Tag Archives: amazon web services

Business, Editorial

AWS Outposts – Empowering Innovation & Low Latency Connectivity

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The world is quickly changing and technology is moving forward at a pace which hasn’t been seen before. The main impetus behind the progress which we experience is the internet. The internet has changed the way we communicate and experience things. In fact, it’s made the world even smaller. However, the way we connect to it needs to continue evolving to keep up with the pace of innovations. We’re talking about low latency connectivity and processing.

woman holding laptop beside glass wall
Photo by Christina Morillo on Pexels.com

Over the years, we’ve managed to push the current connectivity to the edge when it comes to connectivity. With the advent of 5G and more importantly, the Internet of Things (IoT), there is an increasing demand for greater compute power and quicker outcomes. This is where Amazon Web Services (AWS) has stepped up with their new AWS Outposts technology. While Amazon isn’t the first name you’d necessarily think of when it comes to internet technologies, the are one of the foremost companies in the world when it comes to providing cloud infrastructure.

Opening Up New Possibilities with Low Latency Hybrid Computing

AWS Outposts allows users and developers to have low latency or local data processing on premises. This enables companies to have near real time responses when using or interfacing with AWS’s many services. It also bridges the lag in communications when the service needs to rely on the cloud. This also opens up larger possibilities to automate and regulate processes in new places such as the factory floor or in production outfits that require low latency. AWS Wavelength further strengthens the low latency with single digit latencies and enables 5G connectivity.

The near instantaneous latency between data lakes and data points on premise allow companies to adapt and react to situations better. Take for instance in the case of healthcare and medicine, having AWS Outposts on site would allow real time diagnostic data to be communicated to physicians for them to be better informed when they make critical treatment decisions. It can also open avenues for real time robotics in surgery. Perhaps more relevant to us as consumers, AWS Outposts also allows more seamless setups when we look into things like streaming (Netflix and Amazon Prime Video) or event real-time cloud gaming. Even AR and VR will expand with the advent of such a powerful architecture. Effectively, the availability of these hybrid cloud solutions will effectively open new doors in every industry.

Seamless Integration with the Cloud

AWS Outposts doesn’t necessarily work alone. In fact, the service will allow companies to quicken their eventual move to the cloud. AWS believes that even with the hybrid computing approach now, “in the fullness of time, the vast majority of companies will run almost all of their IT workloads in the cloud“. With that in mind, they’ve designed AWS Outposts to work seamlessly with their existing cloud services. Companies are able to adapt and experiment with workloads on the cloud and over Outposts for the best outcomes. What’s more, the AWS Outpost rack can be customised to meet the unique needs of the customer – this includes the recently announced AMD EPYC powered instances.

What is an AWS Outpost Rack?

Even when it comes to the user interface, AWS Outposts share the same interface with AWS cloud services. Users won’t need to relearn a new interface to take advantage of AWS Outposts. In fact, they can use the exact same interface for both on-premises and cloud. This also applies to services that are running atop AWS such as VMWare’s on premise solutions. The only difference would be that they will still be able to access their on-premises AWS Outposts server even when internet connectivity goes down. This also serves as a redundancy that will keep local workloads running. Once internet is available again, the servers will seamlessly synchronise with the cloud where necessary. Prolonged outage, though, may cause some data loss.

That said, Outposts doesn’t require the fastest internet to be able to function. In fact, AWS states that the minimum required is a 10Mbps connection. However, they advise to have 1Gbps for better performance.

Innovating Securely & With Peace of Mind

Bringing AWS Outposts to your premises can be daunting when you think of it; you’ll be having a server rack in house. So what happens if something goes awry? Well, first off, you can bring down your blood pressure a little bit as AWS Outposts is a fully managed service which means that AWS will come and service the hardware on a regular basis just like they would any of their own data centers. It also means that if anything goes awry – you can simply call AWS and they’ll get it sorted for you.

Servicing and maintenance aside, with the Outposts possibly handling a large amount of sensitive data, it wouldn’t be surprising to worry about data security. AWS reassures us that the AWS Outposts is safe. In fact, their approach to security starts with the rack which comes equipped with built-in tamper detection and a lockable door. The door is outfitted with a special key that, when tampered with, automatically encrypts the data within the server; making life a miserable mess for anyone who tries to take it.

On top of that, AWS Outposts builds on AWS Nitro – a security system for AWS which continually monitors, protects and verifies the hardware and firmware of the setup. It also secures and locks down instances running on the Outpost to ensure that human error is reduced. However, AWS does stress that the security of AWS Outposts as a whole is a shared effort where it can only secure the hardware and instances being run; but when it comes to the applications and software being developed on the platform, it needs to be secured by the developers.

That said, AWS Outposts is an impetus that could lead to further developments that will spur more advancement. It brings the power of the AWS cloud on-premise for corporations needing low latency connectivity to their compute and also bridges the transition for companies which are still struggling to adopt the cloud fully.

This article was written based on an interview with Paul Chen, Head of Solutions Architect for ASEAN at Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Business, News

AWS Outposts Makes It Way To Thailand & India

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AWS (Amazon Web Services) isn’t slowing down for anything! The company is making quick work of expanding the availability of their Outposts technology. The latest countries to join the fold is Thailand and India with the rollout coming near simultaneously with Malaysia’s.

The new AWS Outposts feature will bring the power of AWS into the on-premises arena in Thailand and India. This will give businesses the flexibility of adopting cloud infrastructure without sacrificing valuable time migrating their on-premises data to a new cloud server. Instead, they will be able to bring the power and flexibility of the AWS cloud to their on-premise data.

The highly flexible and adaptable system allows businesses to deploy all of AWS’s technologies including their EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud), EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Services), RDS (Relational Database Service) and more to help deploy and make sense of the large amounts of data they may have stored on-premises. They will also be able to keep sensitive data off the cloud while getting the benefit of being able to utilise them in computational and machine learning models. In addition, the close proximity of AWS’s many technologies and services also means that businesses stand to benefit from lower latency when it comes to deploying these assets.

The AWS Outposts on-premises hardware is a fully managed service. Businesses will not need to worry about downtime or learning a new interface. In fact, AWS Outposts shares the same interface as its online counterpart. This also removes the lag time required for staff to learn new platforms and interfaces.

Business, News

AWS Outposts Land in Malaysia

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Paradigms are shifting when it comes to how companies are managing their data. It shifted from having their own, on-premise servers to having cloud based infrastructure to support their data storage and compute needs. Now, the paradigm is shifting to a complementary approach which focuses on what the industry is calling – the hybrid cloud. Amazon Web Services (AWS) addressed the growing demand for a hybrid solution for their customers with their announcement of AWS Outposts at their annual Re:Invent conference last year.

AWS Outposts: Overview and How It Works

The new AWS Outposts offering brings the power and flexibility of AWS’s cloud platform on premises for businesses that require it. The service provides customers with an customizable server stack that is able to provide any of AWS’s numerous modules. These workloads can then function exactly like their cloud counterparts but at a drastically reduced latency; allowing for local processing for workloads that require low latency. The new service also allows users to store and access their data locally. This negates the need for businesses to sacrifice large chunks of time uploading their data to cloud servers and data lakes. It also helps businesses that handle sensitive data maintain their integrity while bringing them into the future.

AWS Outposts are a fully managed service allowing companies to rest at ease when it comes to maintenance and troubleshooting. In fact, AWS Outposts are designed to give the exact same user experience as AWS’s regular services. Users won’t need to learn a totally new interface or jump between the interfaces when it comes to handling these hybrid workloads. Outposts are also able to interact with AWS Cloud seamlessly.

AWS Outposts have now made it’s way to Malaysia. The infrastructure is ready for Malaysia’s homegrown businesses to take advantage of. The introduction of AWS Outposts in Malaysia allows businesses to process compute workloads on premises. In fact, two major companies have already adopted the technology in their everyday business.

Starting on the 25th of June 2020, AWS customers in Malaysia are able to bring AWS’s compute, storage and graphics optimised instances on premises. This includes the recently announced AMD powered instance in addition to AWS’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Elastic Kubernetes Services (EKS), Relational Database Service (RDS) and more.

Business, News

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Gets More EPYC with AMD Powered Instances

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Amazon Web Services (AWS) is one of the most prolific web service platform in the world. In fact, it’s estimated that over half of the world’s small and medium businesses have adopted the technology platform as their platform of choice when it comes to dealing with cloud services for their needs. AWS provides one of the most diverse platforms supporting Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and even rudimentary data storage. They provide their different services as deployable modules which allow companies to deploy and terminate instances as they need to.

AMD is one of the latest additions to the platforms array of instance which can be deployed. The new AMD EPYC instances will be powering the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) C5a instances. These instances will be powered by AMD’s 2nd generation server grade EPYC processors which also power one of the largest supercomputers in the world. The AMD EPYC processors will be able to run at frequencies of up to 3.3GHz and will be able to provide users with high performance x86 processing for large compute workloads. This includes batch processing, distributed analytics, data transformations, log analytics and web applications.

The new EPYC powered C5a instance joins the increasing number of AMD powered instances available on AWS. It will be available in eight configurations with up to 96 virtual CPUs (vCPUs). The new AMD EPYC powered instance also delivers on AMD’s promise of being able to deliver high performance compute at affordable prices. On AWS, the new C5a instance is the one of the lowest cost per x86 vCPU in Amazon’s portfolio.

The C5a instance is already available in AWS U.S. East, AWS U.S. West, AWS Europe and AWS Asia Pacific regions. AMD also has five other instances already available on AWS under the EC2 catalogue: M5a, M5ad, R5a, R5ad and T3a. These instances also provide users with compute capabilities that are catered to their needs and price points.

Editorial

Machine Learning in Sports: A Paradigm Shift in Progress

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Sports, data analytics and machine learning. Three words you would never expect to be in the same sentence, right? Well, what if we told you that they already are in the same sentence in sports teams the world over. That’s right, we’re already seeing the inclusion of data analytics and machine learning in sports – some even as early as 15 years ago. You’d be surprised how advanced things have gotten when it comes to data analytics and sports; we’re even seeing companies use Amazon Web Services (AWS) to help deal with and store the data.

In sports such as the F1, American football and even rugby we’re seeing more and more decisions being made when taking into consideration probabilities and numbers generated by machine learning. In fact, one of the sports most adept at using data is the Formula 1. Teams generate up to 600GB of data per lap from the 200 to 300 sensors in the cars. When it comes to the American NFL (National Football League) each player is analysed based on over 100 data points. These data points drive the plays we, as fans, cheer and look for when we watch the athletes play.

Dilemma: Where to store the data? How to capitalise on it?

When it comes to dealing with the data generated from these sports, the first dilemma is where to store the data. Of course, Amazon Web Services has a slew of container and data lake services such as Amazon S3 storage and more these teams are already using to store their data. However, just keeping the data in the cloud isn’t enough. They will need to run through and analyse the data for it to truly be useful to the teams. That’s where machine learning comes in.

While it might seem like a brand-new paradigm, we can assure you, that it’s been happening behind the scenes for quite a while. Teams in the F1, NFL and even rugby have been collecting data and analysing them to help players perform better, drivers drive better and engineers optimise their technology further. In fact, there are companies out there such as Pro Football Focus that actually process and analyse the data in real time. In fact, at AWS Re:Invent, Cris Collinsworth, CEO and Co-Founder of Pro Football Focus, said that what used to take coaches around two to three days to analyse is done in less time. He said that with this improvement, coaches are given more time to strategize and tweak their plays to help their teams win.

Photo by Chris Peeters from Pexels

The data collected during the races of the F1 doesn’t just go to the cloud for storage. Analysts on the ground are constantly looking at it to help tweak and make critical decisions for that edge. In fact, the data plays a big role in the teams pitting and undercutting strategies in a race. The engineers are also using this data to help with their car design and tweaking between races. However, the F1 has a pretty good head start compared to other sports out there. They’ve been using data analytics in their sport for over a decade now and have been able to use it to help with performance. However, that isn’t the only way they use their data, they also use it to create new regulations that affect the whole game and the welfare of the drivers.

Machine Learning in Capitalising on Collected Data

“We don’t do magic. We use technology to make decisions.”

Rob Smedley, Expert Technical Consultant, Formula 1

With the advent of machine learning in the past few years, the work of analysing the data has been made even easier. Using services like Amazon SageMaker, companies and teams are able to take advantage of the numerous data points in real time. Machine learning algorithms can churn out predictions and probabilities based on the collected data near instantaneously.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

That said, the data generated by the machine learning algorithms is only half the picture. It informs the coaches and players of not only the probabilities and possibilities but also what could be done to help give the teams an edge over the competition. The decision making process on the pitch or track is no longer only a question of gut instinct, it’s about tempering and guiding the gut instinct with mathematics.

“The teams that are really embracing the new approach are going to win the championships”

Cris Collinsworth, Co-founder and CEO, Pro Football Focus. and Broadcaster for NBC Sports Sunday Night Football

We are at the crossroads of a change in sports paradigms. Coaches are beginning to accept that the data being processed by machine learning algorithms as guides for their game time decisions. The game is changing based on how teams are able to use and optimise machine learning to get the edge they need during game time.

Creating New Fan Experiences

That said, machine learning isn’t just giving the edge during game time. It’s also being used to create new fan experiences. Watching sports can become a pretty mundane experience for some. However, using machine learning and data analytics, broadcasters can create new experiences for fans to keep them more engaged.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

In the United States, broadcasters have been experimenting using data lakes and machine learning to enhance the sports viewing experience. This isn’t just restricted to F1, NFL, NBA or the MLB. It’s across the board. These broadcasters are using machine learning to create overlays and explanations of complexities that help fans better understand the sport. In fact, with the amount of data they have at their fingertips, shout casters and commentators are able to see plays before they happen or even suggest some that would have led to a better outcome. These hints of information are also opening up the sports world to new audiences. It is also creating a more engaging experience for long time sports viewers and fans.

Given the amount of data being collected, it also comes as no surprise that broadcasters and even teams are looking into giving fans a better experience via a second screen. They are looking at what information would make sense and enhance the experience for viewers. Of course, raw data isn’t the answer but the data processed by machine learning algorithms are able to give a better understanding and appreciation to fans. In fact, they expect that it would engage a whole new type of viewer.

“You still need the human element”

Rob Smedley, Expert Technical Consultant, Formula 1

With all the emphasis on machine learning and data analytics, it would seem that sports will be reduced to 1s and 0s. However, as Rob Smedly highlighted, artificial intelligence and machine learning can never replace the driver or player. In fact, the thing that makes sports engaging is the human element in the game. It’s about how athletes are able to push boundaries of human performance and how we use the data to improve, not only the game, but also other aspects of human life.

Business, Computers, Contributed, Mobile

How ethical hacking can improve your security posture

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*This article is contributed by Myles Hosford, Head of Security Architecture, ASEAN, AWS*

Cybersecurity professionals see some threat actors or outside-parties as the enemy. However, challenging this mindset is important; you can better protect your organization against outside-parties if you understand how they think and operate. With this in mind, businesses around the globe have turned to hackers to test security infrastructure and develop stronger, more robust security practices.

Before integrating penetration testing into your security policy, it is important to understand the different types of hackers that exist. Each group has differing motivations, and you must be clear on which of their skills can be used to your organization’s advantage.

Black hat

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Black hat hackers are cybercriminals motivated by personal or financial gain. They range from teenage amateurs to experienced individuals or teams with a specific remit. However, over recent years, several high profile blackhat hackers have refocused on using their cyber skills to protect organizations. An example is Kevin Mitnick aka Condor, who was just sixteen years old when he gained access to a Department of Defense computer.  Following this and numerous other hacks, Mitnick spent five and a half years in prison. Upon his release set up his own company, Mitnick Security Consulting, which now runs penetration tests for clients.

The issue of whether to work with a previous black hat hacker is a contentious one. Some, including David Warburton, senior threat evangelist at F5 Networks, believe that hiring ex-hackers is critical in staying ahead of the threat landscape. However, others are concerned about allowing this group access to corporate systems and customer data. The latter group should, however, consider other approaches to working with hackers. 

White hat

Photo by Reza Rostampisheh on Unsplash

Often referred to as ethical hackers, white hat hackers are employed by organizations to look for vulnerabilities in security defences. Despite using the same tactics as black hat hackers, this group has permission from the organization making what they do entirely legal. While they use their knowledge to find ways to break the defences, they then work alongside security teams to fix issues before others discover them.

Many of the biggest organizations in the world, including General Motors and Starbucks, are turning to white hat hackers to help identify fault lines and proactively enhance security posture. White hat hacking can offer an interesting and lucrative career path for people with technical skills. Drawing attention to the important role white hat hackers play can encourage more talented individuals to take a positive path instead of becoming black hat hackers.

Nurturing talent

There are many programmes in place to find, encourage and support the next generation of white hat hackers. An example, supported by AWS, is r00tz Asylum, a conference dedicated to teaching young people how to become white-hats. Attendees learn how hackers operate and how cybersecurity experts defend against hackers. The aim is to encourage people with technical expertise to use it for good in their career.  By equipping aspiring cybersecurity professionals with knowledge and skills, they can bake security into infrastructure, from the ground up. AWS’s support for r00tz is our chance to give back to the next generation, providing young people who are interested in security with a safe learning environment and access to mentors.

Building on solid foundations

Photo by Ramin Khatibi on Unsplash

For those responsible for maintaining customer trust and protecting data, an end to end approach to security is critical. As we have seen, working with ethical hackers is a powerful way to view security posture from a cyber-criminal’s perspective to identify and tackle vulnerabilities. However, it’s also important to remember that security needs to be baked in throughout an organization’s infrastructure. This is where partnering with a cloud platform can be beneficial; the best of these are developed to satisfy the needs of the most risk-sensitive organizations. Cloud platforms also offer automated security services, which can proactively manage security assessments, threat detection, and policy management. In so doing, these platforms take on a lot of the heavy lifting for security professionals, including ethical hackers.

Business, Computers, Contributed, News

How blockchain technology is enabling new ways of doing business

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*This article is contributed by Myles Hosford, Head of Security Architecture, ASEAN, AWS*

As the world becomes more interconnected, opportunities for companies and individuals to interact and transact across borders, time zones, and channels grow quickly. To make sure that these transactions run smoothly, proactive management – specifically to ensure the minimization of cost, lowering of risk, and the elimination of inefficiencies – is needed.

Distributed ledger technology (DLT) such as blockchain helps simplify transactions and conduct efficient, secure interactions with multiple independent parties around the globe. All without the need for a third-party intermediary. These transactions can vary from sending anything from farm data, to banking and contract transactions.

Use case: Empowering farmers to sell field data transparently

Farmers collect large volumes of data with each step in the planting and harvesting process. Licensed data – data that qualifies as intellectual property of the farmer such as which crops to plant or how many seedlings – can be anonymized, sold to third parties and offer the agricultural industry with real-time insights on farms across the world. However, farmers are unsure how to monetize this crop data.

Photo by Tom Fisk from Pexels

As farmers are unsure how to monetize their crop data, Farmobile addresses these challenges through a blockchain-based exchange, built on AWS. The solution empowers farmers to licence data to approved buyers and includes account set up, creation, confirmation, execution of the offer, and delivery of the digital asset. They can seamlessly sell single-use licenses while keeping their farm’s identity completely anonymous. However, farmers have full visibility into the identities of potential data buyers, such as agronomists, equipment producers, and retailers, and are free to decline offers.

Use Case: Boosting financial inclusivity

Another case study for Blockchain technology is the financial sector in the Philippines. Here, rural banks lack the resources of larger banking institutions, making it nearly impossible for them to thrive or survive. This has left a large majority of rural-based Filipinos with little or no banking access.

Photo by David McBee from Pexels

UnionBank, a pioneer in its use of blockchain technology, joined forces with ConsenSys, an AWS Partner , to build a blockchain solution that would resolve this issue. The new, blockchain-based solution created a decentralized, cost-efficient, and near real-time network, allowing for the execution of domestic payments without relying on existing banking infrastructure and intermediaries.

The blockchain solution introduced means that rural banks no longer have to shoulder the burden of manually processing back-office transactions, freeing up staff to serve more customers. As such, the technology not only increased banking access and inclusivity but drove sustainable, future banking practices.

Use case: Limiting contract disputes in the oil and gas industry

Another example comes from the oil and gas industry. Moving resources through the oil and gas supply chain involves many stakeholders, including landowners, governments, oil and gas company operators, surveyors, and financial institutions. One critical step occurs between those mining the oil and royalty owners on whose land the oil is mined. Checking royalty transaction payments is a lengthy, manual process where stakeholders must agree to contract terms upfront. However, those terms are often interpreted differently on either side, often leading to disputes.

GuildOne, believed companies needed more efficient, secure, and cost-effective ways to execute a royalty contract transaction. They developed a solution through which contract terms are capable of being replicated, and consensus agreed using blockchain technology. By doing so, they mitigated the possibility of disputes and eliminated a large chunk of the expense of contract administration.

To build its royalty ledger and to meet the stringent privacy and security needs of its stakeholders, GuildOne chose to use R3’s Corda — a blockchain platform built for business and longevity — on AWS. Believing that the security capabilities gained would be vital in enabling rapid adoption of the royalty ledger solution in the oil and gas industry.

The future of blockchain technology solutions

Blockchain solutions are transforming the ways companies and individuals do business, locally and globally, by simplifying transactions and increasing their efficiency. Those looking to take advantage of the technology should partner with cloud providers capable of scaling up while delivering cybersecurity controls and standards to protect from external attacks. With Amazon Managed Blockchain, it eliminates the overhead required to create the network and automatically scales to meet the demands of thousands of applications running millions of transactions. Once a network is up and running, Managed Blockchain makes it easy to manage and maintain the blockchain network by managing its certificates and letting customers easily invite new members to join the network.

Business, News

Amazon Partners With Verizon for 5G Edge Computing with AWS Wavelength

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5G is fast becoming the norm in the tech industry as more countries see the rollout of their own 5G networks. Back at AWS re:invent, Amazon Web Services made a significant announcement, in partnership with Verizon, which made it the first company to have 5G edge computing services. AWS Wavelength is a first of its kind service which brings AWS services closer to developers and, more importantly, end users.

AWS Wavelength will see an initial rollout to 69 sites in the United States. Verizon and AWS have already been hard at work developing and fine tuning the service in Chicago. There companies such as Bethesda Softworks and the National Football League have been developing on and utilising Wavelength to deliver new, enhanced experiences to their users. This includes interactive experiences which may be the next generation of gaming and sports.

AWS Wavelength essentially brings the company’s full suite of services to the 5G Edge. The technology allows telecommunications providers and AWS to deploy remote containers fitted with all of its services. This allows developers to develop with real time experience and with single digit millisecond latency. They will then be able deploy whole new experiences to end users.

The deployment of Wavelength marks a paradigm shift which empowers edge computing like never before. It allows real time compute with large data packets which will find its applications in things like autonomous vehicles and even Smart City management. The deployment of Amazon’s full suite of web services will allow developers to deploy unique experiences for end users which take advantage of the low latency and high data volume. This in addition to the exponential increase in the number of devices each base station is able to handle will enable IoT technologies as well. The availability of machine learning interfaces at the 5G edge enables developers to develop more complex applications with further ranging implications.

Source: AWS

Developers won’t need to familiarise themselves with a new interface; Wavelength comes with the same interface developers are used to in their AWS dashboard. In fact, they will simply need to activate instances of AWS services such as EC2, ECS and more which suit their needs at a Wavelength availability zone to use the service.

AWS Wavelength is available in an initial 69 availability zones in 25 AWS Regions. The initial rollout in the United States will be done in partnership with Verizon. However, the company has committed to new availability zone in South Korea (SK Telcom), Japan (KDDI) and Europe (Vodafone) in 2020.

Business, News

Be A Maestro with AWS DeepComposer

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You would think that when it comes to making compositions and music, you’d need a really good ear and knowledge of the arts. Not so much with Amazon Web Service’s new AI (Artificial Intelligence) service focused on creating musical pieces with a keyboard! DeepComposer is the latest in a series of Machine Learning focused services that AWS has introduced since it’s announcement of DeepLens at Re:Invent 2017.

The new music based AI is a 32 key, 2 octave keyboard which will allow developers to familiarise themselves with using Generative AI. The simple application of Generative AI in DeepComposer will take short riffs and generate a full compositions.

A brief diagram explaining how AWS’s DeepComposer works. (Source: AWS)

The DeepComposer generative AI will be able to layer and generate songs based on pre-trained models or even user defined models. The pre-trained models are able to generate based on algorithms developed by training the AI with large musical data sets. The user defined models give users better control of the generative AI. Users will be able to define multiple parameters including the Architecture and Discriminator. The latter allows the AI to distinguish between the genres and determine the overall composition.

Announcing AWS DeepComposer with Dr. Matt Wood, feat. Jonathan Coulton

Being a machine learning model, DeepComposer is continually learning to identify music types. The AI will improve with time as it learns and generates more music based on the models and riffs. It will also be able to generate music which mimics a defined model. Amazon’s release touts, ” you have to train as a counterfeiting expert in order to become a great counterfeiter “.

DeepComposer isn’t just linked to the physical keyboard. It also has a digital keyboard interface which allows users to compose on the go. Using this approach, AWS is hoping that Generative AI models are made more approachable for those looking to explore their applications.

The new feature is currently available for preview on AWS at the DeepComposer website. Also on the website is a FAQ to address some of the questions that new users may have.

Business

3 Reasons Why Amazon Web Services (AWS) Matters to you

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It would come as no surprise is the first thing that comes to your mind when your hear “Amazon” is the popular online marketplace or the largest rain forest in the world. What if we told you that there is another Amazon that you should know of – Amazon Web Services (AWS).  Yes. This Amazon is related Amazon.com but their reach is far, far greater than just an online marketplace. AWS is a subsidiary of Amazon.com which powers most of the internet. Yep. You read that right! AWS provides the backbone for a majority of the world’s websites, apps and services. They provide a slew of cloud computing infrastructure services which allow many websites, apps and businesses to scale and accommodate sudden spikes in their usage as well as the backbone for cloud based compute services.

Now that you have a general idea of who they are. We’re pretty sure that you’re wondering why you should be paying attention to this company. From what we’ve outlined, it seems like AWS is a very corporate service. So why would the regular joe need to know about it? Here’s three of the compelling reasons you should.

1. Nearly Half of the world’s Cloud Computing Services and Platforms Run AWS

AWS is one of the most omnipresent service providers in the world. Apps, websites, banks and more are using AWS to drive digitalization of their businesses. In fact, in his keynote, Andy Jassy, CEO of AWS, shared that about 47.8% of all services using cloud computing run on the platform. This number puts them far ahead of their nearest competition, Microsoft Azure (15.5%) and Alibaba Cloud (7.7%).

Q3 Cloud Computing Market Share estimates from Canalys. Taken from https://www.canalys.com/newsroom/global-cloud-market-Q3-2019

This also means the company’s platform and services are being adopted at a rate much higher than its competition. The AWS platform has an edge over its competition thanks to the extensive services and granularity of the customisation that the service offers.

2. More Companies are adopting Cloud Computing to better serve customers

We’ve talked about Industry 4.0 a whole lot over the past year and the truth is, we’re only at the cusp of it. In the next few years, we will be seeing more and more companies adopt cloud computing as one of their main tools to serve their customers. You may not see this being announced publicly, but nearly all the services that you use from Agoda to Facebook have a cloud computing component to it; whether it’s to hyper personalise their offerings or to have redundancies that will help with making things more seamlessly. With this increased adoption, it may be time to know a little more about how these services are provided.

3. AWS has one of the most complete Cloud Computing services

Amazon Web Services is one of the most complete cloud computing platforms available now. In fact, the company is ahead of the curve when it comes to providing the latest and greatest in cloud computing. AWS currently has over 165 modules or services which it offers its customers. Each of these services can be selectively deployed to meet their customers’ unique needs. With their recent announcement at their annual Re:invent conference, the number of services offered by AWS has grown further.

AWS service categories as listed on aws.amazon.com

Very briefly, the company’s offerings span everything from storage, machine learning, artificial intelligence and data processing. The company has announced even more services with a strong focus on allowing its customers to adopt edge computing and better manage and process their data which is being stored in the cloud and even on premises with their new AWS Outpost.

With the companies adoption across the internet becoming more and more popular, AWS is set to become one of the largest cloud computing providers in the world. They’ve even made it into things like the Formula 1 (F1) and National Football League (NFL). You may even see them helping your self driving vehicles in the near future. With that in mind, prepare to find out more about AWS and how they are changing the state of the internet.