Stack Overflow addresses traffic data misconceptions

App Building

Stack Overflow addresses traffic data misconceptions

• Refutes circulating data about drastic traffic drop, cites inaccurate measurement after Google Analytics changes.
• Recent average traffic drop of ~5%, influenced by various tech trends including GPT-4 release.
• GenAI likely to influence traffic, Stack Overflow prepares with GenAI integrations and community-focused initiatives. UPDATE

Azure supports PostgreSQL 15 in Flexible Server

• PostgreSQL 15 brings new features like MERGE command, improved in-memory/disk-based sorting, and support for two-phase commit.
• Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server now backs this release across all Azure regions. UPDATE

BigQuery adds new SQL functions for JSON

• New SQL functions enhance BigQuery's core JSON support.
• Convert JSON values to primitive types using JSON LAX functions.
• Update JSON values with mutator functions; construct JSON with new constructor functions. UPDATE

Autoscale IOPS for Azure Database, MySQL

Autoscale IOPS feature scales storage IOPS based on workload. Aims to optimize performance, cost efficiency on Azure Database for MySQL. UPDATE

Amazon Aurora backups now retain deleted clusters

Aurora for MySQL and PostgreSQL now retains automatic backups of deleted clusters, allowing restoration to any point within the configured backup retention period. UPDATE

Intra-account container copy preview for Azure Cosmos DB

Extends intra-account container copy for MongoDB API. Enables offline migration between collections in same Azure Cosmos DB account using Azure CLI. UPDATE

AI/ML

Amazon SageMaker integrates with Salesforce Data Cloud

• Direct integration enables secure access to Salesforce Data Cloud data to build, train, deploy ML models in SageMaker.
• Utilize SageMaker-Provided Project template for integration, eliminating need for ETL pipeline.
• Enables inference invocations directly from Einstein Studio in Salesforce Data Cloud. UPDATE

Provisioning + Runtime

Google Cloud introduces H3 VMs for HPC

• H3 VM series tailored for high performance computing (HPC).
• Built on Intel’s 4th gen Xeon platform; offers 3x improvement.
• Now in public preview; features 88 cores, 352 GB memory.
• 200 Gbps default low-latency networking, optimized for distributed computing.
• Outperforms prior C2 machines in multiple benchmarks. UPDATE

AWS releases EC2 M7i-flex, M7i instances

• Powered by custom 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, exclusive to AWS.
• M7i-flex offers up to 19% better price performance than M6i, suitable for general-purpose workloads.
• M7i, ideal for high CPU usage, supports Intel Advanced Matrix Extensions and built-in Intel accelerators. UPDATE

Azure Site Recovery previews DR for Shared Disks

• Private Preview of DR for Azure Shared Disks supporting WSFC on Azure VMs.
• Can protect, monitor, and recover WSFC-clusters as a unit, generating cluster-consistent recovery points.
• Supports up to 4 nodes per cluster; limited to forward direction protection. UPDATE

Management Tools

AWS Resilience Hub launches drift detection

Resilience Hub introduces application resilience drift detection, notifying if applications deviate from set recovery objectives. Offers enhanced flexibility and access control. UPDATE

Security

Azure Red Hat OpenShift's August 2023 updates

• Attains DoD Impact Level 4 certification, ensuring high security standards for military or contingency operations.
• No OpenShift subscription fee for infrastructure nodes, optimizing cost.
• Enhances security by allowing private clusters deployment without a public IP. UPDATE

Observability

Google Cloud launches Personalized Service Health

• Provides fast, transparent communication about service disruptions.
• Currently in Preview; integrates with incident response, monitoring tools.
• Offers granular controls for relevant service disruption alerts.
• Integrates with incident management tools, e.g., PagerDuty.
• Enhances proactive incident discoverability in workflows. UPDATE

Bigtable enhances observability tools

• Introduces tools to supplement Key Visualizer, Cloud Monitoring.
• Query stats diagnose inherently slow queries via cbt CLI, Go Client.
• New metrics expose spiky workloads, irregularities.
• Table stats offer insights on data storage, row count, columns per row.
• Aids in troubleshooting performance, storage costs. UPDATE

Orchestration

EKS Fargate gets more Ephemeral Storage

AWS Fargate for EKS allows configuring ephemeral storage up to 175 GiB. Supports intensive workloads, security through application isolation. UPDATE

AWS Batch introduces price-capacity-optimized strategy

AWS Batch's new allocation strategy balances price and capacity for Spot Instances, optimizing Spot Instance placement for reduced workload interruptions. UPDATE