AWS expands to Chile, empowering builders and mental health

At the start of September, AWS launched the long-awaited New Zealand Region. The launch of the region marks a turning point for the Kiwi tech sector – for the first time ever, Kiwi businesses have more than one hyperscaler in-country to choose from. While this is great news, businesses now have more options, and so choosing the right ones becomes more difficult. In this article, we take a pragmatic look at the new region and when it makes sense to use it. #AWS #AWSNewZealandRegion #AWSNewZealand

My colleagues Henrik Balle, Bhanu Jasthi, and Maia H. just dropped an essential guide on AWS optimization for public sector organizations. Building on the recent GSA OneGov agreement, they share some impressive numbers: organizations migrating to AWS see an average 20% reduction in infrastructure costs, with top performers hitting 47% savings. Even better - these organizations are seeing 66% increased infrastructure productivity and can redirect 29% more time to innovation. Their guide breaks down a practical framework across three key areas: • Agency-wide digital transformation • AWS environment refinements • Service-level improvements Want to learn how to achieve these kinds of results? Check out their complete playbook here: https://lnkd.in/eJQP3QRw #AWS #PublicSector

Dell PowerStore has officially been validated for AWS Outposts, bringing enterprise-grade NVMe block storage to on-premises AWS environments. This integration is a game-changer for organizations needing low-latency, high-performance storage while maintaining AWS-native operations. Get the details over at StorageReview.com! https://lnkd.in/eHF2HEnm

Something very interesting happened earlier this week and as an AWS and Cloud enthusiast it encouraged me to turn to Linkedin to share my two cents as well. AWS’s Northern Virginia region (US-East-1) - a key region serving majority of the Global Cloud market) went down after a DNS and DynamoDB failure which cascaded across multiple dependent services like EC2, S3, Lambda Functions and more taking major platforms/websites offline resulting in hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars in lost revenue. What stood out to me was not just the outage itself, but how it happened despite AWS’s layered redundancy. Even with backups of backups of backups, the failure occurred at a core dependency layer (DNS + service discovery) that every other service relied on proving that resilience is not just about replication, but dependency isolation. As someone working on cloud migrations and systems designs/architecture, this reinforced a few truths: - Redundancy is not Resilience. We must design for isolation, not duplication. - Multi-region strategies must be actively tested, not just architected. - Dependency maps should be as critical as the data backup plans. - When designing infrastructure architecture - Use the Design for failure assuming it will eventually happen. In today's world it is not if it will happen but when. Cloud reliability is not about avoiding outages. It is about ensuring your business survives one with appropriate plans in place. #AWS #CloudArchitecture #Resilience #AI #DigitalTransformation #SystemsDesign

𝗔𝗪𝗦 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗦𝗮𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝘅𝘁: AWS is quietly phasing out Reserved Instances in favor of Savings Plans for newer infrastructure. However, RIs remain fully functional for existing workloads and older instance types, and RDS continues to support them. Here's how to use RIs strategically while they're still available: 𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝟭: 𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱𝘀  • 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱𝘀: RIs for services running 24/7 with predictable usage patterns  • 𝗥𝗗𝗦 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁: Database Reserved Instances offer up to 69% savings and aren't being deprecated yet, start here  • 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟳𝟱% 𝗥𝘂𝗹𝗲: Only commit to RIs when utilization consistently exceeds 75% for 30+ days 𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝟮: 𝗖𝗵𝗼𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗥𝗜 𝗧𝘆𝗽𝗲  • 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗥𝗜𝘀: Maximum discount (up to 72%) for workloads that won't change instance families  • 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗥𝗜𝘀: Moderate discount (up to 54%) with flexibility to change instance types as needs evolve  • 𝗥𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗥𝗜𝘀: Automatic application across AZs and instance sizes within the same family 𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝟯: 𝗢𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝗣𝗮𝘆𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆  • 𝟯-𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗔𝗹𝗹 𝗨𝗽𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁: Deepest discounts for workloads you're sure about long-term  • 𝟭-𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗨𝗽𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁: Balance savings and flexibility for established workloads  • 𝗡𝗼 𝗨𝗽𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁: Lower savings but preserve cash flow and reduce commitment risk 𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝟰: 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗱𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁  • 𝗥𝗜 𝗨𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘀: Track whether purchased RIs are actually being used (target: 95%+)  • 𝗥𝗜 𝗖𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘀: Identify which On-Demand spend should convert to RIs next  • 𝗤𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀: Reassess commitments as workload patterns evolve 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗜 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆: AWS is moving toward Savings Plans for EC2, but RIs remain valuable for RDS and existing EC2 workloads. The most significant waste occurs when purchasing Standard RIs for unpredictable workloads or committing resources before usage patterns stabilize. Start with RDS Reserved Instances for production databases, they're the easiest win and not being deprecated. Then, target EC2 instances that have been running continuously for 90+ days on established instance types. Use 1-year terms initially to test patterns before committing to 3-year terms. Skip RIs entirely for development environments, batch processing, and anything with variable usage. For new infrastructure on modern instance types, use Savings Plans instead; they offer the same discounts with more flexibility. What's your RI strategy as AWS transitions to Savings Plans? Are you still seeing value or making the switch? #AWS #awscommunity #kubernetes #CloudNative #DevOps #Containers #TechLeadership

We always knew the AWS Well-Architected Framework was expensive to apply; now it seems AWS knows it too… and doesn’t apply it. AWS’s own reliability principles promote multi-region redundancy, decoupled control planes, and independent failure domains. Yet several of these principles were clearly not followed internally during the latest AWS outage: 🔸 Single-Region Dependence Most internal management services still rely on US-EAST-1. While customers can build multi-region workloads, AWS’s own orchestration systems often aren’t. 🔸 Control Plane Coupling The DNS and monitoring systems share network dependencies; the exact opposite of AWS’s own guidance to separate control (system management) and data (user traffic) planes. 🔸 Lack of Graceful Degradation Many managed services degraded instead of failing over gracefully; evidence of weak active/active or warm-standby strategies. 🔸 Delayed Communication Even the AWS Health Dashboard was down compromising transparency, as seen before in 2021 and 2023. So yes, the Well-Architected Framework looks great in slides… but even the builder doesn’t seem to live inside the house it designed.

Day-4: AWS Global Infrastructure 🌍 Today we discuss AWS Global Infrastructure a secure and scalable network of data centers across the globe. It forms the backbone of AWS, helping organizations build and run applications with high availability, low latency, and strong security. 📍A global network of data centers, regions, and availability zones delivers AWS services with availability, scalability, security, and low latency, enabling applications to run closer to users with high reliability and performance. 📊 Latest Numbers: Regions: 37 Availability Zones: 117 🚀 Components: 🔹 Data Centers: Physical buildings with servers, storage, and networking, designed for high security and backup. 🔹 Availability Zones: Separate data centers within a region, each with its own power, cooling, and network. 🔹 Region: A geographic area made up of multiple Availability Zones for high availability. Full blog read here👉:https://lnkd.in/datn3a7J #AWS #Cloud #DevOps #CloudComputing #AmazonWebServices #AWSInfrastructure #TechCommunity #CloudEngineer #AWSTraining #CloudServices #ITInfrastructure #LearningAWS

Do these big companies really rely on just one AWS region or availability zone? Not at all, most of them spread their infrastructure across multiple regions and availability zones to stay resilient. The issue is that, no matter how distributed they are, they still depend on certain global AWS services, like IAM, CloudFormation, Route 53 APIs, or S3, which are tightly linked to us-east-1. So when us-east-1 stumbles, even slightly, it can cause a chain reaction: failed deployments, broken authentication, delayed builds, and inaccessible dashboards. In the end, the problem sits with AWS itself. Companies can’t fully prevent these outages, but they can limit the fallout with solid architecture and automated failover systems. Maybe that’s just the reality of cloud computing, unmatched convenience, but occasional growing pains when one region sneezes and the internet catches a cold. #AWSOutage #CloudComputing #DevOps #SiteReliability #CloudArchitecture #MultiRegion #HighAvailability #Failover #AWS #SRE #CloudReliability #Infrastructure #Scalability #CloudEngineering #SystemDesign #AWSCommunity

EKS Auto Mode addresses a fundamental challenge: although users choose Amazon EKS for the open standards of Kubernetes combined with the capabilities of AWS, they often struggle with the operational complexity of production-grade infrastructure. Since launch, we’ve been expanding Auto Mode’s capabilities based on our customers’ feedback and real-world usage patterns. This post covers the features and improvements we’ve delivered to address specific operational challenges and extend the functionality of EKS Auto Mode for diverse workloads. https://lnkd.in/dMZYRVRa

🔥 AWS NAT Gateways: The Hidden Drain on Your Cloud Budget If your Amazon Web Services (AWS) bill makes you cringe every month, you're not alone. #AWS #NAT #Gateways - while essential for private subnet internet access - can quickly become a financial black hole. With hourly fees and data processing charges stacking up, costs can spiral out of control, especially in multi-region or high-throughput environments. But what if there was a way to cut those costs by up to 90% without sacrificing functionality? Enter the aptly named fck-nat - a modern, open-source solution that transforms any #EC2 instance into a fully functional NAT gateway. 👉 Read the full blog post from Brandon Barker here: https://lnkd.in/gGpjMGFR #aws #devops #nat