135: The Cloud Pod Goes to Google Cloud Toronto, Eh?

On The Cloud Pod this week, AWS releases OpenSearch and EKS Anywhere, Google Cloud is now available in the Toronto region, and Microsoft deals with two critical security issues. 

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.

• JumpCloud, which offers a complete platform for identity, access, and device management — no matter where your users and devices are located. 

This week’s highlights

• AWS releases OpenSearch (previously Elasticsearch) and makes EKS Anywhere generally available — to those who run VMware. 
• Google Cloud opens a Toronto region, expanding its core Google portfolio into three new zones. How aboot that?
• Security issues continue to plague Microsoft, with critical vulnerabilities exposed in both its ACI and OMI features. Hopefully new hire, Charlie Bell, can help them out. 

Top Quotes  

  “I hope that the reason [AWS is] integrating with VMware only is because they’re deeply integrating with that platform and they can spin up new VMs, deploy new infrastructure, and provide the scaling you need to make EKS Anywhere work the way it works in the cloud.”

“Everything now is driven by the cloud in a big way, where you pay by the drip. So now I need to make the drip as efficient as possible. And if I can give you dedicated silicon to do that, that’s the best thing for me. And so it’s quite interesting.”

General News: Jump On It 

• The Cloud Pod sponsor, JumpCloud, raises $159 million in its Series F round, bringing its total funding to $350 million. Remote working has catalyzed growth for this cloud directory service, now valued at $2.56 billion. Take that, AD.

Amazon Web Services: New Features, Who Dis?  

• Amazon Elasticsearch is now OpenSearch. In addition to the new name, AWS has also added a host of new features like advanced security, SQL query syntax, updated reporting capabilities, and more. Overall, we are super happy with this first release! 
• Amazon EKS Anywhere is now generally available… as long as you use it on top of VMware. EKS (almost) Anywhere helps users manage any Kubernetes cluster, and offers automation tooling for cluster lifecycle support. This comes two weeks late for Justin, who included it in his predictions draft. Bummer. 
• Livestreamers rejoice! AWS is launching EC2 T1 instances for live multi-stream video transcoding, which will provide resolution up to 4K Ultra HD. Using GPUs for graphics processing — what an idea!

Google Cloud Platform: Google Welcomes Toronto to the Family 

• In addition to giving users dedicated CPUs, GCP is now offering CPU allocation controls which will allow