It has been a busy month this November! With the end of the year approaching fast, the realm of AWS cloud developments makes no exception. Cloud news have been abundant as are the expected benefits to customers!
Curious about what has been happening in AWS? Expanded free pricing models, publishing of new cloud databases and projects going open-source are just a few sketches of what made the front page during the month! With AWS: reinvent already finished, you should be certain that the AWS cloud news landscape is getting more exciting than ever!
Without further delay, let’s see what we are up to!

Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) with major improvement for customers
As early as the beginning of this month, Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) launched a new feature. It enabled customers to organize and consolidate their different AWS Key Management Service (KMS) keys when exporting RDS snapshots to Amazon S3.
This improvement significantly streamlines the process of managing customer keys as it eliminates the need for creating different keys in each account that has snapshots. Now, this may be already achieved by a centralized account, which was impossible before that.
Learn more here.
Amazon ECS-optimized machine images go open-source
As of 22 November 2021, Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) provided open-source access to the build scripts it uses to develop the Amazon ECS-optimized Amazon Machine Image (AMI).
The build scripts have been made available on GitHub as an open-source project under the Apache 2.0 license. Today, customers can use them to build their own custom AMI by taking advantage of ECS-optimized AMI components.
Here is a brief guide on how to develop your own AMI. Consider this update in further detail here.
Amazon Linux 2022 made available for public review
Another really big piece of cloud news was released on 22 Nov 2021. Amazon Linux 2022 (AL2022) was made available for public review, featuring Amazon’s new general-purpose Linux for AWS.
AWS further announced that from this year onwards, a new major Linux version will be available every two years, as the maintenance of each version will last for five years. This aims at enabling customers to both keep their software current and plan their projects for the long term.
AL2022 has been designed to ensure a secure, stable and high-performance environment for the development and execution of cloud applications. It features a number of improvements as it is available free of charge across all regions.
Read more here.
Amazon DynamoDB released enhanced backup features in AWS Backup
Towards the end of the month, AWS published an intriguing enhancement in one of its flagship databases – DynamoDB. Due to a new amazing set of backup features in AWS Backup, DynamoDB can now better facilitate customers in meeting their regulatory compliance and business continuity requirements.
At a glance, the new features allow for multi-account and multi-region back-up without the need of developing custom scripts. They further provide for cost optimization by tagging and enhanced cloud storage, as well as advanced encryption capabilities with independent KMS. All these may be enabled via AWS Management Console or AWS Backup APIs.
Check it up in further detail here.
EC2 Image Builder released enhanced sharing features
Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) can now be shared with AWS Organizations and Organizational Units (OUs) in the distribution phase of the build process. Sharing may be also automated as it no longer requires a manual update of AMI permissions. Instead, customers can create OUs from where they can manage the permissions within the unit. See further details here.
Curious if you should start using AWS Organizations? Please take a look at our dedicated article AWS Basics: 7 Reasons Why Consider AWS Organizations.
AWS price reduction for data transfers out to the internet
Price reduction cloud news has always hit the headlines! Look at what AWS data transfer pricing plans include, set to be effective from 1 Dec 2021 onwards.
By a series of cost optimization measures AWS is now replacing its present AWS Free Tier with a new expanded free tier offering:
- a set of free monthly data transfer services, including the first terabyte of data transfer out of Amazon Cloudfront, the first 10 million HTTP/S requests, and the first 2 million CloudFront Functions invocations;
- cancelling of the limitation over the free data transfer for the first 12 months;
- the first 100 gigabytes of data transfer out from all AWS Regions monthly will be also free of charge with no further limitation for the first 12 months.
The AWS preliminary assessment shows that the new free tier will offer twenty times the amount of free data transfer out per month in comparison with the parameters of the present Amazon Cloudfront free tier. Finally, it will no longer expire after 12 months as it is now.
The change is expected to benefit millions of users who will receive significant reductions in their overall AWS bills. See more here.
If you would like to learn more about AWS cost-optimization strategies in general, please take a look at our dedicated article AWS Basics: The Top 10 AWS Cost Optimization Strategies and Tools.
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There has been a lot going on in AWS in the last months of 2021, hasn’t it?
Stay tuned for AWS Re: Invent 2021 news, as this year the event featured its 10th edition! Can’t wait, can you?
Drop us a line if you want us to discuss a topic in particular.