Cloud is a service market, clearly, it is. As such, cloud service providers are at liberty to sell certain services in specific regions. Equally, they can choose to sell several defined services inside some contract bundles, while also selling other services to either new or existing customers (but not always both), as they see fit.

While the financial services industry, home internet service providers and perhaps a selection of telcos and retailers might package their most enticing deals up for “new customers only” in a sort of bait-and-switch move, the information technology industry typically works the other way around. To encourage new customers to move forward with a vendor’s longer-term platform roadmap, it’s more common to see an IT brand the size of an ERP vendor or a hyper scaler channeling new customers away from older products.

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14%

Which of the following best describes how you currently monitor and manage systems across your hybrid cloud environment?(Required)

Multiple separate tools for different environments

Multiple separate tools for different monitoring and management functions

Single consolidated dashboard

Custom built monitoring and management solution

No full monitoring and management solution

Don’t know

How valuable would it be for your monitoring and management solution to incorporate predictive analytics to help you identify and address system issues that are critical and not waste time or effort working through all the data and “noise” that is not critical?(Required)

Extremely valuable

Moderately valuable

Somewhat valuable

Slightly valuable

Not valuable

How do you most typically address potential system issues BEFORE they impact your operations?(Required)

Automated workflows and playbooks to remediate potential issues as soon as they are detected

An orchestrated response process that leverages automation, AI, and human expertise to rapidly respond to potential issues

Advanced monitoring tools such as predictive analytics and anomaly detection to proactively identify and address potential issues

Respond to issues as they arise, using manual processes and troubleshooting techniques

A combination of automated remediation, orchestrated response, and/or proactive monitoring to address potential system issues

Don’t know

Other

What methods does your organization use to control and monitor cloud/IT spending?(Required)

Centralized procurement processes

Pre-approved budget thresholds

Automated cost monitoring tools

Department-level spending controls

Regular cost audits and reviews

Cloud cost optimization platform

Approval workflows for resource provisioning

Native financial operations tools provided by the cloud provider

No formal controls in place

Don’t know

Other

Please specify:

Which methods do you rely on most to detect security vulnerabilities in your systems?(Required)

Automated scanning tools

Manual assessments

Vendor notifications

Threat modeling (for early detection)

None of these

Don’t know

Other

Please specify:

What are the TWO most common ways you prioritize vulnerabilities to address within your environment?(Required)

Based on potential impact

Based on exploitability

Regulatory compliance requirements

Based on CVSS scores

Risk-based analysis of multiple factors

First-in-first-out approach

No formal prioritization process

Don’t know

How do you typically handle system updates and security patches?(Required)

Automated updates and patches

Manually review and apply updates and patches on a regular schedule

A combination of automation and manual review

Apply updates and patches on an as-needed basis.

Outsourced update and patch management

No defined process

Don’t know

Other

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This may explain what has been happening at Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Cloud9 & AWS CodeCommit 

After an initial statement and product flag that appeared in July, as we now stand in August 2024 new customers will no longer be able to sign up for AWS Cloud9 (a cloud-based integrated development environment) and the AWS CodeCommit private Git repository service.

That’s what’s moving, so how and these technologies used, what are the alternatives and what does AWS have to say about its strategy and tactics here?

The AWS Cloud9 IDE is a code-editing service for cloud-centric developers to use with support for several programming languages and runtime debuggers. It has a built-in terminal and a collection of tools that can be used to code, build, run, test and debug cloud software.  AWS CodeCommit is a managed source code control service that hosts private Git repositories and stores anything from code to binaries. With AWS at the backend, this is a code store for teams that don’t want to worry about scaling infrastructure. 

Also Now Available, Not

While Cloud9 and AWS CodeCommit are the services initially highlighted, other AWS services not now available to new customers include Amazon S3 Select (a tool to use SQL statements to filter and retrieve subsets of data from an Amazon S3 object), Amazon S3 Glacier Select (a query tool for AWS Glacier, a slower performing low-cost data storage service), Amazon CloudSearch (a managed service to set up a search solution for a website), Amazon Forecast (a fully managed service that uses statistical and machine learning algorithms to deliver highly accurate time-series forecasts) and AWS Data Pipeline (a web service that cloud developers and data engineers can use to automate the movement and transformation of data).

Cloud Native Now spoke to AWS central command in the EMEA region this week and received the following statement from an AWS spokesperson.

“After careful consideration, we decided to close new customer access to a few services so we can focus on delivering the innovation that customers value most. These services will remain available to existing customers, and we will continue to make security, availability and performance enhancements [to these tools], however we do not plan to introduce new features. We will continue to support our customers, whether they continue to use these services, or they migrate to other AWS offerings or alternative third-party solutions,” said AWS.

The AWS “Eye” In The Sky

So, it’s what we intimated and suggested at the start of this story then right? As newer technologies platform technologies evolve (and let’s be honest, in an era of generative AI and the current golden age of data science, a lot is shifting), this is a case of AWS using its internal “eye” to see further down the road than any external cloud advocate or evangelist might even be able to view. 

AWS has promised to provide detailed guidance on the steps customers can take to ensure a smooth transition to any new service that they choose.

“We also support migrations to other AWS or third-party solutions better aligned with your evolving needs. Keep the feedback coming. We’re always listening, said Jeff Barr,” said chief evangelist at Amazon Web Services on X, formerly Twitter.

Migration Situations

As a working example (or two) of the kinds of migrations we’re talking about here, AWS provides detailed guidance on how customers can transfer from Amazon CloudSearch to Amazon OpenSearch and how customers can migrate their AWS CodeCommit repository to another Git provider. 

Further on AWS CodeCommit, AWS says that users could make use of cloning or mirroring techniques to perform their migrations. In the case of AWS Cloud9, AWS advocates a migration to AWS IDE Toolkits and AWS CloudShell, a standalone, general-purpose tool that cloud engineers can use to run commands on AWS. 

While some users might be understandably perturbed – especially those who were perhaps at the final stage of a project planning stage that featured some of the now “living legacy” technologies discussed here – most fast-moving cloud-native IT workshops will (arguably) have moved on and forgotten about these changes by Christmas.