CloudPro #13: Google’s New AI Moderation Tool, Legacy Kubernetes Packages Freeze, How Vercel shipped Cron jobs in 2 months
Bite-sized actionable content, practical tutorials, and resources for cloud professionals.
“Cloud computing is based on the time-sharing model we leveraged years ago before we could afford our own computers. The idea is to share computing power among many companies and people, thereby reducing the cost of that computing power to those who leverage it.”
– David Linthicum, author
Welcome to a brand new edition of the CloudPro! In this issue, we're turning our focus to a new text moderation tool launched by Google called “Text Moderation” (duh). Join us as we take a closer look at this product and all the amazing stuff it can do.
In this issue, we also highlight Kubernetes legacy package repositories freeze, Amazon VPC CNI support for Kubernetes Network Policies, Google Cross Cloud Network, and IBM’s Cloud Security and Compliance Center.
We know how much you love your weekly dose of our handpicked cloud resources, tutorials, and secret knowledge. That’s why we also discuss how Vercel shipped Cron jobs in 2 months, AWS Lambda pricing, and Relationship based access control.
But that’s not all! We’ve also curated the best cloud GitHub repos for you to use and test like chartify, a tool to generate helm charts from Kubernetes objects, and the Kubernetes node autoscaler for Proxmox, kproximate.
Cheers,
Shreyans Singh
Editor-in-Chief
PS: I hope you will enjoy today's newsletter! I’m all ears for your thoughts – the good, the great, and the "meh." Share your feedback at the end of the newsletter and snag a free Packt eBook (Mastering Kubernetes by Gigi Safyan). It's a win-win. Can't wait to hear what you think!
⚡ TechWave: Cloud News & Analysis
⚡Google Cloud Text Moderation: Google has developed a tool called "Text Moderation" powered by PaLM2 foundational model, to help keep the internet a safer and more trustworthy place. This tool can do a few important things:
Protect Brands: It helps companies make sure their advertisements appear on websites with content that matches their values. This way, their brand doesn't get associated with bad or inappropriate stuff.
Keep Users Safe: It scans online platforms, games, and marketplaces to find and remove harmful content like bullying or harassment, making the online world a friendlier place.
Avoid Bad AI Mistakes: Sometimes, AI can accidentally create content that's offensive. This tool helps prevent that from happening.
You can use it if you're a developer, and it's easy to integrate into your apps or websites via the Cloud Natural Language API. Google has made it accessible in several programming languages.
⚡Kubernetes Legacy Package Repositories Will Be Frozen On September 13, 2023:
The Kubernetes project used to have old package repositories hosted by Google, but now they have new community-owned repositories. On September 13, 2023, they will stop updating the old repositories.
How it affects you as a Kubernetes user:
If you install Kubernetes yourself or use tools that rely on the old repositories, you need to switch to the new ones.
If you use Kubernetes through a cloud provider's service, you might be affected if you also installed certain Kubernetes components using the old repositories on your own Linux PC.
If you manage your own Kubernetes nodes and use Linux, you should check if you're affected and switch to the new repositories.
Can you keep using the old repositories?
Yes, existing packages in the old repositories will still work for a while, but there's no guarantee how long they'll be available. It's strongly recommended to switch to the new repositories.
Why is this change happening?
Kubernetes is moving from Google-hosted repositories to community-owned infrastructure, aligning with its goal of community ownership.
⚡Amazon VPC CNI now supports Kubernetes Network Policies:
This means you can control and secure traffic between pods in your Kubernetes clusters. Previously, users had to rely on third-party plugins, but now it's integrated into Amazon VPC CNI for simpler setup and management.
Network Policies act like virtual firewalls, allowing you to specify rules for traffic flow based on criteria like pod labels, namespaces, IP addresses, and ports. This helps isolate sensitive workloads and restrict unauthorized access.
The implementation uses advanced eBPF technology for more efficient packet filtering compared to the previous method using iptables. Three key components work together: Network Policy Controller, Node Agent, and eBPF SDK.
🌐From the Cloud World:
🌐Google has launched the Cross-Cloud Network, which makes it easier for businesses to connect and secure their data across multiple cloud providers like AWS and Azure. This helps them manage their cloud services more efficiently and securely.
🌐IBM has expanded its Cloud Security and Compliance Center to provide advanced security and compliance solutions for enterprises operating in hybrid and multicloud environments, helping them protect data, mitigate risks, and manage compliance while minimizing operational costs.
🌐Dell Technologies and Denvr Dataworks are collaborating to offer cloud solutions that make it easier for organizations to use generative AI, allowing them to train large language models faster and with less complexity.
🌐IBM plans to raise the prices of its cloud services by up to 26% starting in January 2024, affecting infrastructure and platform services, with international customers facing higher increases than those in the US.
🌐Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS is offering Extended Support for certain database versions, including MySQL 5.7, PostgreSQL 11, and newer versions. Extended Support gives you extra time, up to three years, to upgrade to a newer major database version.
⭐ MasterClass: Tutorials & Guides
⭐How Vercel Shipped Cron Jobs in 2 Months: Vercel implemented Cron Jobs using Amazon EventBridge Scheduler in just two months, allowing customers to schedule and automate tasks, resulting in rapid adoption with over 7 million weekly Cron invocations.
⭐Understanding AWS Lambda Pricing: A Guide to Billing: AWS Lambda billing is based on the number of requests made to your functions and the duration of each request, with additional charges for data transfer; it offers various billing models, including a free tier, pay-per-request, reserved instances, and spot instances, depending on your usage patterns and budget.
⭐What is Relationship-Based Access Control (ReBAC)? Relationship-Based Access Control (ReBAC) is a way of managing who can access what in a system based on how things and people are connected to each other. It's useful for handling complex structures and permissions, and it can be implemented using relationships between resources and users.
⭐Speed Up Java Startup on Kubernetes with CRaC: The article explains how to use CRaC (Coordinated Restore at Checkpoint) to speed up Java startup time on Kubernetes, by taking a memory snapshot at runtime and restoring it in later executions. This is particularly useful for reducing the time it takes for Java apps to start and reach peak performance.
⭐Scale Kubernetes workloads with KEDA's event-driven automation: KEDA, or Kubernetes-based Event Driven Autoscaler, is a tool that automates the scaling of your Kubernetes applications based on event triggers, allowing your workloads to efficiently handle varying traffic loads.
🔍Secret Knowledge: Learning Resources
🔍Farewell EC2-Classic, it’s been swell: Read this excellent post by Amazon CTO Werner Vogels as AWS has officially retired EC2-Classic, a network architecture for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances, marking the end of an era in cloud computing history.
🔍Benchmark between x86 and ARM cloud servers: In a benchmark comparing ARM and x86 cloud servers, ARM CPUs are based on a simpler instruction set, leading to cost-effective and energy-efficient performance, especially in single-core and memory-intensive tasks, while x86 CPUs excel in multi-core processing and storage performance, but at a higher cost.
🔍The Kubernetes API that is eating up all your infra budget: The Kubernetes API for setting resource requests, especially CPU, can significantly impact your infrastructure budget as it determines reserved resources for containers, potentially leading to inefficient allocation and increased costs.
🔍Multi-Cloud Management: Challenges and Best Practices to Overcome Them: To effectively handle multiple cloud services, follow these practices: use standardized processes and tools, employ cloud management platforms, automate tasks, manage data well, adopt DevOps and Agile methods, and encourage continual learning to overcome challenges and get the most out of your cloud resources.
🔍A Collection of Docker Images To Solve All Your Debugging Needs: A collection of Docker images provides ready-made solutions for debugging and troubleshooting in containers, making it easy to access the tools you need without the hassle of finding or building them manually.
✨ HackHub: Trending Tools
🛠️ddosify/alaz: Effortless, Low-Overhead, eBPF-based Kubernetes Monitoring
🛠️lupinelab/kproximate: A Kubernetes node autoscaler for Proxmox
🛠️kubepack/chartify: 📈 Generate Helm Charts from Kubernetes objects
🛠️pipe-cd/pipecd: The One CD for All {applications, platforms, operations}
🛠️poseidon/matchbox: Network boot and provision Fedora CoreOS and Flatcar Linux clusters
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