From Aurora Serverless v2 scaling to zero to ten years of AWS Lambda, from Cloudflare advocating for wider adoption of the security.txt standard to PostgreSQL 17: a recap of my news pieces for InfoQ in November.
Aurora Serverless v2 Adds Zero-Capacity Scaling for True Serverless
Amazon Aurora Serverless v2 has recently announced that it now supports scaling to zero capacity, enabling the database to automatically pause after a period of inactivity based on database connections. The lack of the ability to scale to zero capacity for Aurora’s on-demand automatic scaling configuration has been a contentious topic for many years.
Amazon Marks 10 Years of AWS Lambda by Releasing Initial Internal Document
Werner Vogels, Amazon’s CTO, recently unveiled the internal design narrative that initiated the AWS Lambda project. The release of the PR/FAQ that sparked the development of one of Amazon’s most popular services offers a “peek behind the curtain” and highlights the initial vision for serverless computing at Amazon.
First Google Axion Processor Now Available: Claims Best Performance in Cloud Market
Google has announced the general availability of its C4A virtual machines, marking the debut of Axion-based instances. The cloud provider claims these instances deliver up to 10% better price-performance compared to the latest Arm-based alternatives from competitors, including Amazon Graviton4.
Aurora Limitless: AWS Introduces New PostgreSQL Database with Automated Horizontal Scaling
AWS has announced the general availability of Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL Limitless Database, a relational database designed to provide automated horizontal scaling. This new option can handle millions of write transactions per second and manage petabytes of data, all within a single database environment.
How Recall.ai Saved $1M on AWS by Eliminating WebSockets
Recall.ai recently shared their experience running a platform for building and managing meeting bots on AWS, where they uncovered that using WebSockets was adding an extra 1M USD per year in costs. The team describes how they developed an alternative high-bandwidth, low-latency inter-process communication (IPC) solution to resolve the issue.
Amazon Q Adds Inline Chat Support for Visual Studio Code and JetBrains IDEs
AWS recently announced that Amazon Q Developer now supports inline chat, enabling developers to discuss and resolve code issues directly within the editor. Combining the benefits of in-IDE chat with the ability to directly update codes, this feature is powered by Claude 3.5 and available in Visual Studio Code and JetBrains IDEs.
Cloudflare Advocates for Broader Adoption of security.txt Standard for Vulnerability Reporting
To address the issue of unreported security vulnerabilities, Cloudflare recently launched a dashboard to help create and manage a security.txt file for website vulnerability disclosures. The generated file adheres to the RFC9116 standard, offering security research teams a standardized method for reporting vulnerabilities.
Amazon Aurora Introduces Global Database Writer Endpoint for Distributed Applications
Amazon Aurora has recently introduced a Global Database writer endpoint to streamline routing for applications in disaster-recovery scenarios. This highly available global endpoint removes the need for application code changes to reestablish connectivity following a cross-region switchover or failover operation.
Cloudflare Introduces Short-Lived SSH Access, Eliminating the Need for SSH Credentials
Cloudflare recently announced Access for Infrastructure SSH, a feature that replaces traditional SSH keys with short-lived certificates. The new option leverages BastionZero’s integration into Cloudflare One and reduces the complexity of managing SSH keys while enhancing security by substituting long-term SSH keys with temporary, ephemeral certificates.
PostgreSQL 17 Released with Improved Vacuum Process and Performance Gains
The PostgreSQL Global Development Group recently announced the general availability of PostgreSQL 17, the latest version of the popular open-source database. This release focuses on performance improvements, including a new memory management implementation for vacuum, storage access optimizations, and enhancements for high-concurrency workloads.