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The Cloud Pod | Weekly AI & Cloud News on AWS, Azure & GCP
Hosted by Justin Brodley, Jonathan Baker, Ryan Lucas and Matt Kohn | Cloud Computing & AI News · EN
The Cloud Pod delivers weekly cloud computing and AI news for engineers, architects, and technology leaders. Join Justin Brodley, Jonathan Baker, Ryan Lucas, and Matt Kohn as they break down the latest from AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud — covering new services, platform updates, FinOps strategies, and the AI innovations reshaping the industry. Stay ahead of the cloud landscape with one of the longest-running cloud computing podcasts available.
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283: You’ve Got Re:Invent Predictions
Nov 27, 202401:13:36Tap to summarizeWelcome to episode 283 of The Cloud Pod, where the forecast is always cloudy! Break out your crystal balls and shuffle those tarot decks, because it’s Re:Invent prediction time! Sorry we missed you all last week – the plague has been strong with us. But Justin and Jonathan are BACK, and we’ve got a ton of news, so buckle in and let’s get started! Titles we almost went with this week: Not My Snowcones! Lambda at 10: Still Better Than Windows Containers A big thanks to this week’s sponsor: We’re sponsorless! Want to get your brand, company, or service in front of a very enthusiastic group of cloud news seekers? You’ve come to the right place! Send us an email or hit us up on our slack channel for more info. General News 01:27 The voice of America Online’s “You’ve got mail” has died at age 74 Elwoods Edwards, the voice behind the online service AOL’s iconic “You’ve got mail” sound notification has died at the age of 74. He was just one day shy of his 75th birthday. The “you’ve got mail” soundbite started in 1989 when Steve Case, CEO of Quantum Computer Services (which will later become America Online or AOL,) wanted to add a human voice to their Quantum online service. Karen Edwards, who worked as a customer service representative, heard Case discussing the plan and suggested her husband Elwood, a professional broadcaster. Edwards recorded the famous phrase and others (“Welcome” “File’s done” and “Goodbye” among them) on a cassette recorder in his living room. He was paid $200 for the service. His voice is still used to greet users of the current AOL service. AWS 03:04 It’s Time for RE:Invent Predictions! Matt Large Green Computing Reinvent LLM at the Edge Something new On S3 Ryan (AI) Improved serverless observability tools Expansion of AI Driven workflows in datalakes Greater Focus on Multi-Account or Multi-region orchestration, centralized compliance management, or enhanced security services Jonathan New Edge Computing Capabilities better global application deployment type features. (Cloudflare competitor maybe) New automated cost optimization tools Automated RAG/vector to S3 Justin Managed Backstage or platform like service New LLM multi-modal replacement or upgrade to Titan Competitor VM offering to Broadcom Honorable Mentions Jonathan: Deeper integration between serverless and container services New Region Enhanced Observability with AI driven debugging tool Justin: Multi Cloud management – in a bigger way (Anthos competitor) Agentic AI toolings New ARM graviton chip How many times will AI or Artificial Intelligence be said: Justin – 35 Jonathan – 72 And now it’s time for Pre:Invent announcements: 20:09 Introducing Express brokers for Amazon MSK to deliver high throughput and faster scaling for your Kafka clusters Amazon is announcing the general availability of Express Brokers, a new broker type for Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (MSK). The new Express Broker is designed to deliver up to 3x more throughput per-broker, scale up to 20 times faster, and reduce recovery time by 90 percent – as compared to standard brokers running Apache Kafka. Express Brokers come preconfigured with Kafka best practices by default. They also support Kafka API’s and provide the same low latency performance that Amazon MSK customers expect, so they can continue using existing client applications without any changes. Express Broker provided improved compute and storage elasticity for Kafka applications when using Amazon MSK provisioned clusters. Some of the key features of the new express brokers include: Easier operations with hand-free storage management Fewer brokers with up to 3x throughput per broker Higher utilization with 20 times faster scaling Higher resilience with 90 percent faster recovery Cost wise (Ohio) Express.m7g.4xlarge – 16 vcpu – 64gib – 3.264 per hour Standard Broker – 16 vcpu – 64gb – 1.632 21:10 Jonathan – “it seems like would be a no-brainer if you’re running enough single brokers to meet their capacity, then switching to these as long as you maintain your redundancy would be kind of a no-brainer. I wonder what they’ve done exactly to make this new class of instances. They’re not just bigger instances, surely.” 22:13 Amazon EBS now supports detailed performance statistics on EBS volume health Amazon is really ticking off a ton of Justin’s requests for CloudWatch! This week, CW gets detailed performance statistics for EBS volumes. This new capability provides you with real-time visibility into the performance of your EBS volumes, making it easier to monitor the health of your storage resources and take action sooner if things go south. You can access 11 metrics at up to per-second granularity to monitor input/output statistics of your EBS volumes, including driven I/O and I/O latency histograms. 22:44 Justin – “So, you know, in the early days of auto scaling, one of the things that a lot of customers would do was they would create testing when the node would come up and they would actually test the IO throughput to the EBS volume because they were not always created equal. And so if you got a bad EBS volume, you create another one or rescale or kill that node and try again until you get one that performs to your specifications. So now, at least exposing this to you so you can actually just monitor it from CloudWatch, which is a much simpler way than running a bunch of automated tests.” 24:00 EC2 Auto Scaling introduces provisioning control on strict availability zone balance Amazon EC2 auto scaling groups (ASG) introduce a new capability for customers to strictly balance their workloads across Availability Zones, enabling greater control over provisioning and management of EC2 instances, Previously, if y...
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282: Search – ChatGPT vs Google…. Fight!
Nov 14, 202401:04:10Tap to summarizeWelcome to episode 282 of The Cloud Pod, where the forecast is always cloudy! This week Justin, Ryan, and Matthew are happy to be joining you in the clouds versus watching election information. This week we’re talking nuclear energy, AI Search tools, and all things Pre:Invent. Welcome, and thanks for joining us! Titles we almost went with this week: The Cloud Pod Would Much Rather Record This Show Than Watch the Election Results IBM Comes for Your AI Dollars AWS Goes Limitless with the PostgreSQL Possibilities It is Upon Us the Pre-Invent Period and AWS Does Not Disappoint Amazon Loses Its Nuclear Superhero A big thanks to this week’s sponsor: We’re sponsorless! Want to get your brand, company, or service in front of a very enthusiastic group of cloud news seekers? You’ve come to the right place! Send us an email or hit us up on our slack channel for more info. Follow Up 01:13 Energy regulators scrutinizing data center use reject Amazon bid Late Friday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejected a proposal that would have allowed an Amazon data center to co-locate with an existing nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. The commission voted it down 2-1 FERC chairman Willie Phillips said that the commission should encourage the development of data centers and semiconductor manufacturing as national security and economic development priorities. Commissioners Mark Christie and Lindsay See (both R) voted to reject the proposal, while Davis Rosner and Judy Change (D) didn’t vote. Talen Energy, who signed the agreement, drew challenges from neighboring utilities AEP and Exelon – who challenged the novel arrangement, arguing it would unfairly shift costs of running the broader grid to other consumers. FERC’s order found the region’s grid operator, PJM Interconnection, failed to show why the proposal was necessary and prove such a deal would be limited to the Susquehanna plant given the widespread interest in placing data centers next to power plants. Talen said the ruling would have a chilling effect on the region’s economic development and it is weighing its options. Will see what happens with Microsoft/Constellation energies plan to restart 3-Mile Island. 3:21 Justin – “It’s sort of sad because I kind like the idea of nuclear power to solve a bunch of problems, but it has to be done in the right way for sure.” General News 04:12 IT’S EARNINGS TIME! 04:22 IBM revenue misses, but execs say AI will drive future growth This week, we have an additional company we don’t typically talk about… but IBM kicked off this quarter’s earning seasons which indicated that the AI dividend has yet to pay off for big infrastructure players. Earnings were 2.30 a share, excluding non-recurring items, and were eight cents better than consensus estimates. Although revenue rose 2% on a constant currency basis to $14.97 billion, they were slightly below the $15.08 billion consensus. “We are very focused on ensuring we get an early lead position and establish IBM consulting as a strategic provider of choice for gen AI,” said Chief Financial Officer James Kavanaugh. “This is a long-term growth factor with a multiplier effect across our software, our platforms and our infrastructure.” About three-quarters of the gen AI business is consulting, and one-quarter is software. 05:32 Ryan – “…it seems like that’s a pretty good play to beef up, you know, your consultant side of the business to implement that. Because a lot of businesses are going to need to do that. And a lot of them don’t have the in house skills to do it.” 05:50 Alphabet stock soars as earnings crush estimates on strong cloud growth Alphabet reported earnings per share of $2.12 on revenue of $88.27 billion for the quarter ended September 30th. Representing a profit and sales increase from the same period last year of 37% and 15%, respectively. Analysts had expected revenue of $1.83 per share and 86.44 billion. Advertising revenue topped expectations at 65.85 billion vs expectations of 65.5. Cloud revenue was $11.4 b up 35% from the same period last year exceeding expectations. Sundar Pichai said “this business has real momentum, and the overall opportunity is increasing as customers embrace gen AI” Google plans to spend $13 billion on capital expenditures. 07:09 Matthew – “I mean, I was talking recently with some people and they were saying how a lot more of the really small companies are leveraging Google just because their developer experience inside the platform is much better than the other ones. It’s interesting to kind of see if that’s it, but it’s a ton of small companies to keep up with.” 07:40 Amazon stock jumps 6%; Q3 revenue up 11% to $158.9B; profits hit $15.3B; AWS sales up 19% Amazon topped estimates for the 3rd quarter, reporting $158.9 billion in revenue, up 11% YOY and earnings per share of $1.43. Profits jumped to 15.3 billion, from 9.9 billion a year ago. AWS came in just below expectations at 27.4 billion in revenue, up 19%, with 10.4 billion in operating income. Investors continue to keep a close eye on AI adoption on the cloud giant. This is all interesting despite layoffs and unfavorable RTO policies; they are currently at 1.55 million employees, up 3% YOY. 09:17 Justin – “…it’s a crazy amount of people, by the way. I can’t even fathom having 1.5 million employees. Like, what do they all do?” 09:39 Microsoft dips on weak guidance after beating on earnings Microsoft reported an earnings and revenue beat for the fiscal first quarter, but was bludgeoned for predicting slower growth than analysts expected. Revenue was 65.59 or 3.30 per share vs the 64.51 or 3.10 per share expected. CEO Satya Nadella said he feels pretty good that going into the second half of this fiscal year that the supply-demand will match up. Azure growth was 33%, with 12 points of that growth coming from AI services. 10:47 Justin – “No, they were, they were applauded for doing well and beating expectations, but they were beaten because they predicted slower growth for this quarter and the next quarter. So it was more, I don’t think they lowered their guidance, but I think they basically said to expect it to be on the lower side of the range that they gave, which made investors unhappy.” AI is Going Great – Or How ML Makes All Its Money 11:38 Introducing ChatGPT search <a href="https://chatgpt.com/?hints=search" rel="nofollow noopener" ta...
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281: Happy Birthday, ECS. You’re still so much better than K8 at 10!
Nov 7, 202400:44:38Tap to summarizeWelcome to episode 281 of The Cloud Pod, where the forecast is always cloudy! Justin and Ryan are your hosts as we search the clouds for all the latest news and info. This week we’re talking about ECS turning 10 (yes, we were there when it was announced, and yes, we’re old,) some more drama from the CrowdStrike fiasco, lots of updates to GitHub, plus more. Join us! Titles we almost went with this week: Github Universe full of ECS containers Github Universe lives up to the Universal expectations A big thanks to this week’s sponsor: We’re sponsorless! Want to get your brand, company, or service in front of a very enthusiastic group of cloud news seekers? You’ve come to the right place! Send us an email or hit us up on our slack channel for more info. Follow Up 01:09 Dr. Matt Woods ended up at PWC as chief innovation officer YAWN What exactly does a chief innovation officer at PWC do? Is this like a semi-retirement? General News 01:44 TSA silent on CrowdStrike’s claim Delta skipped required security update Delta isn’t backing down with CrowdStrike, and in a court filing said CrowdStrike should be on the hook for the entire $500M in losses, partly because CrowdStrike has admitted that it should have done more testing and staggered deployments to catch bugs. Delta further alleges that CrowdStrike postured as a certified best-in-class security provider who “never cuts corners,” while secretly designing its software to bypass Microsoft security certifications to make changes at the core of Delta’s computer systems without Delta’s knowledge. Delta says they would never have agreed to such a dangerous process if it had been disclosed. In its testimony to Congress, CrowdStrike said that they follow standard protocols, and that they are protecting against threats as they evolve. CrowdStrike is also accusing Delta of failing to follow laws, including best practices established by the TSA. According to CrowdStrike, most customers were up within a day of the issue – while Delta took 5 days. Crowdstrike alleges that Delta’s negligence caused this in following the TSA requirements designed to ensure that no major airline ever experiences prolonged system outages. CrowdStrike realized Delta failed to follow the requirements when its efforts to help remediate the issue revealed alleged technological shortcomings and failures to follow security best practices, including outdated IT systems, issues in Delta’s AD environment and thousands of compromised passwords. Delta threatened to sue Microsoft as well as CrowdStrike, but has only named CrowdStrike to date in the lawsuits. 3:48 Ryan – “It’s a tool that needs to evolve very quickly to emerging threats. And while the change that was pushed through shouldn’t have gone through that particular workflow, and that’s a mistake, I do think that that should exist as part of it. Yes, could they have done better with documentation and all that? Of course.” 04:51 Google is a Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Strategic Cloud Platform Services It’s Magic Quadrant time! But let’s be real – when ISN’T it MQ time. The Magic Quadrant is out for Cloud Platforms… and AWS is still top dog. BUT Microsoft and Google have moved further to the right than AWS – which is for completeness of vision. Oracle also made the leaders quadrant. AWS Strengths Operational excellence Solutions support Robust Developer experience Cautions Complex and inconsistent service interfaces Limited traction for proprietary AI models Fewer Sovereign cloud options Google Strengths AI Infused IT Modernization Environmental Sustainability Digital Sovereignty Cautions Incomplete understanding of traditional enterprise needs Uneven resilience Distributed cloud inconsistencies Azure Strengths Cross-Microsoft Capabilities Industry Clouds Strategic partnership with OpenAI Cautions Ongoing Security Challenges Capacity Shortages Inconsistent Service and Support 07:04 Justin – “…it’s still a shared security model. You still have requirements you have to meet. So you’re not off the hook completely by checking assured workloads for sure.” 08:12 4.2 Tbps of bad packets and a whole lot more: Cloudflare’s Q3 DDoS report Cloudflare gives us the 19th edition of the CloudFlare DDOS threat report. The number of DDoS attacks spiked in the third quarter of 2024. Cloudflare mitigated nearly 6 million DDOS attacks, representing a 49% increase in QoQ and 55% increase YoY. Out of those 6 million, Cloudflare’s autonomous DDOS defense systems detected and mitigated over 200 hyper-volumetric DDoS attacks exceeding rates of 3 terabits per second (Tbps) and 2 Billion packets per second (Bpps). The largest attack peaked at 4.2TB and lasted a minute. The Banking and Financial services industry is subjected to the most DDoS attacks. China was the country most targeted, and Indonesia was the largest source of attacks. 09:27 Justin – “DDoS is not an IF thing. It’s a WHEN problem for every company.” AI is Going Great – Or How ML Makes All Its Money 10:12 GitHub Copilot moves beyond OpenAI models to support Claude 3.5, Gemini <...
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