include BAI Communications, Moixa, and Ecofit. Launch partners include Deloitte, JIG-SAW, Brains Technology, and Onica.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the US government’s principal agency for cancer research and training. NCI coordinates the National Cancer Program, supporting research, training, health information dissemination, and programs that research the causes, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of cancer, rehabilitation from cancer, and the care of cancer patients and their families.

NCI faced several data backup challenges. For a research organization with 9,000 staff, securing and backing up data contained on endpoints—desktops and laptops—were essential. The large staff traveled frequently, often working in multiple locations, and data loss was a significant issue. That loss occurred through a combination of failing machines; lost, stolen, or dropped devices; and user failure to back up data.

Using Druva inSync, NCI has transformed its approach to data loss and recovery by drastically reduced user data loss, automated backup and recovery managed mostly by end users, speedier response to FOIA and forensics requests, freed up IT team to focus on mission-critical tasks, and enabled digital transformation

You can now control access to CloudFormation stacks and resources based on tag values.

Following the recent announcement of updates to the PostgreSQL database , we have updated Amazon Aurora with PostgreSQL compatibility to support PostgreSQL minor version 10.7. This release fixes PostgreSQL security vulnerabilities included in the 10.7 minor release by the PostgreSQL community and contains additional bug fixes and improvements .

To use the new version, you can create an Amazon Aurora with PostgreSQL Compatibility database instance with just a few clicks in the AWS Management Console . You can also create an Amazon Aurora with PostgreSQL Compatibility 10.7 read replica using an RDS for PostgreSQL 10.7 master instance, and then fail over your connections and applications to Aurora when ready. Learn more about migrating to Aurora PostgreSQL 10.7 in the Amazon RDS User Guide .

Amazon Aurora combines the performance and availability of high-end commercial databases with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of open source databases. It provides up to three times better performance than the typical PostgreSQL database, together with increased scalability, durability, and security.

You can now create IoT Analytics Channel and Data Stores in an Amazon S3 bucket in your AWS Account. This lets you easily integrate your IoT Analytics data with your existing data lake, manage the lifecycle of the data according to your S3 bucket policies, and use the data with a downstream application for further processing or presentation to end-users. Previously, your IoT Analytics data could only be used with an S3 bucket managed by the IoT Analytics service. With this feature, and the recently added support for sending IoT Analytics data set content to your Amazon S3 bucket , you now have the flexibility to use S3 buckets in your AWS account for both your IoT Analytics data and materialized views of it.

Amazon ElastiCache for Redis announces improved maintenance update procedures for auto failover enabled clusters. You can now benefit from improved availability during patching, updates and other maintenance related activities that involve planned node replacements. For Redis Cluster configurations that are set up to use Redis Cluster clients, the planned node replacements will now complete while the cluster serves incoming write requests. For non-Redis Cluster configurations, you may notice a brief write interruption, of up to a few seconds, associated with DNS update. 

Amazon Aurora Serverless MySQL 5.6 can now be accessed using the built-in Data API enabling you to access Aurora Serverless with web services-based applications, including AWS Lambda, AWS AppSync, and AWS Cloud9 

Starting today, the Amplify CLI (part of the open source Amplify Framework) includes support for adding an AWS Lambda function to your AWS AppSync API using the GraphQL Transformer and the new @function directive. The GraphQL Transformer, included in the Amplify CLI, provides a simple to use interface that helps developers quickly create scalable web and mobile backends on AWS. 

Hibernating your Amazon EC2 Instances is now easier then ever. You can now enable Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) Encryption by Default, to ensure all new EBS volumes created in your account are encrypted. To enable Hibernation, you no longer have to create an encrypted copy of the Amazon Machine Image (AMI) before launching an instance. Alternatively, you can also now specify encryption intent at launch (with unencrypted AMI or snapshot) and enable hibernation at the same time (see link).  

Amazon MSK, an AWS streaming data service that manages Apache Kafka’s (Kafka) infrastructure and operations is now generally available. Amazon MSK makes it easy for developers and DevOps managers to build and run production applications on Kafka without needing significant Kafka and Apache ZooKeeper operational expertise.