AWS Device Farm now lets you add unmetered Android and iOS device slots to your account to run unlimited tests for a recurring monthly fee of $250 per device slot. Pricing for unmetered testing is fixed regardless of test type and device minutes used. Regardless of the number of device slots that you purchase, you can test on any number of devices and execution concurrency is simply limited to the number of slots. To learn more about device slots please visit our FAQ. 

You can now easily upgrade the engine version on your existing ElastiCache for Redis clusters to utilize Amazon ElastiCache enhancements, including increased usable memory, improved synchronization and more efficient failovers. To achieve the smoothest performance on ElastiCache for Redis, we recommend you upgrade to the latest engine version that is compatible with Redis 2.8.24. The engine upgrade process is designed to make a best effort to retain your existing data and requires Redis replication to succeed. For more details and best practices on upgrading your ElastiCache for Redis engine version please refer to the ElastiCache Documentation . 

The AWS Cryptography team has announced the AWS Encryption SDK. This new SDK makes encryption easier for developers while minimizing errors that could lower the security of their applications. Developers using encryption often face two problems: a. how to correctly generate and use a key to encrypt data, and b. how to protect the key after it’s been used. The library provided in the AWS Encryption SDK addresses the first problem by transparently implementing the low-level details using the cryptographic provider available in a developer’s environment. The library addresses the second problem by providing intuitive interfaces to let developers choose how they want to protect their encryption keys after use. By using the AWS Encryption SDK, developers can focus on the core of the application they’re building instead of the complexities of encryption. We’ve provided ready-to-use samples in the SDK for AWS customers who use AWS CloudHSM or AWS Key Management Service, however the open source SDK can be extended to support other key providers. 

Today we are announcing the availability of two new CloudWatch metrics for monitoring network packets on EC2 instances. The new metrics are NetworkPacketsIn and NetworkPacketsOut. These new metrics provide insight into the number of network packets flowing to and from an EC2 instance. These metrics are available along with the other CloudWatch metrics for all EC2 instances on the EC2 console, CLI and API.

Amazon RDS for SQL server now supports authentication using the Windows Authentication method. You can now enable your applications to authenticate against Amazon RDS for SQL Server using credentials stored in the AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory (Enterprise Edition). Keeping all of your credentials in the same directory will save you time and effort because you will no longer have to find and update each copy of the credentials in separate repositories. This may also improve your overall security profile. Windows Authentication support is now available for new instances as well as existing instances.

Amazon EC2 Spot instances are now available in the Asia Pacific (Seoul) region. AWS customers in the area can now use Spot instances to save up to 90% compared to On-Demand prices by bidding on unused Amazon EC2 capacity. In addition to reducing the cost of running your applications, you can also use Spot instances to increase your computing scale and throughput for the same budget and enable new types of cloud computing applications. 

AWS continues to innovate at a rapid pace, and one of the keys to building a successful business on AWS is ensuring you can accurately explain the value and operation of AWS and its latest features. AWS Business and Technical Professional courses consist of e-learning modules and assessments designed to help you stay current. Today we’re making them available in additional languages— Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, German, and Brazilian Portuguese, with Spanish to follow soon. These courses are available at no cost to APN Partners via the APN Portal . Once you successfully complete all course assessments, you achieve an accreditation that validates your role-specific knowledge. 

Support for multiple trails: You can now create up to 5 trails in the AWS GovCloud (US) region. Different stakeholders such as IT auditors, security administrators, and developers can create and manage their own trail. Additionally, you can prescribe granular access control to allow or deny access to specific trails for particular users. For more details, refer to the Multiple Trails section of the CloudTrail User Guide. One trail per region is free. Charges apply for additional trails. For pricing details, go to the CloudTrail pricing page.  

You can use AWS Mobile Hub to develop apps in Swift. Simply login to the AWS Mobile Hub console  to create a project and select features for your app including user authentication, data storage, backend logic, push notifications, content delivery, and analytics, then choose Swift from the build tab of your project. AWS Mobile Hub automatically provisions these features and generates a working quickstart app for iOS that you can use as a foundation for your app, or cut and paste code snippets to your existing app.

You can now scale up your existing ElastiCache for Redis clusters to a larger node type with a few clicks. Simply modify your node type by choosing from the available options and let ElastiCache manage the rest. Your existing node endpoints will persist, thus no application update is required. Scale up for Redis is designed to make a best effort to retain your existing data and requires Redis replication to succeed. For more details, please refer to Jeff Barr’s blog and ElastiCache Documentation .