Stop worrying about your to-do list.

Zapier connects the apps you use every day, so you can focus on what matters most.

Start working more efficiently - Create your free account today.

⭐Masterclass

We’re leaving Kubernetes -Gitpod

How to ace (CKS 2.0) Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist Exam

Creating alerts from panels in Kubernetes Monitoring: An overlooked, powerhouse feature

Managed DevOpsPools

Optimizing Kubernetes Costs with Multi-Tenancy and Virtual Clusters

🔍Secret Knowledge

I followed the official AWS Amplify guide and was charged $1,100

What I wish someone told me about Postgres

Choose the Right Instance Size for AWS RDS

Building databases over a weekend

Migrating billions of records: moving our active DNS database while it’s in use

⚡Techwave

Streamline Kubernetes cluster management with new Amazon EKS Auto Mode

OpenTelemetry for Generative AI

Simplify AWS governance with declarative policies

Introducing Buy with AWS

AWS Database Migration Service now automates time-intensive schema conversion tasks using generative AI

Amazon DynamoDB reduces prices

🛠️Hackhub

Pkdnsis a DNS server providing self-sovereign and censorship-resistant domain names.

Macosprovides a way to run macOS inside a Docker container using KVM acceleration.

Pgpdfis an extension for PostgreSQL that provides a pdf data type and assorted functions.

Kloudliteis an open-source platform designed to provide seamless and secure development environments for building distributed applications.

OpenObserveis a cloud-native observability platform built specifically for logs, metrics, traces, analytics, and RUM designed to work at a petabyte scale.

This is our final edition of CloudPro for 2024, but don’t worry—we’ll be back with more insights and updates in January 2025. In the meantime, we’ve got a little holiday treat for you!

Packt has some exciting offers lined up to help you boost your tech skills and get ready for an amazing new year! It’s the perfect opportunity to relax, learn something new, and stay ahead in your field. Keep an eye out for these special holiday deals!

From all of us at the Packt Newsletters team, we wish you a joyful holiday season and a fantastic start to 2025. See you next year!

Cheers,

Shreyans Singh

Editor-in-Chief

Mastering Software Deployments at the Edge: A User’s Guide to Diverting Disaster

Software delivery to dedicated edge devices is one of the most complex challenges faced by IT professionals today. While edge deployments come with inherent complications, it’s possible to avoid the pitfalls. With this guide in hand, a little planning, and the right tools and strategies in place, you can be confident you’ll never push a faulty update at scale.

We’re leaving Kubernetes -Gitpod

Gitpod decided to move away from Kubernetes after realizing it isn't ideal for cloud-based development environments due to their unique demands: they are highly stateful, interactive, resource-intensive, and require broad system permissions. Despite Kubernetes' strengths in scalability and orchestration for production workloads, Gitpod faced challenges with performance, security, and resource management at scale, particularly with CPU and memory usage, storage, autoscaling, and startup times. Extensive experimentation with custom solutions for these issues proved complex and limited. While Kubernetes excels for controlled, predictable application workloads, Gitpod’s experience highlighted the mismatched fit for development environments, leading to a shift toward more tailored infrastructure.

How to ace (CKS 2.0) Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist Exam

To ace the Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) 2.0 exam, start by ensuring you have a solid understanding of Kubernetes fundamentals and meet the prerequisite of obtaining the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) certification. The exam focuses on hands-on, performance-based tasks across key domains like cluster setup, hardening, system and supply chain security, and runtime monitoring. Utilize trusted study materials such as the Kubernetes documentation, platforms like KodeKloud, and mock exams from Killer.sh, which are often harder than the real exam. During the test, manage time effectively by tackling easier questions first, using aliases and shortcuts for command-line tasks, and referring to allowed documentation for efficient problem-solving.

Creating alerts from panels in Kubernetes Monitoring: An overlooked, powerhouse feature

Grafana Cloud's new alerting feature for Kubernetes Monitoring simplifies incident management by letting users create alerts directly from app panels. This powerful yet understated tool pulls queries from panels, lets you set thresholds, and sends notifications when they're exceeded. Ideal for tracking metrics like CPU usage, costs, and network health, it allows teams to manage infrastructure proactively.

Managed DevOpsPools

Managed DevOps Pools (MDP) simplify Azure DevOps agent management by providing a Microsoft-managed platform (PaaS) that integrates seamlessly with Azure DevOps to create scalable, secure, and customizable agent pools. Acting as a wrapper around Virtual Machine Scale Sets, MDP automates infrastructure management, allowing agents to be spun up on demand based on workload needs. It supports various image types, including preconfigured Microsoft Azure Pipeline Images, and offers private networking options for enhanced security.

Optimizing Kubernetes Costs with Multi-Tenancy and Virtual Clusters

Managing Kubernetes costs effectively requires innovative approaches, especially as organizations scale. Traditional methods like resource quotas, autoscaling, and cost monitoring help, but they fall short when dealing with the inefficiencies of running numerous underutilized clusters. Multi-tenancy with virtual Kubernetes clusters offers a cost-efficient solution by enabling multiple teams or applications to share a single host cluster while maintaining strong isolation and flexibility. Virtual clusters act like fully functional Kubernetes clusters within a host cluster, reducing redundancies and management fees while improving resource utilization.

I followed the official AWS Amplify guide and was charged $1,100

The author followed an AWS Amplify guide to integrate OpenSearch and ended up with a shocking $1,100 bill due to unexpected behaviors in the setup. Specifically, the guide’s default configurations created high-cost OpenSearch instances without making costs transparent, and resources were not properly deleted when shutting down the environment. The author identified issues like persistent OpenSearch domains and a lack of warnings about default expensive configurations. AWS refunded the charges and advised setting up budget alerts, but the problematic behavior in the guide still exists. The post cautions developers about potential pitfalls when using AWS Amplify with OpenSearch and highlights the importance of understanding AWS costs and configurations.

What I wish someone told me about Postgres

Postgres is a powerful but complex database system, and its vast official documentation can be overwhelming. Key tips for getting started include normalizing your data to avoid redundancy, except when performance optimizations (denormalization) are necessary. Understand SQL quirks like handling NULL as "unknown" and utilizing functions like COALESCE. Enhance the usability of psql by configuring features like pagers and shortcuts (e.g., \x for expanded view). Use indexes wisely, considering their order and suitability for different queries (e.g., prefix searches need text_pattern_ops). Be cautious with locks during operations like ALTER TABLE, as long-held locks can disrupt other processes. Embrace tools like query plans (EXPLAIN) to optimize performance, and always start with the Postgres documentation and community advice for best practices.

Choose the Right Instance Size for AWS RDS

To choose the right AWS RDS instance size, start by evaluating your workload's needs in terms of CPU, memory, storage, and network bandwidth. Use AWS instance families to match these requirements, with memory-optimized instances for RAM-intensive tasks and burstable instances for cost-sensitive, sporadic workloads. Monitor key performance metrics, like CPU utilization, freeable memory, and network throughput, using AWS CloudWatch, and adjust the instance size based on consistent patterns—scale down if utilization is low and up if demands are high. Optimize performance with database tuning and continuously revisit your setup to balance cost, scalability, and performance effectively.

Building databases over a weekend

Building a database over a weekend is made feasible with tools like Apache DataFusion, which simplifies creating custom database functionalities. DataFusion provides a modular framework where you can extend or replace components like query parsing, logical and physical planning, and execution engines. By leveraging its SQL and DataFrame interfaces, you can implement custom operators, such as a streaming window operator for handling infinite data streams, by defining execution plans and integrating them into the planning pipeline. Through logical and physical optimizations, you ensure efficient query execution tailored to your use case.

Migrating billions of records: moving our active DNS database while it’s in use

Cloudflare recently migrated its active DNS database to a new cluster to handle increasing data volumes and improve performance. Originally, DNS records were stored in a primary Postgres database alongside other services, but as Cloudflare scaled, this became increasingly problematic. The migration involved separating DNS records from other data, implementing a new gRPC API for better control, and using a Change Data Capture and Transfer Service to move data efficiently with minimal downtime. The new setup, which included better indexing and partitioning, reduced API latency and improved overall performance.

Streamline Kubernetes cluster management with new Amazon EKS Auto Mode
With EKS Auto Mode, AWS simplifies Kubernetes cluster management, automating compute, storage, and networking, enabling higher agility and performance while reducing operational overhead.

OpenTelemetry for Generative AI

OpenTelemetry is being enhanced to support observability for generative AI applications, ensuring reliable performance, cost efficiency, and safety. It introduces Semantic Conventions to standardize telemetry data across platforms and an Instrumentation Library to automate data collection, initially focusing on the OpenAI Python API. Key signals like Traces, Metrics, and Events provide insights into model behavior, usage, and interactions, aiding in debugging, optimization, and performance tuning. Developers can easily integrate this observability into applications using the provided Python library, enabling monitoring of model inputs, outputs, and operational details.

Simplify AWS governance with declarative policies

AWS Declarative Policies simplify governance by enabling organizations to define and enforce cloud resource configurations centrally and at scale. Administrators can set standards, like blocking public access to VPCs or requiring specific Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), which are automatically applied across accounts, including new ones joining the organization. These policies reduce complexity by maintaining configurations even as AWS services evolve, providing actionable error messages to users for non-compliant actions. Initially supporting Amazon EC2, VPC, and EBS, declarative policies are managed via AWS Organizations and other AWS tools.

Introducing Buy with AWS

AWS introduces "Buy with AWS," a new feature that streamlines the procurement of cloud solutions by integrating AWS Marketplace purchasing directly into AWS Partner websites. Customers can discover, try, and purchase solutions with their AWS accounts, benefiting from simplified billing, centralized subscription management, and cost optimization tools. For example, users can start free trials or request private offers for products like Wiz or Databricks directly from Partner sites, with seamless transitions to co-branded procurement pages. Partners, in turn, can enhance their customer experience with AWS Marketplace APIs to showcase products, provide filters, and track metrics for engagement and sales.

AWS Database Migration Service now automates time-intensive schema conversion tasks using generative AI

AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) now uses generative AI to automate up to 90% of schema conversion tasks, simplifying migrations from commercial databases to PostgreSQL. Powered by large language models hosted on Amazon Bedrock, this feature tackles complex code conversions like stored procedures and proprietary functions that traditional methods often struggle with. It reduces migration costs, accelerates timelines, and allows users to focus on optimizing their applications post-migration.

Amazon DynamoDB reduces prices

Amazon DynamoDB, a serverless NoSQL database with high performance and scalability, has significantly reduced its pricing: on-demand throughput costs are now 50% lower, and global table replicated writes are up to 67% cheaper. These changes make on-demand mode—ideal for scaling serverless applications without capacity planning—the default and most cost-effective option for many workloads, even those with steady usage. Additionally, global tables now offer the same pricing for multi-Region and single-Region writes, simplifying cost management for globally distributed applications.

Pkdnsis a DNS server providing self-sovereign and censorship-resistant domain names.

Macosprovides a way to run macOS inside a Docker container using KVM acceleration.

Pgpdfis an extension for PostgreSQL that provides a pdf data type and assorted functions.

Kloudliteis an open-source platform designed to provide seamless and secure development environments for building distributed applications.

OpenObserveis a cloud-native observability platform built specifically for logs, metrics, traces, analytics, and RUM designed to work at a petabyte scale.

📢 If your company is interested in reaching an audience of developers and, technical professionals, and decision makers, you may want toadvertise with us.

If you have any comments or feedback, just reply back to this email.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!