--- title: "Even Alexa is Laughing At You" id: "2276" type: "newsletter" slug: "even-alexa-is-laughing-at-you" published_at: "2018-03-13T02:23:27+00:00" modified_at: "2019-06-08T02:24:50+00:00" url: "https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/even-alexa-is-laughing-at-you/" markdown_url: "https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/even-alexa-is-laughing-at-you.md" excerpt: "Good morning! Welcome to issue number 49 of Last Week in AWS. This coming week marks the 12 year anniversary of the launch of AWS. The initial public launch featured three different services: SQS (their first service– you can win..." --- About the Author Corey is the Chief Cloud Economist at Duckbill, where he specializes in helping companies improve their AWS bills by making them smaller and less horrifying. He also hosts the "Screaming in the Cloud" and "AWS Morning Brief" podcasts; and curates "Last Week in AWS," a weekly newsletter summarizing the latest in AWS news, blogs, and tools, sprinkled with snark and thoughtful analysis in roughly equal measure. Sign up for the Newsletter Stay up to date on the latest AWS news, opinions, and tools, all lovingly sprinkled with a bit of snark. "*" indicates required fields [Good morning](https://twitter.com/QuinnyPig/status/971445643519582208) ! Welcome to issue number 49 of ***Last Week in AWS***. This coming week marks the 12 year anniversary of the launch of AWS. The initial public launch featured three different services: SQS (their first service– you can win bar bets with that factoid), EC2, and S3. This was the critical number of services needed to launch, as two’s a company, but three’s a cloud. ## Community Contributions Cloudonaut is releasing new CloudFormation templates to [store your state](https://cloudonaut.io/new-cloudformation-templates-store-your-state/?utm_source=last_week_in_AWS&utm_medium=newsletter) . These are highly available, scale up or down based upon usage, and won’t destroy your data. Apparently at some point the BYOL option for Microsoft SQL Server RDS licensing [was withdrawn](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/SQLServer.Concepts.General.Licensing.html?utm_source=last_week_in_AWS&utm_medium=newsletter) . This probably doesn’t sit too well with shops that be paid large sums of money to Microsoft for database licenses that are now useless to them. Thanks to Paul Wakeford for [finding the diff](https://images.paulwakeford.info/oGTAbfqMoY.png) of the change a few weeks back. An update to Yan Cui’s [AWS Lambda performance benchmarks](https://read.acloud.guru/comparing-aws-lambda-performance-of-node-js-python-java-c-and-go-29c1163c2581?utm_source=last_week_in_AWS&utm_medium=newsletter) between different runtime languages. .NET 2.0 is the fastest, Go is on par with Java… Cats and dogs living together… what even is this?! Segment apparently has many dozens of AWS accounts. Here’s how they manage [that box of pain](https://segment.com/blog/secure-access-to-100-aws-accounts/?utm_source=last_week_in_AWS&utm_medium=newsletter) securely, without losing their everloving minds. A dive into implementing a [dual-approval workflow](https://www.trek10.com/blog/enforcing-two-person-rule-aws-codepipeline/?utm_source=last_week_in_AWS&utm_medium=newsletter) for CodePipeline. Your auditors will love this. I can’t shake the feeling that potty training my daughter will someday be a challenge– but is it really a challenge that requires [Twilio, an IoT button, python, a Lambda function, and a spare week to get it all hooked together](https://www.twilio.com/blog/2018/03/iot-poop-button-python-twilio-aws.html?utm_source=last_week_in_AWS&utm_medium=newsletter) ? And on the lighter side, the internet has lost its mind last week over [Alexa laughing at random](https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/3/7/17092334/amazon-alexa-devices-strange-laughter) . As a long time Amazon observer, I can confidently state that you have nothing to worry about until she refuses to *stop* laughing, despite being unplugged and submerged in water. ## Choice Cuts From the AWS Blog [Amazon ECS Supports Container Health Checks and Task Health Management](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/03/amazon-ecs-supports-container-health-checks-and-task-health-mana/?utm_source=last_week_in_AWS&utm_medium=newsletter) – empty [Amazon Elasticsearch Service now Supports Instant Access Policy Updates](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/03/amazon-elasticsearch-service-now-supports-instant-access-policy-updates/?utm_source=last_week_in_AWS&utm_medium=newsletter) – Did you know that many services don’t reflect access changes immediately? Sleep tight, infosec friends! [Amazon WorkSpaces Reduces User Fees for Qualified Education Institutions](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/03/amazon-workspaces-reduces-user-fees-for-qualified-educational-institutions/?utm_source=last_week_in_AWS&utm_medium=newsletter) – If you’re an educational institution, you now get discounted rates on Workspaces. If you’re an educational institution and paying retail price on any vendor’s cloud offering, pick up a phone, call them, and begin screaming until they fix it. [AWS GovCloud (US) Region Adds Third Availability Zone](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/03/aws-govcloud-us-region-adds-third-availability-zone/?utm_source=last_week_in_AWS&utm_medium=newsletter) – I’m told that their internal codenames are “judicial,” “legislative,” and “executive.” You’re welcome, political science majors. [AWS Service Catalog Launches Brand Your Console to Deliver a Customizable User Experience](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/03/aws-service-catalog-launches-brand-your-console-to-deliver-a-customizable-user-experience/?utm_source=last_week_in_AWS&utm_medium=newsletter) – empty [AWS Storage Gateway Expands Automation with New CloudWatch Event, and Support for “Requester Pays” Buckets](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/03/aws-storage-gateway-expands-automation-with-new-cloudwatch-event-and-support-for-requester-pays-buckets/?utm_source=last_week_in_AWS&utm_medium=newsletter) – Note that “requestor pays” is the only legitimate use for the S3 permission of “Any Authenticated User.” Any other usage of that permission invariably turns into “InfoSec Engineer pays.” [AWS Secret Region expands to include 11 new services | AWS Security Blog](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-secret-region-expands-to-include-11-new-services/?utm_source=last_week_in_AWS&utm_medium=newsletter) – This blog post doesn’t exist. There’s nothing here. You saw absolutely nothing. [How to Delegate Administration of Your AWS Managed Microsoft AD Directory to Your On-Premises Active Directory Users | AWS Security Blog](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/how-to-delegate-administration-of-your-aws-managed-microsoft-ad-directory-to-your-on-premises-active-directory-users/?utm_source=last_week_in_AWS&utm_medium=newsletter) – empty [How to Use Bucket Policies and Apply Defense-in-Depth to Help Secure Your Amazon S3 Data | AWS Security Blog](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/how-to-use-bucket-policies-and-apply-defense-in-depth-to-help-secure-your-amazon-s3-data/?utm_source=last_week_in_AWS&utm_medium=newsletter) – empty ## Tools If you dread bill surprises, drop everything, run [this CloudFormation template](https://github.com/btkrausen/AWS/tree/master/CloudFormation/Billing%20Alerts?utm_source=last_week_in_AWS&utm_medium=newsletter) , and rest assured that you’ll get an email before your bill explodes. This is a real gem. While I don’t love that it requires an ElasticSearch cluster, Duo Security has released Cloudtracker, a handy CloudFormation template that tells you which users and roles have permissions assigned that [they’re not using](https://github.com/duo-labs/cloudtracker?utm_source=last_week_in_AWS&utm_medium=newsletter) . You can now run entire PHP websites in Lambda via [LambdaPHP](https://github.com/san-kumar/lambdaphp?utm_source=last_week_in_AWS&utm_medium=newsletter) . Note that this is a very early proof of concept, that is probably a week away from powering all of Facebook. [Terraform-AWS-Harpocrates](https://github.com/yopaproperty/terraform-AWS-Harpocrates?utm_source=last_week_in_AWS&utm_medium=newsletter) is a Terraform module to easily deploy Chamber, Segment’s secrets store that’s backed by AWS Parameter Store. …and that’s what happened ***Last Week in AWS***. ## You might also like [More Newsletter Issues](https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/) Issue No.490 ### [T8i Instances: Bursting With Mild Enthusiasm](https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/t8i-instances-bursting-with-mild-enthusiasm/) [Read More about T8i Instances: Bursting With Mild Enthusiasm](https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/t8i-instances-bursting-with-mild-enthusiasm/) Issue No.489 ### [Lambda Slowly Becomes EC2, One Feature at a Time](https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/lambda-slowly-becomes-ec2-one-feature-at-a-time/) [Read More about Lambda Slowly Becomes EC2, One Feature at a Time](https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/lambda-slowly-becomes-ec2-one-feature-at-a-time/) Issue No.488 ### [Claude Fable 5.1 and Other Bedtime Stories](https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/claude-fable-5-1-and-other-bedtime-stories/) [Read More about Claude Fable 5.1 and Other Bedtime Stories](https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/claude-fable-5-1-and-other-bedtime-stories/) Issue No.487 ### [Happy 20th Birthday EC2, You Beautiful Disaster](https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/happy-20th-birthday-ec2-you-beautiful-disaster/) [Read More about Happy 20th Birthday EC2, You Beautiful Disaster](https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/happy-20th-birthday-ec2-you-beautiful-disaster/)