The CloudPod continued its deep dive into cloud computing-related topics and news with this week’s episode by exploring big and recent updates from GCP, AWS, and Azure. Also, this podcast included the shocking news on Alibaba’s spinoff from Alibaba Cloud.
Before you listen to how cloud engineers share their expert opinions on these intriguing topics, check out our recap for a glimpse of what to expect.
As a sponsor of the CloudPod, we at Foghorn Consulting support their mission to bring timely news about cloud computing and AI. We also provide services for GCP, AWS, and Microsoft Azure.
Alibaba recently announced its plans to separate its cloud business, letting go of its 100% stake valued at $12 billion. Still, the reasons behind this decision remain unclear to the public. This move may be due to market or political pressures.
The company faced regulatory scrutiny in 2021 for sharing a security flaw before informing the government and its involvement in China’s most significant cybersecurity breach. These developments have raised questions about the reliability and stability of Alibaba’s cloud services.
Alicloud, which has the potential to become China’s AWS, is currently valued at $31 billion.
Despite its recent slowdown in growth due to macroeconomic factors, it still has the potential to drive the growth of the Alibaba Group. Analysts like Jialong Shi and Thomas Shen consider this spinoff bold and puzzling. However, given the significance of this business to Alibaba, it’s unlikely that the company would let it go without pressure from a higher power like the government.
To learn more about this shocking spinoff, check out the cloud podcast.
AWS is working round the clock on improving its products and providing more real use cases.
One recent notable development is the Amazon Sagemaker Geospatial. This service makes building, training, and deploying machine learning models using Geospatial data easy. Also, it can now be used for Damage Assessment, Climate Change Monitoring, Predict Retail Demands, and many more. We are curious about what AWS will do with this tech.
Are you interested in knowing more about Amazon SageMaker? Check out this article.
AWS has made it easier to determine the cause and impact of findings coming from new sources such as AWS Identity and Access Management with the Amazon Detective. It now offers investigation support for findings in AWS Security Hub and those detected by Guard Duty.
Despite AWS’s efforts toward offering better services, they might be getting it wrong with their documentation.AWS Retires its GitHub repo-based documentation. According to their newest update, the issue was that the primary source for most AWS documentation is an internal system that had to be manually synced with GitHub Repos.
This is our thought on this issue. “If AWS can build out ES and orchestrate SQL server clusters, you’d think they could orchestrate copying some docs up to GitHub. Seems a little odd.”
Microsoft will now add more excellent and powerful AI tools to its products. If you have upgraded to Windows 11 or Windows 365 you’re about to get a lot of AI – in the form of copilot; which is also opening up Copilot plugins to developers. It will use the same plugin standard as ChatGPT to allow easy interoperability between Azure AI, GitHub AI, and Microsoft Copilot.
Also, they are introducing new AU services like New Azure AI studio, Microsoft Fabric, and Azure Machine Learning Prompt Flow. This tool makes it easier for developers to construct prompts while taking advantage of popular open-source prompts.
Google has finally released its Google Cloud Workstation. GCP introduced it in a public preview as a vital part of the Software Delivery Shield offering at Google Cloud Next last year. Now it’s here for us to use.
Cloud workstations enable you to onboard developers faster. It also increases your developer’s productivity while helping support your compliance requirements with an enhanced security posture.
Everyone likes having a standardized desktop with all the tools already installed. It sucks to see new employees spend at least a month setting up things. So new employees can get started fast and not waste time fixing dependency issues.
However, forcing all your developers to use a virtual workstation might have a negative effect.
Do you need deep insight and expert views on trending cloud-related topics?
Be sure to tune in for next week’s episode of The Cloud Pod, sponsored by Foghorn Consulting.
