WNiCF - October 2024 - News

In this episode, Frank and SteveO discuss the latest updates in cloud computing for October 2024, covering significant announcements from AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. They delve into new features, pricing changes, and innovations in cost management, data storage, and AI integration. The conversation also highlights insights from the recent FinOps XE conference, emphasizing the evolving landscape of FinOps and sustainability in cloud operations.

Transcript

Instances/Compute

• https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2024/10/ubuntu-pro-ec2-spot-instances 
• https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/updates/?filters=%5B%222024-10-01T00%3A00%3A00.000Z%22%5D#:~:text=Microsoft%20is%20announcing%20the%20general%20availability%20of%20the%20new%20Cobalt%20100%20Arm%2Dbased%20virtual%20machines%20(VMs) 
• https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/updates/?filters=%5B%222024-10-01T00%3A00%3A00.000Z%22%5D#:~:text=Not%20all%20workloads%20in%20the%20cloud%20need%20the%20same%20resources%2C%20which%20is%20why%20organizations%20regularly%20optimize%20their%20architecture%20with%20a%20mix%20of%20technologies%20and%20service%20plans%20that%20best%20meet%20their%20current%20needs. 
• The Azure NMads MA35D-Series virtual machines (VM) are now in public preview in the East US region. 
• The NVads V710 v5-series virtual machines are powered by AMD Radeon™ Pro V710 GPUs and AMD EPYC 9V64 (Genoa) CPUs with a base frequency of of 3.95 GHz and max frequency of 4.3 GHz.  
• https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/compute/try-c4a-the-first-google-axion-processor 
• https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/containers-kubernetes/nvidia-nims-are-available-on-gke 
• https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/data-analytics/bigquery-omni-to-reduce-the-cost-of-log-analytics 
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Data/DBs

• https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2024/10/amazon-redshift-serverless-ai-driven-scaling-optimization
• https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2024/10/amazon-elasticache-valkey 
• https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2024/10/amazon-memorydb-valkey 

Storage

• Azure - We’re excited to announce the general availability of Live Resize for Premium SSD v2 and Ultra Disks. Dynamically increase the storage capacity of your disks without causing any disruption to your applications. To reduce costs, you can begin by creating smaller disks and gradually increase their storage capacity without experiencing any downtime. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/expand-os-disk#expand-without-downtime 
• We’re excited to announce the general availability of the feature for Converting to Premium SSD v2 disks (Pv2).  Confidently move your workloads to Pv2 by leveraging this feature to take advantage of the unparalleled balance of price and performance of Pv2 disks. This feature allows you to migrate your existing Standard SSD, Standard HDD, or Premium SSD v1 disks to Pv2 disks in a few clicks with minimal downtime. This process avoids disk destruction, eliminates the need to use snapshots as a staging resource, and doesn’t require waiting for background data copying. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/disks-convert-types?tabs=azure-powershell#convert-premium-ssd-v2-disks 
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Visibility (Billing conductor - Tags - cost categories)

• https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-cost-management-updates-september-2024/ - Focus on GenAI (Also, are they waiting for us before they publish?)
• https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2024/10/aws-billing-conductor-ri-savings-plans-coverage-utilization-reports 
• https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/cost-management/introducing-cost-anomaly-detection 
• https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/cost-management/introducing-the-google-cloud-cost-attribution-solution 

Commitment

• https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/committed-use-discounts/extend-commitment-term 

Pricing

• https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2024/10/extension-eol-dates-amazon-corretto-8-11 
• Announcing Reduced Pricing for JBoss EAP on App Service starting October 1, 2024! 

Savings 

• https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/containers-kubernetes/tuning-the-gke-hpa-to-run-inference-on-gpus 

FinOps (General)

• https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2024/10/amazon-ec2-optimize-cpus-post-instance-launch/
• https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-cost-management-updates-september-2024/ 
• https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2024/10/assign-billing-shared-amazon-ec2-on-demand-capacity-reservations 
• https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/updates/?filters=%5B%222024-10-01T00%3A00%3A00.000Z%22%5D#:~:text=All%20versions%20of%20the%20Azure%20Price%20Sheet%20%2D%20Download%20by%20Billing%20Account%20API%20prior%20to%20version%202023%2D09%2D01 
• https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/partners/enhancing-google-cloud-marketplace-private-offers 
• FinOps XE!!!