AWS released the Direct Connect Gateway, Amazon wants access to your house with Key, and Azure gives us a powerful new tool for Kubernetes.

AWS Direct Connect Gateway

The new AWS Direct Connect Gateway is similar to what Azure’s Express Route already offered. It extends the original Direct Connect capabality¹ by enabling you to create a single connection into AWS from which you can connect to multiple VPCs, including in other regions. This means you only need a single configuration/connection from your data center, unlike with the “old” way where you would need to set up a separate connection for each VPC and you couldn’t use it with other regions.

For many users this isn’t a feature they care about or need, but for those who use Direct Connect this will make it a lot easier to manage your connections back to your non-cloud hardware. Unfortunately at this time, it is still limited by AWS account. So if you have your environment set up with multiple accounts in an organization, you will still need separate connections for each account.

Amazon Key

As another part of their attempt to try out everything to make buying their stuff easier, Amazon introduced their new Amazon Key service and devices. This is for Prime members only, and has a limited roll-out to start with. Basically, you’ll have to buy their camera and a smart lock. This will then allow Amazon personal to deliver packages inside your house.

I’m not going to go into details about potential security risks with this. Everyone will be able to decide for themselves if something like this is something they’d be happy with². However, this is just another aspect of the move to smart home devices that may result in internet-connected speakers listening to your every word, and cameras watching your every move³. Personally, I can see the advantages of these things, but I also see that the technology is very much just starting out and if I was eligible for something like this I doubt I’d take them up on their offer right now.

Azure Brigade

Azure released another Kubernetes related open source tool, called Brigade. Brigade seems to be a framework for scripting and automating tasks within a Kubernetes cluster.

It works by writing small JavaScript event handlers and at first glance, this seems a bit like Lambda. Except that it gives you full access to everything that is running on your Kubernetes cluster. The main idea is similar to Lambda⁴, you carry out small tasks that can potentially then push things off to something else. Which in the case of Brigade are Jobs, which basically start a Docker container and allow you to run on them. Looks pretty powerful to me.

Movember

It’s November again, which means that the charity Movember tries to convince everyone to grow a mustache and donate in an effort to improve men’s health. This year I am doing this and am part of my company’s team⁵. So if you wish to see how terrible I look with a mustache⁶ have a look at my Movember page over the course of the month. And while you’re there, feel free to make a donation.