Randall wrote a detailed introduction to S3 Select last year and showed you how you can use it to retrieve selected data from within S3 objects. During the preview we added support for server-side encryption and the ability to run queries from the S3 Console.
I hope that you have configured your AMIs and your current-generation EC2 instances to use the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) that I told you about back in mid-2016. The ENA gives you high throughput and low latency, while minimizing the load on the host processor. It is designed to work well in the presence of multiple vCPUs, with intelligent packet routing backed up by multiple transmit and receive queues.
EC2 to S3 – Traffic to and from Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) can now take advantage of up to 25 Gbps of bandwidth. Previously, traffic of this type had access to 5 Gbps of bandwidth. This will be of benefit to applications that access large amounts of data in S3 or that make use of S3 for backup and restore.
EC2 to EC2 – Traffic to and from EC2 instances in the same or different Availability Zones within a region can now take advantage of up to 5 Gbps of bandwidth for single-flow traffic, or 25 Gbps of bandwidth for multi-flow traffic (a flow represents a single, point-to-point network connection) by using private IPv4 or IPv6 addresses, as described here.
EC2 to EC2 (Cluster Placement Group) – Traffic to and from EC2 instances within a cluster placement group can continue to take advantage of up to 10 Gbps of lower-latency bandwidth for single-flow traffic, or 25 Gbps of lower-latency bandwidth for multi-flow traffic.
To take advantage of this additional bandwidth, make sure that you are using the latest, ENA-enabled AMIs on current-generation EC2 instances. ENA-enabled AMIs are available for Amazon Linux, Ubuntu 14.04 & 16.04, RHEL 7.4, SLES 12, and Windows Server (2008 R2, 2012, 2012 R2, and 2016). The FreeBSD AMI in AWS Marketplace is also ENA-enabled, as is VMware Cloud on AWS.
Do you remember what web video was like in the early days? Standalone players, video no larger than a postage stamp, slow & cantankerous connections, overloaded servers, and the ever-present buffering messages were the norm less than two decades ago.
Today, thanks to technological progress and a broad array of standards, things are a lot better. Video consumers are now in control. They use devices of all shapes, sizes, and vintages to enjoy live and recorded content that is broadcast, streamed, or sent over-the-top (OTT, as they say), and expect immediate access to content that captures and then holds their attention. Meeting these expectations presents a challenge for content creators and distributors. Instead of generating video in a one-size-fits-all format, they (or their media servers) must be prepared to produce video that spans a broad range of sizes, formats, and bit rates, taking care to be ready to deal with planned or unplanned surges in demand. In the face of all of this complexity, they must backstop their content with a monetization model that supports the content and the infrastructure to deliver it.
Today we are launching an array of broadcast-quality media services, each designed to address one or more aspects of the challenge that I outlined above. You can use them together to build a complete end-to-end video solution or you can use one or more in building-block style. In true AWS fashion, you can spend more time innovating and less time setting up and running infrastructure, leaving you ready to focus on creating, delivering, and monetizing your content. The services are all elastic, allowing you to ramp up processing power, connections, and storage and giving you the ability to handle million-user (and beyond) spikes with ease.
Instead of listing out all of the features in the sections below, I’ve simply included as many screen shots as possible with the expectation that this will give you a better sense of the rich set of features, parameters, and settings that you get with this set of services.
MediaConvert allows you to transcode content that is stored in files. You can process individual files or entire media libraries, or anything in-between. You simply create a conversion job that specifies the content and the desired outputs, and submit it to MediaConvert. There’s no software to install or patch and the service scales to meet your needs without affecting turnaround time or performance.
Each account starts with a default queue for jobs, where incoming work is processed in parallel using all processing resources available to the account. Adding queues does not add processing resources, but does cause them to be apportioned across queues. You can temporarily pause one queue in order to devote more resources to the others. You can submit jobs to paused queues and you can also cancel any that have yet to start.
Pricing for this service is based on the amount of video that you process and the features that you use.
Like S3 buckets, MediaStore containers have access policies and no limits on the number of objects or storage capacity.
MediaStore helps you to take full advantage of S3 by managing the object key names so as to maximize storage and retrieval throughput, in accord with the Request Rate and Performance Considerations.
Despite the length of this post I have barely scratched the surface of the AWS Media Services. Once AWS re:Invent is in the rear view mirror I hope to do a deep dive and show you how to use each of these services.
The entire set of AWS Media Services is available now and you can start using them today! Pricing varies by service, but is built around a pay-as-you-go model.
In this blog post we’re going to discuss a new AWS CodeBuild feature that is available starting today. CodeBuild builds can now access resources in a VPC directly without these resources being exposed to the public internet. These resources include Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) databases, Amazon ElastiCache clusters, internal services running on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), and Amazon EC2 Container Service (Amazon ECS), or any service endpoints that are only reachable from within a specific VPC.
CodeBuild is a fully managed build service that compiles source code, runs tests, and produces software packages that are ready to deploy. As part of the build process, developers often require access to resources that should be isolated from the public Internet. Now CodeBuild builds can be optionally configured to have VPC connectivity and access these resources directly.
To configure VPC connectivity: select a VPC, one or more subnets within that VPC, and one or more VPC security groups that CodeBuild should apply when attaching to your VPC. Once configured, commands running as part of your build will be able to access resources in your VPC without transiting across the public Internet.
Run integration tests from your build against data in an Amazon RDS instance that’s isolated on a private subnet.
Query data in an ElastiCache cluster directly from tests.
Interact with internal web services hosted on Amazon EC2, Amazon ECS, or services that use internal Elastic Load Balancing.
Retrieve dependencies from self-hosted, internal artifact repositories such as PyPI for Python, Maven for Java, npm for Node.js, and so on.
Access objects in an Amazon S3 bucket configured to allow access only through a VPC endpoint.
Query external web services that require fixed IP addresses through the Elastic IP address of the NAT gateway associated with your subnet(s).
… and more! Your builds can now access any resource that’s hosted in your VPC without any compromise on network isolation.
CodeBuild requires access to resources on the public Internet to successfully execute builds. At a minimum, it must be able to reach your source repository system (such as AWS CodeCommit, GitHub, Bitbucket), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) to deliver build artifacts, and Amazon CloudWatch Logs to stream logs from the build process. The interface attached to your VPC will not be assigned a public IP address so to enable Internet access from your builds, you will need to set up a managed NAT Gateway or NAT instance for the subnets you configure. You must also ensure your security groups allow outbound access to these services.
Each running build will be assigned an IP address from one of the subnets in your VPC that you designate for CodeBuild to use. As CodeBuild scales to meet your build volume, ensure that you select subnets with enough address space to accommodate your expected number of concurrent builds.
CodeBuild requires new permissions in order to manage network interfaces on your VPCs. If you create a service role for your new projects, these permissions will be included in that role’s policy automatically. For existing service roles, you can edit the policy document to include the additional actions. For the full policy document to apply to your service role, see Advanced Setup in the CodeBuild documentation.
For more information, see VPC Support in the CodeBuild documentation. We hope you find the ability to access internal resources on a VPC useful in your build processes! If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to reach out to us through the AWS CodeBuild forum or leave a comment!
We (the AWS Blog Team) work to maintain a delicate balance between coverage and volume! On the one hand, we want to make sure that you are aware of as many features as possible. On the other, we don’t want to bury you in blog posts. As a happy medium between these two extremes we sometimes let interesting new features pile up for a couple of weeks and then pull them together in the form of a recap post such as this one.
Microsoft Active Directory Domains – Connect AppStream 2.0 streaming instances to your Microsoft Active Directory domain.
User Management & Web Portal – Create and manage users from within the AppStream 2.0 management console.
Persistent Storage for User Files – Use persistent, S3-backed storage for user home folders.
Simple Network Setup – Enable Internet access for image builder and instance fleets more easily.
Custom VPC Security Groups – Use VPC security groups to control network traffic.
Audio-In – Use microphones with your streaming applications.
These features were prioritized based on early feedback from AWS customers who are using or are considering the use of AppStream 2.0 in their enterprises. Let’s take a quick look at each one.
This much-requested feature allows you to connect your AppStream 2.0 streaming instances to your Microsoft Active Directory (AD) domain. After you do this you can apply existing policies to your streaming instances, and provide your users with single sign-on access to intranet resources such as web sites, printers, and file shares. Your users are authenticated using the SAML 2.0 provider of your choice, and can access applications that require a connection to your AD domain.
To learn more, read Using Active Directory Domains with AppStream 2.0 and follow the Setting Up the Active Directory tutorial. You can also learn more in the What’s New.
This feature makes it easier for you to give new users access to the applications that you are streaming with AppStream 2.0 if you are not using the Domain Join feature that I described earlier.
AppStream 2.0 sends each new user a welcome email that directs them to a web portal where they will be prompted to create a permanent password. Once they are logged in they are able to access the applications that have been assigned to them.
To learn more, read Using the AppStream 2.0 User Pool and the What’s New.
All folders (and the files within) are stored in an S3 bucket that is automatically created within your account when the feature is enabled. There is no limit on total file storage but we recommend that individual files be limited to 5 gigabytes.
Regular S3 pricing applies; to learn more about this feature read about Persistent Storage with AppStream 2.0 Home Folders and check out the What’s New.
Setting up Internet access for your image builder and your streaming instances was once a multi-step process. You had to create a Network Address Translation (NAT) gateway in a public subnet of one of your VPCs and configure traffic routing rules.
To learn more, read Network Settings for Fleet and Image Builder Instances and Enabling Internet Access Using a Public Subnet and check out the What’s New.
You can create VPC security groups and associate them with your image builders and your fleets. This gives you fine-grained control over inbound and outbound traffic to databases, license servers, file shares, and application servers. Read the What’s New to learn more.
You can use analog and USB microphones, mixing consoles, and other audio input devices with your streaming applications. Simply click on Enable Microphone in the AppStream 2.0 toolbar to get started. Read the What’s New to learn more.
All of these features are available now and you can start using them today in all AWS Regions where Amazon AppStream 2.0 is available.
PS – If you are new to AppStream 2.0, try out some pre-installed applications. No setup needed and you’ll get to experience the power of streaming applications first-hand.
Today we released Dedicated IP Pools for Amazon Simple Email Service (SES). With dedicated IP pools, you can specify which dedicated IP addresses to use for sending different types of email. Dedicated IP pools let you use your SES for different tasks. For instance, you can send transactional emails from one set of IPs and you can send marketing emails from another set of IPs.
If you’re not familiar with Amazon SES these concepts may not make much sense. We haven’t had the chance to cover SES on this blog since 2016, which is a shame, so I want to take a few steps back and talk about the service as a whole and some of the enhancements the team has made over the past year. If you just want the details on this new feature I strongly recommend reading the Amazon Simple Email Service Blog.
So, what is SES? If you’re a customer of Amazon.com you know that we send a lot of emails. Bought something? You get an email. Order shipped? You get an email. Over time, as both email volumes and types increased Amazon.com needed to build an email platform that was flexible, scalable, reliable, and cost-effective. SES is the result of years of Amazon’s own work in dealing with email and maximizing deliverability.
In short: SES gives you the ability to send and receive many types of email with the monitoring and tools to ensure high deliverability.
Deliverability is the percentage of your emails that arrive in your recipients’ inboxes. Maintaining deliverability is a shared responsibility between AWS and the customer. AWS takes the fight against spam very seriously and works hard to make sure services aren’t abused. To learn more about deliverability I recommend the deliverability docs. For now, understand that deliverability is an important aspect of email campaigns and SES has many tools that enable a customer to manage their deliverability.
When you’re starting out with SES your emails are sent through a shared IP. That IP is responsible for sending mail on behalf of many customers and AWS works to maintain appropriate volume and deliverability on each of those IPs. However, when you reach a sufficient volume shared IPs may not be the right solution.
By creating a dedicated IP you’re able to fully control the reputations of those IPs. This makes it vastly easier to troubleshoot any deliverability or reputation issues. It’s also useful for many email certification programs which require a dedicated IP as a commitment to maintaining your email reputation. Using the shared IPs of the Amazon SES service is still the right move for many customers but if you have sustained daily sending volume greater than hundreds of thousands of emails per day you might want to consider a dedicated IP. One caveat to be aware of: if you’re not sending a sufficient volume of email with a consistent pattern a dedicated IP can actually hurt your reputation. Dedicated IPs are $24.95 per address per month at the time of this writing – but you can find out more at the pricing page.
Customers who send high volumes of email will typically have multiple dedicated IPs. Today the SES team released dedicated IP pools to make managing those IPs easier. Now when you send email you can specify a configuration set which will route your email to an IP in a pool based on the pool’s association with that configuration set.
One of the other major benefits of this feature is that it allows customers who previously split their email sending across several AWS accounts (to manage their reputation for different types of email) to consolidate into a single account.
You can read the documentation and blog for more info.