About this episode
On The Cloud Pod this week, Peter is spending the next 12 hours in a rejuvenation chamber like a regular villain straight out of a James Bond film. A big thanks to this week’s sponsors: Foghorn Consulting , which provides full-stack cloud solutions with a focus on strategy, planning and execution for enterprises seeking to take advantage of the transformative capabilities of AWS, Google Cloud and Azure. This week’s highlights Amazon is on a mission to replace humans so we can go on holiday permanently . Google is a bit early with the April Fools’ joke . Azure is, much to our surprise , ahead of everyone else for once . Amazon Web Services: Battle Bots Amazon announces Alexa Conversations is now generally available for voice app development . We’re still a bit disappointed in her voice — it would be nice to hear something a bit more natural. Amazon launches computer vision service to detect defects in manufactured products . Soon we’ll just be sitting around eating bon bons — we can’t wait! AWS Asia Pacific (Osaka) region now open to all, with three availability zones and more services . We think this is a reaction to the huge cloud growth in Japan. AWS DeepRacer League’s 2021 season launches with new Open and Pro divisions . Apparently it’s gone virtual and is being dominated by experts. Google Cloud Platform: A Bit Jealous ✈️ Google introduces GKE Autopilot, a revolutionary mode of operations for managed Kubernetes . Autopilot makes it sound like an Oracle product. Google announces the Risk Protection Program to enhance trust in cloud ecosystems . Google wants you to pay insurance in case its cloud goes down… Google extends BigQuery BI engine for faster insights across popular BI tools . Pretty cool! New enhancements for Google Cloud Marketplace Private Catalog including Terraform support . This is pretty good for internal teams managing private catalogs. Azure: Killing It Microsoft has announced a trio of new industry clouds . We think other providers will follow very soon. Microsoft to establish the first datacenter region in Indonesia as part of Berdayakan Ekonomi Digital Indonesia initiative . Justin apologizes for butchering the name of that initiative. Azure is killing off a bunch of its products. No, the dates aren’t wrong — 2024 is a leap year: Action required: Switch to Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 by 29 February 2024 We are retiring Classic Azure Migrate on 29 February 2024 Azure Stack Edge Pro FPGA is retiring on 29 February 2024 Update the Azure Cosmos DB Java SDK by 29 February 2024 Azure Batch rendering VM images & licensing will be retired on 29 February 2024 We’re retiring the standard version of Custom Voice on 29 February 2024 We are retiring Azure Cognitive Services Text Analytics v2.x on 29 February 2024 Please upgrade your Azure AD Connect sync to a newer version by 29 February 2024 Azure Batch Transcription and Customization Rest API v2 will be retired by 29 February 2024 Azure Application Gateway analytics will be retired on 29 February 2024 Update your scripts to use Az PowerShell modules by 29 February 2024 Update your Azure Media Services REST API and SDKs to v3 by 29 February 2024 We’re retiring Azure Network Watcher Connection Monitor (classic) on 29 February 2024 Jenkins plug-ins for Azure are being retired on 29 February 2024 AKS legacy Azure AD integration will be retired on 29 February 2024 We’re retiring Classic Application Insights on 29 February 2024 We’re retiring Network Performance Monitor on 29 February 2024 Azure Batch ‘CloudServiceConfiguration’ pools will be retired on 29 February 2024 Azure Ignite: Don’t Get Excited Innovate across hybrid and multi cloud with new Azure Arc capabilities . Bit of an anti-climax. Azure releases several new capabilities for Azure Data and AI . A mixed bag of capabilities. Introducing Azure Percept, an easy-to-use platform for creating responsible edge AI solutions . But it still requires a human… so manage your expectations. Satya Nadella shares the five attributes that will drive the next generation of cloud innovation . Do not watch it! Jonathan has a peg on his nose so he doesn’t have to smell the bullshit. Introducing Microsoft Mesh, a new mixed-reality platform powered by Azure. Actually kind of cool. TCP Lightning Round ⚡Saved from watching Satya Nadella’s keynote meant Jonathan hadn’t been bored to death and takes this week’s point, leaving scores at Justin (3), Ryan (1), Jonathan (4). Other headlines mentioned: AWS Config now supports Amazon container services Amazon Elasticsearch Service now supports rollups, reducing storage costs for extended retention TLS 1.2 will be required for all AWS FIPS endpoints beginning March 31, 2021 You can now seamlessly connect customers and business with Azure Communication Services and Microsoft Teams Google is bringing your GKE logs to the GKE cloud console AWS CodePipeline now supports 1000 pipelines per account Amazon EKS now supports adding KMS envelope encryption to existing clusters to enhance security for secrets Microsoft Power Fx: The open-source low-code programming language is in public preview The AWS Lambda console now features a new navigation design Things Coming Up Microsoft Build — May 19–21 (Digital) Google Cloud Born-Digital Summit March 25th 2:30 AM – 5:00 AM Pacific Time (US) Google Cloud Next — Not announced yet (one site says Moscone is reserved June 28–30) AWS re:Invent — November 29–December 3 — Las Vegas Oracle Open World