CloudPro #4: Simplifying Kubernetes Complexity, AWS Docs GPT, and GPT-4 API General Availability
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Welcome to this week’s issue of the CloudPro newsletter. Our mission is to bring you the freshest updates in Cloud, Cloud Native Development, Cloud Architecture, Identity and Access Management, CI/CD, DevSecOps, Cloud Security, and adjacent domains.
In today’s issue, we’ll talk about the 10% Drop in ChatGPT Traffic, US preparing to restrict access to cloud computing for China, the Microsoft Learn AI Skills Challenge to elevate your AI understanding, and a new report revealing how multicloud skills gap persists as organizations struggle to keep pace.
We’ve also handpicked great Cloud resources, secret knowledge, and tutorials, including NSA’s recommendations for enhancing security in cloud-based CI/CD environments, embracing multicloud Kubernetes, Packt’s upcoming free week, and the spanking new AI-powered AWS Docs GPT.
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⚡ TechWave: Cloud News & Analysis
OpenAI Makes GPT-4 Generally Available: OpenAI announced the general availability of GPT-4. All existing OpenAI API developers “with a history of successful payment” can access GPT-4. OpenAI plans to plans to open up access to new developers by the end of this month, and then start raising availability limits after that “depending on compute availability.”
US Prepares to Restrict Access to Cloud Computing for China: In a bid to address national security concerns and protect sensitive technologies from potential exploitation, the Biden administration is planning to limit Chinese companies' access to U.S. cloud computing services. Under the proposed rule, U.S. cloud-service providers like Amazon and Microsoft would need approval from the U.S. government before offering cloud computing services that utilize advanced AI chips to Chinese customers.
Multicloud Skills Gap Persists as Organizations Struggle to Keep Pace: Pluralsight's second annual State of Cloud Report highlights the growing adoption of multicloud strategies by organizations, with 65% currently operating in multicloud environments. However, the report also uncovers a significant skills gap, as only 9% of technologists have experience with multiple cloud providers. The study emphasizes the importance of cloud skills development, the rising demand for AI and machine learning skills, and the largest gaps in data analytics and security.
Nokia Partners with Red Hat to Strengthen 5G Cloud Capabilities: Nokia has entered into an agreement with Red Hat to transfer primary support and ongoing development of its container and cloud infrastructure operations. This will enhance Red Hat's OpenShift and OpenStack platforms, enabling them to support 5G, core, open radio access network (RAN), and multi-access edge computing (MEC) services.
What the European AI Act Means for You, AI Developer: This Act is the world's first legislation on artificial intelligence, similar to GDPR but for AI. It introduces definitions for 'foundation models' and 'general-purpose AI systems' and sets out dos and don'ts for AI practices. The Act also focuses on trustworthy AI development and includes obligations for high-risk AI systems. The legislation is currently going through final negotiations.
ChatGPT Traffic Drops by 10%: Worldwide worldwide traffic dropped by 10% and unique visitors to ChatGPT’s website dropped by 5.7%. The amount of time visitors spent on the website was also down 8.5%. However, ChatGPT still attracts more worldwide visitors than bing.com.
Join the Microsoft Learn AI Skills Challenge
Learn and develop essential AI skills with the Microsoft Learn AI Skills Challenge. Join the technical community in your region and attend live sessions while progressing through the challenges. The challenge begins on July 17th and runs through August 14th. Preview the topics by signing up today.
📚 Secret Knowledge: Learning Resources
Enhancing Security in Cloud-Based CI/CD Environments: Recommendations from NSA and CISA: The National Security Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have released a cybersecurity information sheet (CSI) outlining recommendations and best practices for defending CI/CD environments in the cloud. The CSI provides guidance on integrating security measures into CI/CD pipelines to protect against malicious cyber actors and strengthen DevSecOps practices. Learn how to implement these recommendations and enhance the security of CI/CD environments and mitigate potential vulnerabilities.
Unorthodox MSSQL Design Choice Leaves AWS WAF Clients Vulnerable to SQL Injection: A recent discovery by a GoSecure ethical hacker revealed an undocumented design choice in Microsoft SQL (MSSQL) Server, leading to a bypass of web application firewalls (WAFs). The unorthodox MSSQL design choice caused WAF vendors to be overly strict in their SQL parsing, allowing for a bypass of security protection. AWS, upon notification, remediated the issue. Read the post to know how the lack of documentation surrounding this design choice and its implications.
Embracing Multicloud Kubernetes: Streamlining Operations with a Unified Approach: The article discusses the challenges and benefits of implementing a multicloud approach when managing Kubernetes infrastructure. It highlights the need for organizations to integrate different cloud environments during mergers and acquisitions. The dependency on specific cloud services also drives the necessity for deploying applications in particular clouds. Learn how to adopt a multicloud strategy to streamline operations and leverage the advantages of Kubernetes across multiple clouds.
Enhancing Data Protection: Introducing Persistent Disk Asynchronous Replication for Disaster Recovery: Google Cloud introduces a solution designed to address the need for disaster recovery in today's business landscape. With sub-1 minute Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and low Recovery Time Objective (RTO), this replication feature enables the protection of Compute Engine workloads by replicating data between Google Cloud regions. Explore how to leverage asynchronous replication and consistency groups to enhance high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) posture, ensuring data integrity.
Shift Down (not Left): A New Paradigm Shift in Software Development: Learn how technology leaders should prioritize reducing the cognitive load on developers and enabling them to focus on innovation and why establishing platform engineering teams and providing necessary tools and infrastructure can further enhance productivity.
Security as Code to Protect Cloud-Native Architectures: The adoption of cloud-native architectures has brought about the need for a new approach to security called Security as Code (SaC). Explore how SaC addresses challenges related to technology changes, modernization, and compliance at scale to improve security design review time, reduce costs, and foster collaboration between development and security teams.
Simplifying Kubernetes Complexity: Managing Multicloud Environments: As enterprises embrace Kubernetes as their container orchestration platform, the decision to adopt a multicloud strategy becomes crucial. Factors such as specialized cloud services, multiple business units, data regulations, disaster recovery, mergers and acquisitions, and service dependencies drive the need for a solution across various cloud providers. Learn how to use a Kubernetes operations platform to effectively manage the complexity of multicloud environments.
🔍 MasterClass: Tutorials & Guides
Simplifying Service Mesh Deployment: Linkerd on Azure, AWS, and GCP: The article discusses the deployment of Linkerd, a service mesh, on three major cloud providers: Azure, AWS, and GCP. Explore three different deployment methods, understanding the simplicity and flexibility of deploying Linkerd. You will find step-by-step instructions, including generating certificates, installing Linkerd's control plane, and deploying a demo application.
Streamlining Auto-Labeling for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems using AWS SageMaker: This post discusses the implementation of an auto-labeling module for deep learning-based Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) on AWS SageMaker. The module utilizes Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth and JumpStart models to automate the labeling process. The article provides an overview of auto-labeling and active learning concepts, outlines the solution steps for creating a model, setting up asynchronous inference, performing inference, and converting the output to a Ground Truth input manifest.
Simplifying the Use and Management of .terraform.lock.hcl in Terraform: This article by Maksym Vlasov explores the changes introduced in Terraform 1.4.0 and provides solutions for effectively adding, using, and updating the .terraform.lock.hcl file. The tutorial emphasizes the importance of using lockfiles for repeatability and security in Terraform projects. It outlines a step-by-step process for preparing and adding lockfiles to the project, along with automation techniques for updating lockfiles in CI workflows.
Progressive Delivery — A Comprehensive Guide: Progressive delivery is built upon the principles of continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) and offers speed and risk mitigation benefits. This blog post explores the origins, types, and benefits of progressive delivery, showcasing how it can accelerate organizations' success in today's fast-paced digital landscape.
How to Create, List, and Delete Google Cloud Projects with Python: This blog discusses the process of creating and deleting a Google Cloud project to host computing resources. A project in the Google Cloud Platform serves as an organizational unit for grouping resources, managing permissions, and handling billing.
Seamless Migration of etcd in Cloud Kubernetes Clusters - Avoiding Downtime: This article explores a method for migrating etcd storage between cloud-based Kubernetes clusters without causing downtime. It discusses an alternative approach that involves propagating etcd over two Kubernetes clusters. The process includes steps such as reducing the size of the etcd database, making etcd nodes accessible from outside the cluster, and configuring DNS resolution.
✨ HackHub: Trending Tools
ksoclabs/kbom: The KBOM standard offers valuable information about commonly used container orchestration tools in the industry. The KBOM project offers an initial JSON specification designed for flexibility across different cloud service providers (CSPs) and self-managed Kubernetes setups.
americanexpress/earlybird: EarlyBird is a powerful tool that can scan source code repositories to detect sensitive data violations such as clear text passwords, personally identifiable information (PII), outdated cryptography methods, key files, and other related issues.
iann0036/iam-dataset: The toolset facilitates the creation of a comprehensive map (map.json) that links SDK calls to IAM actions and allows for the evaluation of managed policies.
devoteamgcloud/petra: Petra is a lightweight tool that enables you to create and manage your own private Terraform registry using Google Cloud Storage as the storage backend.
assetnote/surf: Enhance the identification of Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerabilities in contemporary cloud environments with surf. This tool enables you to filter a list of hosts and obtain a refined list of potential SSRF candidates.
awslabs/threat-composer: A tool designed to assist individuals in threat modeling, reducing the time required to achieve valuable results.
AWS Docs GPT: AWS Docs GPT provides AI-powered search and chat for AWS Documentation.
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