AWS Cost Explorer helps you visualize, understand, and manage your AWS costs and usage over time. This is done via an intuitive interface that enables you to quickly create custom reports (including charts and tabular data) that analyze cost and usage data, both at a high level (e.g., total costs and usage across all accounts) and for highly-specific requests (e.g., m2.2xlarge costs within account Y that are tagged “project: secretProject”).

Today, AWS released two important enhancements for Amazon Aurora:

• Spatial Indexing: Enables high performance spatial queries for Aurora.
• Zero-Downtime Patching: Makes it possible for customers to apply a patch to their Aurora cluster without downtime.

To learn more about these new features, please visit Jeff Barr’s blog .

AWS CodePipeline is now available in the Asia Pacific (Tokyo) AWS region. 

The first zero liquid discharge (ZLD) plant in Egypt, part of a water treatment facility designed and supplied by Aquatech, has been commissioned.

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture has earmarked $50 billion for new eight desalination plants, and aims to sell 29 existing facilities.

Consulting engineer Mott MacDonald is to manage, design and supervise a major water supply project in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Klorigen sodium hypochlorite onsite generation system addresses safety and security issues

Wrangler Jeans also announced a goal to reduce water usage at its facilities by 20 percent by the year 2020.

SolRio, a US non-profit that supports solar-powered desalination, has proposed turning the decommissioned San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station, California, into a desalination plant.

UK water engineer Biwater has won a $1.2 billion contract from Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Iraq, to deliver new and upgrade water projects in the region.