AWS Official Blog

Today I would like to tell you about a new cross-account snapshot sharing feature for Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS). You can share the snapshots with specific AWS accounts or you can make them public.

Cross-Account Snapshot Sharing
I often create snapshot backups as part of my RDS demos:

The snapshots are easy to create and can be restored to a fresh RDS database instance with a couple of clicks.

Today’s big news is that you can now share unencrypted MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, and PostgreSQL snapshots with other AWS accounts. If you, like many sophisticated AWS customers, use separate AWS accounts for development, testing, and production, you can now share snapshots between AWS accounts in a controlled fashion. If a late-breaking bug is discovered in a production system, you can create a database snapshot and then share it with select developers so that they can diagnose the problem without having to have access to the production account or system.

Each snapshot can be shared with up to 20 other accounts (we can raise this limit for your account if necessary; just ask). You can also mark snapshots as public so that any RDS user can restore a database containing your data. This is a great way to share data sets and research results!

Here is how you share a snapshot with another AWS account using the RDS Console (you can also do this from the command line or the RDS API):

Here’s how a snapshot appears in the accounts that it is shared with (again, this functionality is also accessible from the command line and the RDS API):

Here is how you create a public snapshot:

Snapshot sharing works across regions, but does not apply to the China (Beijing) region or to AWS GovCloud (US).

— Jeff;

You can use Amazon Virtual Private Cloud to create a logically isolated section of the AWS Cloud. Within the VPC, you can define your desired IP address range, create subnets, configure route tables, and so forth. You can also use a network gateway to connect the VPC to your existing on-premises network using a hardware Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection. The VPN running in the AWS Cloud (also known as a VPN gateway or VGW) communicates with a customer gateway (CGW) on your network or in your data center (read about Your Customer Gateway to learn more).

Today we are adding several new features to the VPN. Here’s a summary:

• NAT Traversal
• Additional Encryption Options
• Reusable IP addresses for the CGW

In order to take advantage of any of these new features, you will need to create a new VGW and then create new VPN tunnels with the desired attributes.

NAT Traversal
Network Address Translation (NAT) maps one range of IP addresses to another. Let’s say that you have private IP space on your local LAN that all connects to the internet through a single router or firewall. You aren’t able to put your VPN device (CGW) on a public IP address of it’s own. You can now use Network Address Translation to map the CGW from a private IP to a public, and use NAT-Traversal, or NAT-T, to connect your CGW to your Virtual Private Gateway (VGW). NAT-T allows you to create IP connections that originate on-premises behind a NAT device and connect to a VPC using addresses that have been translated. This mapping process takes places when the VPN is established.

You don’t need to do anything to set this up in the AWS Management Console. You just need to configure your NAT device for NAT-Traversal. You will also need to open up UDP port 4500 in your firewall in order to make use of NAT-T.

Additional Encryption Options
You can now make use of several new encryption options.

When the VPC’s hardware VPN is in the process of establishing a connection with your on-premises VPN, it proposes several different encryption options, each with a different strength. You can now configure the VPN on the VPC to propose AES256 as an alternative to the older and weaker AES128. If you decide to make use of this new option, you should configure your device so that it no longer accepts a proposal to use AES128 encryption.

The two endpoints participate in a Diffie-Hellman key exchange in order to establish a shared secret. The Diffie-Hellman groups used in the exchange will determine the strength of the hash on the keys. You can now configure the use of a wider range of groups:

• Phase 1 can now use DH groups 2, 14-18, 22, 23, and 24.
• Phase 2 can now use DH groups 1, 2, 5, 14-18, 22, 23, and 24.

Packets that flow across the VPN connection are verified using a hash algorithm. A matching hash gives a very high-quality indicator that the packet has not been maliciously modified along the way. You can now configure the VPN on the VPC to use the SHA-2 hashing algorithm with a 256 bit digest (also known as SHA-256). Again, you should configure your device to disallow the use of the weaker hash algorithms.

Reusable CGW IP Addresses
You no longer need to specify a unique IP address for each customer gateway connection that you create. Instead, you can now reuse an existing IP address. Many VPC users have been asking for this feature and I expect it to be well-used.

To learn more, read our FAQ and the VPC Network Adminstrator Guide.

— Jeff;

My colleague Ariel Gold wrote the guest post below to introduce the newest AWS Public Data Set.

— Jeff;

You can now access real-time and archival NEXRAD weather radar data as an AWS Public Data Set.

The Next Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD) is a network of 160 high-resolution Doppler radar sites that detects precipitation and atmospheric movement and disseminates data in approximately 5 minute intervals from each site. NEXRAD enables severe storm prediction and is used by researchers and commercial enterprises to study and address the impact of weather across multiple sectors. As part of our research agreement with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), we are making NEXRAD data freely available on Amazon S3.

The real-time feed and full historical archive of NEXRAD Level II data, from June 1991 to present, is now available for anyone to use. Level II is original resolution, base data from the NEXRAD system.

This is the first time the full NEXRAD Level II archive has been accessible to the public on demand. A wide range of customers have expressed interest in this data, including insurance providers, climate researchers, logistics companies, and weather companies. We’re excited to see what you do with it!

You can learn more about the data and how to access it on our NEXRAD on AWS page.

How We’re Sharing the Data
We’ve been testing out new ways to make NEXRAD data easy to use in the cloud. Before I get into some of the details of our approach, here are a couple of radar data terms for the uninitiated. First, “volume scan” refers to the data collected by the Doppler radar site as it scans the atmosphere. The NEXRAD site breaks these volume scans into “chunks” – small packages of data that are quickly transmitted as a real-time feed. The NEXRAD network generates about 1,200 chunks per hour.

We are storing the real-time chunks and archive (volume scan files) Level II data in two public Amazon S3 buckets. Data flows into the chunks bucket via Unidata’s Local Data Manager (LDM) system with minimal latency from the NEXRAD sites. The chunks are then assembled into volume scan files and added to the archive bucket within seconds or minutes of production. This creates a continuously updated, near-real-time archive of volume scan files.

You can find information on the data structure on our NEXRAD on AWS page. You’ll see that the real-time data is hosted in the “unidata-nexrad-level2-chunks” Amazon S3 bucket. Unidata provides data services, tools, and cyberinfrastructure leadership for the earth science community and they have been fantastic collaborators on this project. You can read more about their experience setting up the NEXRAD real-time feed on AWS on their blog.

Getting Started with NEXRAD on AWS
Unidata, The Climate Corporation, and CartoDB have contributed tutorials to help you get started using NEXRAD on AWS. For example, this tutorial from The Climate Corporation shows you how to read and display the NEXRAD Level II archive data from your Python programs.

Unidata has also made the NEXRAD Level II archive data available via their THREDDS Data Server. You can also browse the archive contents via the AWS JavaScript S3 Explorer:

Learn more about ways to use the data on our NEXRAD on AWS page.

Thank You
We’d like to thank our collaborators at NOAA, CICS-NC, Unidata, and The Weather Company who helped us launch this public data set and continue to help make it available. Many others helped test and contribute tools to the data set and we welcome additional contributions. Tell us how you’re using the data via the NEXRAD on AWS page and sign up for updates on the NOAA Big Data Project here.

— Ariel Gold, Program Manager, AWS Open Data

When you move from a relatively static and homogeneous computing environment where you have a small number of persistent, well-known servers (or instances, using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) terminology) to a larger and more dynamic and heterogeneous environment, you may need to think about managing and controlling those instances in a new way.

New EC2 Run Command
Today we are introducing EC2 Run Command. This new feature will help you to administer your instances (no matter how many you have) in a manner that is both easy and secure. This feature was designed to support a wide range of enterprise scenarios including installing software, running ad hoc scripts or Microsoft PowerShell commands, configuring Windows Update settings, and more. It is accessible from the AWS Management Console, the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell, and the AWS SDKs. If you currently administer individual Windows instances by running PS1 scripts or individual PowerShell commands, you can now run them on one or more instances.

We built this feature after talking to many users about their management needs. Here are some of the themes that came about as a result of these conversations:

• A need to implement configuration changes across their instances on a consistent yet ad hoc basis.
• A need for reliable and consistent results across multiple instances.
• Control over who can perform changes and what can be done.
• A clear audit path of what actions were taken.
• A desire to be able to do all of the above without the need for full remote desktop (RDP) access.

Command execution is secure, reliable, convenient, and scalable. You can create your own commands and exercise fine-grained control over execution privileges by using AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM). For example, you can specify that administrative commands can be run on a specific set of instances by a tightly controlled group of trusted users. All of the commands are centrally logged to AWS CloudTrail for easy auditing.

Run Command Benefits
The new Run Command feature was designed to provide you with the following benefits:

Control / Security – You can use IAM policies and roles to regulate access to commands and to instances. This allows you to reduce the number of users who have direct access to the instances.

Reliability – You can increase the reliability of your system by creating templates for your configuration changes. This will give you more control while also increasing predictability and reducing configuration drift over time.

Visibility – You will have more visibility into configuration changes because Run Command supports command tracking and is also integrated with CloudTrail.

Ease of Use – You can choose from a set of predefined commands, run them, and then track their progress using the Console, CLI, or API.

Customizability – You can create custom commands to tailor Run Command to the needs of your organization.

Exercising Run Command from the EC2 Console
Run Command works across all of your Windows instances and uses the existing EC2Config agent on the instances. Open the Console, select Commands, and review the prerequisites for using Run Command:

Click on Run a command to take you to the main Run Command screen. You’ll see your existing runs (if any) and the Run a command button:

Each row on the display represents a command that has been executed on an instance. Click on Run a command to start a new command:

The Command document menu contains seven predefined commands, along with any custom commands that you have created for your account:

Choose the appropriate document based on your use case and the change that you want to make to the target instance(s). Each document has a description and an explanation that will help you to make the right choice. For common administrative tasks, use the AWS-RunPowerShellScript document. This will allow you to run any PowerShell command or to call an existing PowerShell script.

After choosing the document, fill in the command (I used ipconfig), and choose the instances of interest (you can filter by attributes, tags, or keywords):

If you are running a command or script that will generate a lot of output on StdOut, you can specify an S3 bucket and a key prefix and the output will be routed there. If you don’t do this, Run Command will capture and display the first 2500 characters of console output.

When you are ready to proceed, click on Run. The Console will display a confirmation message:

Return to the command history and inspect it to find the results:

Select the desired command, and click on the Output tab:

Then click on View Output:

Using Run Command in Production
Here are some of the ways that you can make use of Run Command in your AWS environment:

• Install and configure third-party agents and software.
• Manage local groups and users.
• Check for installed software or patches, and act on the results.
• Restart a Windows service or service.
• Update a scheduled task.

Available Now
You can use Run Command today in the US East (Northern Virginia), US West (Oregon), and Europe (Ireland) regions. Simply open the Run Command Console or use the latest AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell, AWS Command Line Interface (CLI). There is no charge for this this feature; you pay only for the AWS resources that you consume.

— Jeff;

PS – We plan to provide similar functionality for instances that run Linux. Stay tuned to the blog for more info!

Let’s take a quick look at what happened in AWS-land last week:

New & Notable Open Source

• splunkDeepFreeze moves frozen buckets to S3 and then to Glacier for long term storage.
• Matsya helps you to choose the lowest-priced AZ for an instance type when running behind Auto Scaling Groups.
• AWSIOT is a sample Node.js app for calling AWS IoT.
• markovian-tools is an AWS Lambda framework for tweeting random text the Markovian Markov chain library.
• SimpleDynamo is a simple way to interact with DynamoDB using PHP.
• lambda-uploader is a command line utility for packaging and publishing Lambda functions.
• aws-missing-tools is a set of tools for managing EC2, RBS, RDS, IAM, CloudFormation, and Route 53.
• utils helps to manage GitHub and AWS accounts for teams.
• zoufzouf is a multithreaded CloudFront log analyzer.
• License2Deploy implements rolling deployments for Auto Scaling groups.
• PAWS is a serverless backend stack powered by API Gateway and Lambda.

New SlideShare Presentations

• re:Invent 2015: Benefit from DevOps When Moving to AWS for Windows.
• re:Invent 2015: Learn How to Use Containers, Red Hat, and AWS to Achieve Extreme IT Agility.
• re:Invent 2015: Inspiring Innovation in the Cloud @NASA/JPL and Beyond.
• re:Invent 2015: Introducing Amazon RDS for MariaDB.
• re:Invent 2015: AWS IoT Deep Dive – Programming the Physical World with Shadows and Rules.
• re:Invent 2015: AWS IoT Deep Dive – Understanding Hardware Platforms, Device SDKs, and Protocols.
• An Introduction to Using AWS and ASK to Build Voice Driven Experiences.
• AWS Seminary Series 2015 Perth.

New Customer Success Stories

• Citymaps -mapping as a social activity.
• jobandtalent – job matching platform.
• MedStar Health – not-for-profit healthcare system.
• MyDress -online fashion sales.
• Next Media – news, entertainment, and mobile websites.
• Razer – mobile applications, analytics, and websites.

New YouTube Videos

• Free Alexa Video Training from AWS re:Invent 2015.
• re:Invent 2015: AWS OpsWorks Under the Hood.
• re:Invent 2015: AWS Innovation at Scale.
• re:Invent 2015: Introducing MariaDB on Amazon RDS.
• re:Invent 2015: Mobile Identity Management & Data Sync Using Amazon Cognito.
• re:Invent 2015: McDonald’s Uses AWS to Launch Global Applications Quickly.
• re:Invent 2015: AWS Config Rules: Improve Governance Over Configuration Changes.
• re:Invent 2015: Fourth Annual Startup Launches, Hosted by Werner Vogels.
• re:Invent 2015: Sue Gordon – Open Collaboration and Public-Private Partnership.

Upcoming Events

• AWS IoT Mega Contest.
• AWS Security Road Shows.
• October 27 – Webinars:
  • Introducing Amazon QuickSight.
  • Getting Started with AWS IoT.
  • Introducing Amazon Kinesis Firehose.
• October 28 – Live Event (Dallas, Texas) – re:Invent Recap.
• October 28 – Webinars:
  • Introducing Spot Blocks.
  • Introducing AWS WAF.
  • Introducing Amazon Elasticsearch Service.
• October 29 – Webinars:
  • AWS Lambda Best Practices: Python, Scheduled Jobs, and More.
  • Introducing AWS Mobile Hub.
  • Introducing AWS Import / Export Snowball.

Upcoming Events at the AWS Loft (San Francisco)

• October 26 – A New Way to Use EC2 – At Up to 90% Less Than On Demand Prices (3 – 4 PM).
• October 29 – Building Serverless Microservices with AWS Lambda (Noon – 4 PM).
• October 29 – Startup Pitch Event and Halloween Party (6:30 PM – 9:30 PM).
• November 2 – AWS Bootcamp: Architecting Highly Available Applications on AWS (10 AM – 6 PM).
• November 3 – AWS Bootcamp: Architecting Highly Available Applications on AWS (10 AM – 6 PM).
• November 3 – Behind the Scenes with Netflix: Regional Recovery and Chill (6 – 7:30 PM).
• November 5 – Container Day (11:30 AM – 2:30 PM).
• November 6 – IoT Hack Day: AWS Pop-up Loft Hack Series-Sponsored by Intel (10 AM – 6 PM).
• November 9 – AWS Bootcamp: Taking AWS Operations to the Next Level (10 AM – 6 PM).
• November 10 – Loft Startup Showcase (11:30 AM – 1:30 PM).
• November 10 – San Francisco Flynn Meetup (6;30 – 8:30 PM).
• November 11 – Scaling Blockchain Infrastructure: BlockCypher’s Transition from Google Compute to AWS (3 – 4 PM).
• November 11 – Alert Logic Cloud Security Workshop for AWS Environments (5:30 – 7:30 PM).
• November 12 – Analyze & Visualize your data with Tableau 9.1 Desktop and Server (10 AM – 6 PM).
• November 12 – Big Data Partner Solutions from AWS Marketplace: Tableau, Attunity and Mapr (6:30 – 8 PM).
• November 17 – Best of re:Invent 2015 (2 – 3 PM).
• November 19 – Loft Rocks Concert Series with Kid Cadaver (6:30 – 9 PM).
• November 25 – Loft closes at 3 PM.
• November 26 – Loft closed.
• November 27 – Loft closed.

Upcoming Events at the AWS Loft (New York)

• October 27 – AWS Bootcamp: Getting Started on AWS (10 AM – 6 PM).
• October 27 – Startup Pitch Event and Halloween Party (6:30 – 9:30 PM).
• October 28 – Responsive Game Design (Noon – 1 PM).
• October 28 – A Prescription for Startup Financial Health – 8 Financial Best Practices for Startup Executives (6:30 PM – 8 PM).
• October 30 – IoT Hack Day: AWS Pop-up Loft Hack Series-Sponsored by Intel (10 AM – 6 PM).
• November 2 – Chef Bootcamp: A Taste of Chef on AWS (10 AM – 6 PM).
• November 3 – Chef Bootcamp: A Taste of Chef on AWS (10 AM – 6 PM).
• November 4 – Chef Bootcamp: A Taste of Chef on AWS (10 AM – 6 PM).
• November 5 – Chef Bootcamp: A Taste of Chef on AWS (10 AM – 6 PM).
• November 6 – Chef Ask an Architect (10 AM – 6 PM).
• November 6 – This One Weird API Request Will Save You Thousands: Using Spot Instances to Lower Costs and Get More Capacity (11 AM – Noon).
• November 10 – Alert Logic Cloud Security Workshop for AWS Environments (3 – 5 PM).
• November 10 – AWS Real Time Big Data Processing with Lambda, Kinesis & DynamoDB (6:30 – 9 PM).
• November 13 – AWS Bootcamp: Architecting Highly Available Apps (10 AM – 6 PM).
• November 17 – AWS Bootcamp: Taking AWS Operations to the Next Level (10 AM – 6 PM).
• November 18 – AWS Bootcamp: Taking AWS Operations to the Next Level (10 AM – 6 PM).
• November 19 – Best of re:Invent 2015 (2 – 3 PM).
• November 19 – Loft Rocks Concert Series with Birch (7 – 10 PM).
• November 23 – AWS Mobile Hub Walkthrough (2 – 5 PM).
• November 25 – Loft closes at 3 PM.
• November 26 – Loft closed.
• November 27 – Loft closed.
• December 3 – Behind the Scenes with Socure: Realtime ID Verification on AWS (6:30 – 8 PM).

Upcoming Events at the AWS Loft (Berlin) – Register Now

• October 26 – re:Invent Recap (9 PM).
• October 26 – Funding Cycles and Term Sheets (5 PM).
• October 26 – Scaling synergy – How AWS works with VC’s (6 PM).
• October 27 – DevOps at Amazon: A Look at Our Tools and Processes (9 AM).
• October 27 – Taking Ops to the Next Level (10 AM).
• October 27 – Automating Software Deployments with AWS CodeDeploy (10 AM).
• October 27 – Releasing Software Quickly and Reliably with AWS CodePipeline (5 PM).
• October 28 – Cache is King (9 AM).
• October 28 – How to Save Costs and Mitigate Risks with Spot Instances (10 AM).
• October 28 – Running Lean & Mean on AWS: How to Optimize for Cost Efficiency (5 PM).
• October 29 – Simple Security for Startups (9 AM).
• October 29 – Encryption Options on AWS (10 AM).
• October 29 – Software to Services workshop – An intro to SaaS Business with AWS (2 PM).
• October 29 – Best Practice Tech Recruiting (4 PM).
• October 29 – Mapping Traditional Security Controls to AWS (5 PM).
• October 29 – Transparency and Audit on AWS (6 PM).
• October 30 – Mobile Identity Management and Data Synchronization Using Amazon Cognito (9 AM).
• October 30 – Analyze Mobile App Data and Build Predictive Applications (10 AM).
• October 30 – Software to Services workshop – An intro to SaaS Technology with AWS (2 PM).
• October 30 – The Data Pipeline Powering EyeEm (6 PM).

Upcoming Events at the AWS Loft (London) – Register Now

• October 27 – IoT Hack Day: AWS Pop-up Loft Hack Series – Sponsored by Intel (10 AM).
• October 28 – Introducting AWS IoT (11 AM).
• October 28 – Introducing AWS WAF (Noon).
• October 28 – AWS Lambda Update (1 PM).
• October 28 – Amazon Kinesis Update (2 PM).
• October 28 – Amazon Relational Database Service Update (3 PM).
• October 28 – Introducing Amazon QuickSight (4 PM).

Help Wanted

• AWS Careers.

Stay tuned for next week! In the meantime, follow me on Twitter and subscribe to the RSS feed.

— Jeff;

Let’s take a quick look at what happened in AWS-land last week:

New & Notable Open Source

• lambda-complex is a Node.js framework for applications that run entirely within Lambda, SQS, and other high-abstraction AWS services.
• aws-iot contains code for interacting with the AWS IoT platform.
• AWSnycast is a routing daemon for AWS route tables that simulates an Anycast-like service.
• votebot is a Slackbot that runs on AWS API Gateway and AWS Lambda to support voting for things.
• acli is an alternative CLI for AWS.
• kube-cluster launches a Kubernetes cluster on AWS with 3 types of nodes.
• wacalytics is a scalable analytics microservice for AWS using S3, Lambda, and DynamoDB.
• live-image-resize resizes images and stores them in S3.
• play-docker-aws-tutorial is a 101-level tutorial on the use of Docker to publish Play apps to AWS.
• sheepherding is a collection of scripts that implement AWS reporting driven by Lambda.

New SlideShare Presentations

• AWS re:Invent 2015.

Upcoming Events

• AWS IoT Mega Contest.
• AWS Security Road Shows.
• October 21 – Webinar – Running MongoDB 3.0 on AWS.
• October 21 – Webinar – Securing Gene Sequencing Data on AWS for HIPAA Compliance – with APN Partner Alert Logic and customer GenomeNext.
• October 27 – Webinars:
  • Introducing Amazon QuickSight.
  • Getting Started with AWS IoT.
  • Introducing Amazon Kinesis Firehose.
• October 28 – Webinars:
  • Introducing Spot Blocks.
  • Introducing AWS WAF.
  • Introducing Amazon Elasticsearch Service.
• October 29 – Webinars:
  • AWS Lambda Best Practices: Python, Scheduled Jobs, and More.
  • Introducing AWS Mobile Hub.
  • Introducing AWS Import / Export Snowball.

Upcoming Events at the AWS Loft (San Francisco)

• October 19 – AWS Bootcamp: Getting Started with AWS (10 AM – 6 PM).
• October 19 – Transparency Across DevOps Culture, Process and Toolchain (7 – 9 PM).
• October 20 – AWS Bootcamp: Getting Started with AWS (10 AM – 6 PM).
• October 21 – Intro to Using AWS and the Alexa Skills Kit to Build Voice Driven Experiences + Open Hackathon (10 AM – 3 PM).
• October 22 – IoT Hack Day Sponsored by MediaTek Labs (10 AM – 6 PM).
• October 26 – A New Way to Use EC2 – At Up to 90% Less Than On Demand Prices (3 – 4 PM).
• October 29 – Building Serverless Microservices with AWS Lambda (Noon – 4 PM).
• October 29 – Startup Pitch Event and Halloween Party (6:30 PM – 9:30 PM).

Upcoming Events at the AWS Loft (New York)

• October 20 – Chef Cookbook Workflow (6:30 – 8:30 PM).
• October 22 – Programmatic Security on AWS (6:30 – 8:30 PM).
• October 26 – AWS Bootcamp: Getting Started on AWS (10 AM – 6 PM).
• October 27 – AWS Bootcamp: Getting Started on AWS (10 AM – 6 PM).
• October 27 – Startup Pitch Event and Halloween Party (6:30 – 9:30 PM).
• October 28 – Responsive Game Design (Noon – 1 PM).
• October 28 – A Prescription for Startup Financial Health – 8 Financial Best Practices for Startup Executives (6:30 PM – 8 PM).

Upcoming Events at the AWS Loft (Berlin) – Register Now

• October 19 – Building a global real-time discovery platform on AWS (6 PM).
• October 20 – Scaling Your Web Applications with AWS Elastic Beanstalk (10 AM).
• October 20 – Managing Infrastructure and Configuration with AWS OpsWorks (10 AM).
• October 20 – Deep Dive into Blue/Green Deployments on AWS (4 PM).
• October 20 – AWS OpsWorks Under the Hood (October 20th).
• October 21 – Cloud Gaming Architectures from Mobile to Social to MMO (10 AM).
• October 21 – re:Invent 2015 Revisited (10 AM).
• October 21 – Live Demo Day (2 PM).
• October 22 – AWS Pop-Up Loft Morning Shower: Microservices (8:30 AM).
• October 22 – Serverless Architecture on AWS (5 PM).
• October 22 – Berlin’s Godfather of Tech (6 PM).
• October 23 – Amazon Echo Hackathon (10 AM).
• October 23 – Convert Your Code into a Microservice using AWS Lambda (4 PM).
• October 23 – Why Load & Performance Test the Cloud? (5 PM).
• October 23 – Lessons Learned from 7 Accelerator Programs (6 PM).
• October 26 – re:Invent Recap (9 PM).
• October 26 – Funding Cycles and Term Sheets (5 PM).
• October 26 – Scaling synergy – How AWS works with VC’s (6 PM).
• October 27 – DevOps at Amazon: A Look at Our Tools and Processes (9 AM).
• October 27 – Taking Ops to the Next Level (10 AM).
• October 27 – Automating Software Deployments with AWS CodeDeploy (10 AM).
• October 27 – Releasing Software Quickly and Reliably with AWS CodePipeline (5 PM).
• October 28 – Cache is King (9 AM).
• October 28 – How to Save Costs and Mitigate Risks with Spot Instances (10 AM).
• October 28 – Running Lean & Mean on AWS: How to Optimize for Cost Efficiency (5 PM).
• October 29 – Simple Security for Startups (9 AM).
• October 29 – Encryption Options on AWS (10 AM).
• October 29 – Software to Services workshop – An intro to SaaS Business with AWS (2 PM).
• October 29 – Best Practice Tech Recruiting (4 PM).
• October 29 – Mapping Traditional Security Controls to AWS (5 PM).
• October 29 – Transparency and Audit on AWS (6 PM).
• October 30 – Mobile Identity Management and Data Synchronization Using Amazon Cognito (9 AM).
• October 30 – Analyze Mobile App Data and Build Predictive Applications (10 AM).
• October 30 – Software to Services workshop – An intro to SaaS Technology with AWS (2 PM).
• October 30 – The Data Pipeline Powering EyeEm (6 PM).

Upcoming Events at the AWS Loft (London) – Register Now

• October 20 – An Introduction to Using Amazon Web Services and the Alexa Skills Kit to Build Voice Driven Experiences + Open Hackathon (10 AM).
• October 21 – Startup Showcase – B2C (10 AM).
• October 21 – Chef Cookbook Workflow (6 PM).
• October 22 – AWS Security Day (10 AM).
• October 22 – Working with Planetary-Scale Open Data Sets on AWS (4 PM).
• October 23 – AWS Booktamp: Taking AWS Operations to the Next Level (10 AM).
• October 26 – Hands-on Labs Drop In (1 PM).
• October 27 – IoT Hack Day: AWS Pop-up Loft Hack Series – Sponsored by Intel (10 AM).

Help Wanted

• AWS Careers.

Stay tuned for next week! In the meantime, follow me on Twitter and subscribe to the RSS feed.

— Jeff;

If you attended AWS re:Invent, you were among the first to know about Amazon QuickSight, AWS IoT, Kinesis Firehose, and our other new offerings. Perhaps you had time to attend a session to learn more about the new service or services that were of interest to you. If you didn’t attend re:Invent or missed a session or two and are ready to learn more, I’ve got you covered. We will be running nine new-product webinars later this month. Each webinar is designed to provide you with the information that you need to have in order to be up and running as quickly as possible.

Here’s what we have for you! The webinars are free but “seating” is limited and you should definitely sign up ahead of time if you want to attend (all times are Pacific):

Tuesday, October 27
QuickSight is a fast, cloud-powered business intelligence tool. You can build visualizations, perform ad-hoc analysis, and get business insights from your data.

• Webinar: Introducing Amazon QuickSight (9 – 10 AM).
• Blog Post: Amazon QuickSight – Fast & Easy to Use Business Intelligence for Big Data at 1/10th the Cost of Traditional Solutions.

AWS IoT is a managed cloud platform that lets connected devices easily and securely interact with cloud applications and other devices.

• Webinar: Getting Started with AWS IoT (10:30 – 11:30 AM).
• Blog Post: AWS IoT – Cloud Services for Connected Devices.

Amazon Kinesis Firehose is the easiest way to load streaming data into AWS.

• Webinar: Introducing Amazon Kinesis Firehose (Noon – 1 PM).
• Blog Post: Amazon Kinesis Firehose – Simple & Highly Scalable Data Ingestion.

Wednesday, October 28
Spot Blocks allow you to launch Spot instances that will run for a finite duration (1 to 6 hours).

• Webinar: Introducing Spot Blocks (9 – 10 AM).
• Blog Post: New – EC2 Spot Blocks for Defined-Duration Workloads.

AWS WAF is a web application firewall that helps protect your web applications from common exploits.

• Webinar: Introducing AWS WAF (10:30 – 11:30 AM).
• Blog Post: New AWS WAF.

Amazon Elasticsearch Service is a managed service that makes it easy to deploy, operate, and scale Elasticsearch in the AWS Cloud.

• Webinar: Introducing Amazon Elasticsearch Service (Noon – 1 PM).
• Blog Post: New – Amazon Elasticsearch Service.

Thursday, October 29
AWS Lambda lets you run code in the cloud without provisioning or managing servers.

• Webinar: AWS Lambda Best Practices: Python, Scheduled Jobs, and More (9 – 10 AM).
• Blog Post: AWS Lambda Update – Python, VPC, Increased Function Duration, Scheduling, and More.

AWS Mobile Hub provides an integrated console that helps you build, test, and monitor your mobile apps.

• Webinar: Introducing AWS Mobile Hub (10:30 – 11:30 AM).
• Blog Post: AWS Mobile Hub – Build, Test, and Monitor Mobile Applications.

AWS Import/Export Snowball is a petabyte-scale data transport solution that uses secure appliances to transfer large amounts of data into and out of AWS.

• Webinar: Introducing AWS Import/Export Snowball (Noon – 1 PM).
• Blog Post: AWS Import/Export Snowball – Transfer 1 Petabyte Per Week Using Amazon-Owned Storage Appliances.

— Jeff;

Let’s take a quick look at what happened in AWS-land last week:

New & Notable Open Source

• awesome-aws is a curated list of awesome AWS libraries, open source repos, guides, blogs, and other resources.
• awsm is a specification for AWS Service Modules for JAWS.
• SimpleDynamo is a simple way to use DynamoDB from PHP.
• aws-scripts contains some scripts for launching environments in AWS.
• hyperion is a Scala library and abstractions for AWS Data Pipeline.
• spark-appliance creates a distributed Spark standalone cluster appliance for the AWS/STUPS environment.
• troposphere is a Python library to create AWS CloudFormation descriptions.
• awful is a Ruby gem for simple AWS command line tasks and YAML persistence.
• JustSaying is a lightweight message bus on top of SNS and SQS.
• simple-aws-captcha is a simple serverless CAPTCHA for AWS Lambda.

New SlideShare Presentations

• AWS re:Invent 2015 (232 presentations and counting).
• Defining VPC Based Web Applications in AWS CloudFormation.
• Amazon DynamoDB Workshop.
• Build and Manage Your APIs with Amazon API Gateway.
• Amazon ML – Machine Learning for Developers.

New Customer Success Stories

• AWS re:Invent 2015 – Netflix and AWS.
• GE and Capital One Endorse AWS at re:Invent.
• Amazon Urges Proprietary Database Customers to Migrate.

New YouTube Videos

• re:Invent 2015 Playlist – Keynotes.
• re:Invent 2015 Playlist – Short Videos.
• re:Invent 2015 Playlist – Mobile Developer & IoT.
• re:Invent 2015 Playlist – Storage & Content Delivery.
• re:Invent 2015 Playlist – Security & Compliance.
• re:Invent 2015 Playlist – Networking.
• re:Invent 2015 Playlist – IT Strategy & Migration.
• re:Invent 2015 Playlist –Gaming.
• re:Invent 2015 Playlist –DevOps.
• re:Invent 2015 Playlist –Developer Tools.
• re:Invent 2015 Playlist –Databases.
• re:Invent 2015 Playlist –Compute.
• re:Invent 2015 Playlist – Big Data & Analytics.
• re:Invent 2015 Playlist – Architecture.
• Fabio Silva – AWS IoT Demo.

Upcoming Events

• AWS IoT Mega Contest.
• October 21 – Webinar – Running MongoDB 3.0 on AWS.
• October 21 – Webinar – Securing Gene Sequencing Data on AWS for HIPAA Compliance – with APN Partner Alert Logic and customer GenomeNext.
• October 27 – Webinars:
  • Introducing Amazon QuickSight.
  • Getting Started with AWS IoT.
  • Introducing Amazon Kinesis Firehose.
• October 28 – Webinars:
  • Introducing Spot Blocks.
  • Introducing AWS WAF.
  • Introducing Amazon Elasticsearch Service.
• October 29 – Webinars:
  • AWS Lambda Best Practices: Python, Scheduled Jobs, and More.
  • Introducing AWS Mobile Hub.
  • Introducing AWS Import / Export Snowball.

Upcoming Events at the AWS Loft (San Francisco)

• October 13 – Behind the Scenes with ironSource: The Road to Production with Node.js and JavaScript.
• October 14 – Server-less Application Development using Swagger, API Gateway, and Lambda (6 – 7:30 PM).
• October 14 – Getting Started with Big Data and HPC (4 – 5 PM).
• October 19 – AWS Bootcamp: Getting Started with AWS (10 AM – 6 PM).
• October 19 – Transparency Across DevOps Culture, Process and Toolchain  (7 – 9 PM).
• October 20 – AWS Bootcamp: Getting Started with AWS (10 AM – 6 PM).
• October 21 – Intro to Using AWS and the Alexa Skills Kit to Build Voice Driven Experiences + Open Hackathon (10 AM – 3 PM).
• October 22 – IoT Hack Day Sponsored by MediaTek Labs (10 AM – 6 PM).
• October 26 – A New Way to Use EC2 – At Up to 90% Less Than On Demand Prices (3 – 4 PM).
• October 29 – Building Serverless Microservices with AWS Lambda (Noon – 4 PM).
• October 29 – Startup Pitch Event and Halloween Party (6:30 PM – 9:30 PM).

Upcoming Events at the AWS Loft (New York)

• October 20 – Chef Cookbook Workflow (6:30 – 8:30 PM).
• October 22 – Programmatic Security on AWS (6:30 – 8:30 PM).
• October 26 – AWS Bootcamp: Getting Started on AWS (10 AM – 6 PM).
• October 27 – AWS Bootcamp: Getting Started on AWS (10 AM – 6 PM).
• October 27 – Startup Pitch Event and Halloween Party (6:30 – 9:30 PM).
• October 28 – Responsive Game Design (Noon – 1 PM).
• October 28 – A Prescription for Startup Financial Health – 8 Financial Best Practices for Startup Executives (6:30 PM – 8 PM).

Upcoming Events at the AWS Loft (Berlin) – Register Now

• October 15 – An overview of Hadoop & Spark, using Amazon Elastic MapReduce (9 AM).
• October 15 – Processing streams of data with Amazon Kinesis (and other tools) (10 AM).
• October 15 – STUPS – A Cloud Infrastructure for Autonomous Teams (5 PM).
• October 16 – Transparency and Audit on AWS (9 AM).
• October 16 – Encryption Options on AWS (10 AM).
• October 16 – Simple Security for Startups (6 PM).
• October 19 – Introduction to AWS Directory Service, Amazon WorkSpaces, Amazon WorkDocs and Amazon WorkMail (9 AM).
• October 19 – Amazon WorkSpaces: Advanced Topics and Deep Dive (10 AM).
• October 19 – Building a global real-time discovery platform on AWS (6 PM).
• October 20 – Scaling Your Web Applications with AWS Elastic Beanstalk (10 AM).
• October 20 – Managing Infrastructure and Configuration with AWS OpsWorks (10 AM).
• October 20 – Deep Dive into Blue/Green Deployments on AWS (4 PM).
• October 20 – AWS OpsWorks Under the Hood (October 20th).
• October 21 – Cloud Gaming Architectures from Mobile to Social to MMO (10 AM).
• October 21 – re:Invent 2015 Revisited (10 AM).
• October 21 – Live Demo Day (2 PM).
• October 22 – AWS Pop-Up Loft Morning Shower: Microservices (8:30 AM).
• October 22 – Serverless Architecture on AWS (5 PM).
• October 22 – Berlin’s Godfather of Tech (6 PM).
• October 23 – Amazon Echo Hackathon (10 AM).
• October 23 – Convert Your Code into a Microservice using AWS Lambda (4 PM).
• October 23 – Why Load & Performance Test the Cloud? (5 PM).
• October 23 – Lessons Learned from 7 Accelerator Programs (6 PM).
• October 26 – re:Invent Recap (9 PM).
• October 26 – Funding Cycles and Term Sheets (5 PM).
• October 26 – Scaling synergy – How AWS works with VC’s (6 PM).
• October 27 – DevOps at Amazon: A Look at Our Tools and Processes (9 AM).
• October 27 – Taking Ops to the Next Level (10 AM).
• October 27 – Automating Software Deployments with AWS CodeDeploy (10 AM).
• October 27 – Releasing Software Quickly and Reliably with AWS CodePipeline (5 PM).
• October 28 – Cache is King (9 AM).
• October 28 – How to Save Costs and Mitigate Risks with Spot Instances (10 AM).
• October 28 – Running Lean & Mean on AWS: How to Optimize for Cost Efficiency (5 PM).
• October 29 – Simple Security for Startups (9 AM).
• October 29 – Encryption Options on AWS (10 AM).
• October 29 – Software to Services workshop – An intro to SaaS Business with AWS (2 PM).
• October 29 – Best Practice Tech Recruiting (4 PM).
• October 29 – Mapping Traditional Security Controls to AWS (5 PM).
• October 29 – Transparency and Audit on AWS (6 PM).
• October 30 – Mobile Identity Management and Data Synchronization Using Amazon Cognito (9 AM).
• October 30 – Analyze Mobile App Data and Build Predictive Applications (10 AM).
• October 30 – Software to Services workshop – An intro to SaaS Technology with AWS (2 PM).
• October 30 – The Data Pipeline Powering EyeEm (6 PM).

Upcoming Events at the AWS Loft (London) – Register Now

• October 14 – Masterclass Live: Amazon EMR (10 AM).
• October 14 – IoT on AWS (Noon).
• October 14 – FinTech in the Cloud: How to build scalable, compliant and secure architecture with AWS (2 PM).
• October 14 – AWS for Startups (6 PM).
• October 15 – AWS Container Day (10 AM).
• October 16 – HPC in the Cloud Workshop (2 – 4 PM).
• October 19 – Hands-on Labs Drop In (1 PM).
• October 20 – An Introduction to Using Amazon Web Services and the Alexa Skills Kit to Build Voice Driven Experiences + Open Hackathon (10 AM).
• October 21 – Startup Showcase – B2C (10 AM).
• October 21 – Chef Cookbook Workflow (6 PM).
• October 22 – AWS Security Day (10 AM).
• October 22 – Working with Planetary-Scale Open Data Sets on AWS (4 PM).
• October 23 – AWS Booktamp: Taking AWS Operations to the Next Level (10 AM).
• October 26 – Hands-on Labs Drop In (1 PM).
• October 27 – IoT Hack Day: AWS Pop-up Loft Hack Series – Sponsored by Intel (10 AM).

Help Wanted

• This Week’s Cloud Computing Jobs: U.S. Opportunities (Cloud Academy).
• This Week’s Cloud Computing Jobs: AWS and Linux Administration (Cloud Academy).
• AWS Careers.

Stay tuned for next week! In the meantime, follow me on

Twitter and subscribe to the RSS

feed.

— Jeff;

The new AWS Mobile Hub (Beta) simplifies the process of building, testing, and monitoring mobile applications that make use of one or more AWS services. It helps you skip the heavy lifting of integrating and configuring services by letting you add and configure features to your apps, including user authentication, data storage, backend logic, push notifications, content delivery, and analytics—all from a single, integrated console.

The AWS Mobile Hub helps you at each stage of development: configuring, building, testing, and usage monitoring. The console is feature-oriented; instead of picking individual services you select higher-level features comprised of combinations of one or more services, SDKs, and client code.  What once took a day to properly choose and configure can now be done in 10 minutes or so.

Diving In
Let’s dive into the console and take a look!

The Mobile Hub outlines (and helps with) each step of the mobile app development process:

I will call my project SuperMegaMobileApp:

Each feature is backed up by one or more AWS services. For example, User Sign-In is powered by Amazon Cognito and Push Notification is powered by Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS). I simply click on a feature to select and configure it.

I click on Push Notifications and Enable push, then  choose the destination platform(s):

I want to push to Android devices, so I select it. Then I need to enter an API Key and a Sender ID:

I can add logic to my application by connecting it to my AWS Lambda functions:

After I have selected and configured the features that I need, I click on Build to move forward:

The Mobile Hub creates a source package that I can use to get started, and provides me with the links and other information that I need to have at hand in order to get going:

I can download the entire package, open it up in my preferred IDE, and keep going from there:

I can use this code as a starter  app and edit it as desired. I can also copy selected pieces of code and paste them in to my existing mobile app.

I can also make use of the AWS Device Farm for testing and Amazon Mobile Analytics to collect operational metrics.

Visit the Hub
Whether you are creating a brand new mobile app or adding features to an existing app, AWS Mobile Hub lets you take advantage of the features, scalability, reliability, and low cost of AWS in minutes. As you have seen, AWS Mobile Hub walks you through feature selection and configuration. It then automatically provisions the AWS services required to power these features, and generates working quickstart apps for iOS and Android that use your provisioned services.

You can now spend more time adding features to your app and less time taking care of all of the details behind the scenes!

To learn more, visit the Mobile Hub page.

— Jeff;

Have you heard about the Internet of Things (IoT)? Although critics sometimes dismiss it as nothing more than “put a chip in it,” I believe that the concept builds upon some long-term technology trends and that there’s something really interesting and valuable going on.

To me, the most relevant trends are the decreasing cost of mass-produced compute power, the widespread availability of IP connectivity, and the ease with which large amounts of information can be distilled into intelligence using any number of big data tools and techniques:

• Mass-produced compute power means that it is possible to crank out powerful processors that consume modest amounts of power, occupy very little space, and cost very little. These attributes allow the processors to be unobtrusively embedded in devices of all shapes and sizes.
• Widespread IP connectivity (wired or wireless) lets these processors talk to each other and  to the cloud. While this connectivity is fairly widespread, it is definitely not ubiquitous.
• Big data allows us to make sense of the information measured, observed, or collected, by the processors running in these devices.

We could also add advances in battery & sensor technology to the list of enabling technologies for the Internet of Things. Before too long, factory floors, vehicles, health care systems, household appliances, and much more will become connected “things.” Two good introductory posts on the topic are 20 Real World Problems Solved by IoT and Smart IoT: IoT as a Human Agent, Human Extension, and Human Complement. My friend Sudha Jamthe has also written on the topic; her book IoT Disruptions focuses on new jobs and careers that will come about as IoT becomes more common.

Taking all of these trends as givens, it should not come as a surprise that we are working to make sure that AWS is well-equipped to support many different types of IoT devices and applications. Although I have described things as connected devices, they can also take the form of apps running on mobile devices.

New AWS IoT
Today we are launching AWS IoT (Beta).

This new managed cloud service provides the infrastructure that allows connected cars, factory floors, aircraft engines, sensor grids, and the like (AWS IoT refers to them as “things”) to easily and securely interact with cloud services and with other devices, all at world-scale. The connection to the cloud is fast and lightweight (MQTT or REST), making it a great fit for devices that have limited memory, processing power, or battery life.

Let’s take a look at the components that make up AWS IoT:

• Things are devices of all types, shapes, and sizes including applications, connected devices, and physical objects. Things measure and/or control something of interest in their local environment. The AWS IoT model is driven by state and state changes. This allows things to work properly even when connectivity is intermittent; applications interact with things by way of cloud-based Thing Shadows. Things have names, attributes, and shadows.
• Thing Shadows are virtual, cloud-based representations of things. They track the state of each connected device, and allow that state to be tracked even if the thing loses connectivity for an extended period of time.
• The real-time Rules Engine transforms messages based on expressions that you define, and routes them to AWS endpoints (Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3),  AWS Lambda, Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), Amazon Kinesis, and Amazon Kinesis Firehose) all expressed using a SQL-like syntax. Routing is driven by the contents of individual messages and by context. For example, routine readings from a temperature sensor could be tracked in a DynamoDB table; an aberrant reading that exceeds a value stored in the thing shadow can trigger a Lambda function .
• The Message Broker speaks MQTT (and also HTTP 1.1) so your devices can take advantage of alternative protocols even if your cloud backend does not speak them. The Message Broker can scale to accommodate billions of responsive long-lived connections between things and your cloud applications. Things use a topic-based pub/sub model to communicate with the broker, and can also publish via HTTP request/response. They can publish their state and can also subscribe to incoming messages. The pub/sub model allows a single device to easily and efficiently share its status with any number of other devices (thousands or even millions).
• Device SDKs are client libraries that are specific to individual types of devices. The functions in the SDK allow code running on the device to communicate with the AWS IoT Message Broker over encrypted connections. The devices identify themselves using X.509 certificates or Amazon Cognito identities. The SDK also supports direct interaction with Thing Shadows.
• The Thing Registry assigns a unique identity to each thing. It also tracks descriptive metadata such as the attributes and capabilities for each thing.

All of these components can be created, configured, and inspected using the AWS Management Console, the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), or through the IoT API.

AWS IoT lets billions of things keep responsive connections to the cloud, and lets cloud applications interact with things (works in device shadows, rules engine, and the real-time functionality). It receives messages from  things and filters, records, transforms, augments, or routes them to other parts of AWS or to your own code.

Getting Started with AWS IoT
We have been working with a large group of IoT Partners to create AWS-powered starter kits:

• Beaglebone Green and Grove IoT Starter Kit Powered by AWS.
• Dragonboard IoT Starter Kit Powered by AWS.
• Intel Edison and Grove IoT Starter Kit Powered by AWS.
• Marvel EZ-Connect MW300 IoT Starter Kit Powered by AWS.
• MediaTek Linkit One IoT Starter Kit Powered by AWS.
• Microchip IoT Starter Kit Powered by AWS.
• Renasas IoT Starter Kit Powered by AWS.
• Seeeduino Cloud and Grove IoT Starter Kit Powered by AWS.
• TI LaunchPad IoT Starter Kit Powered by AWS.
• WICED B4343W IoT Starter Kit Powered by Broadcom and AWS.

Once you have obtained a kit and connected it to something interesting, you are ready to start building your first IoT application using AWS IoT. You will make use of several different SDKs during this process:

• The Device SDK (C, JavaScript, and Arduino Yún) runs on the device.
• The AWS SDKs give you access to AWS from your web or mobile app.

The AWS IoT Console will help you get started. With a few clicks you can create your first thing, and then download the SDK, security credentials, and sample code you will need to connect a device to AWS IoT.

You can also build AWS IoT applications that communicate with an Amazon Echo via the Alexa Skills Kit. AWS IoT can trigger an Alexa Skill via a Lambda function and Alexa Skills can interact with thing shadows. Alexa Skills can also take advantage of AWS IoT’s bidirectional messaging capability (which traverses NAT and firewalls found in home networks) to wake devices with commands from the cloud. Manufacturers can use thing shadows to store responses to application-specific messages.

AWS IoT in the Console
The Console includes an AWS IoT tutorial to get you started:

It also provides complete details on each thing, including the thing’s API endpoint, MQTT topic, and the contents of its shadow:

AWS IoT Topics, Messages, and Rules
All of the infrasructure that I described can be seen as a support system for the message and rule system that forms the heart of AWS IoT. Things disclose their state by publishing messages to named topics.  Publishing a message to a topic will create the topic if necessary; you don’t have to create it in advance. The topic namespace is hierarchical (“myfactories/seattle/sensors/door”)

Rules use a SQL-like SELECT statement to filter messages. In the IoT Rules Engine, the FROM clause references an MQTT topic and the WHERE clause references JSON properties in the message. When a rule matches a message, it can invoke one or more of the following actions:

• Insert, update, or query a DynamoDB table.
• Invoke a Lambda function.
• Write to an S3 bucket.
• Publish to an SNS topic or endpoint.
• Publish to an SQS queue.
• Publish to a Amazon Kinesis stream.
• Publish to an Amazon Kinesis Firehose.
• Republish to another topic.

The SELECT statement can use all (*) or specifically chosen fields of the message in the invocation.

The endpoints above can be used to reach the rest of AWS. For example, you can reach Amazon Redshift via Kinesis, and external endpoints via Lambda, SNS, or Kinesis.

Thing Shadows also participate in the message system. Shadows respond to HTTP GET requests with JSON documents (the documents are also accessible via MQTT for environments that don’t support HTTP). Each document contains the thing state, its metadata,  and a version number for the state.  Each piece of state information is stored in both “reported” (what the device last said), and “desired” (what the application wants it to be). Each shadow accepts changes to the desired state (HTTP) post, and publishes “delta” and “accepted” messages to topics associated with the thing shadow. The device listens on these topics and changes its state accordingly.

IoT at re:Invent
If you are at re:Invent, be sure to check out our Mobile Developer & IoT track. Here are some of the sessions we have in store:

• MBL203 – From Drones to Cars: Connecting the Devices in Motion to the Cloud.
• MBL204 -Connecting the Unconnected – State of the Union – Internet of Things Powered by AWS.
• MBL303 -Build Mobile Apps for IoT Devices and IoT Apps for Mobile Devices.
• MBL305 – You Have Date from the Devices, Now What? Getting Value of the IoT.
• WRK202 – Build a Scalable Mobile App on Serverless, Event-Triggered, Back-End Logic.

More to Come
There’s a lot more to talk about and I have barely scratched the surface with this introductory blog post. Once I recover from AWS re:Invent, I will retire to my home lab and cook up a thing or two of my own and share the project with you. Stay tuned!

— Jeff;

PS – Check out the AWS IoT Mega Contest!