Category: Technical How-to

Containers are a leading method for packaging applications, with Kubernetes emerging as the top orchestration solution. You can enable secure and efficient self-service cluster provisioning on Amazon EKS using open-source tools like AWS Controllers for Kubernetes (ACK), Kyverno, and ArgoCD. This post demonstrates how enterprises can leverage these tools along with Nirmata’s Policy Manager to streamline EKS cluster management, apply security policies, and ensure compliance in a Kubernetes environment.

Cornerstone Consulting Group developed a plugin to simplify migrating on-premises or Amazon EC2 self-managed Apache Kafka clusters to Amazon MSK. The plugin automates MirrorMaker 2 replication, scales connectors, and integrates monitoring and notifications. It supports requirements like zero data loss, minimal code changes, auto-scaling, and performance/security parity. The plugin eases complex setup steps, working seamlessly for a smooth cutover to Amazon MSK after replication completes.

Amazon Athena allows analyzing petabytes of data directly with SQL queries or via analytics tools like ThoughtSpot. This post covers creating an IAM access key, two Amazon S3 buckets (one for data storage, one for query results), creating an Amazon Athena table from sample data using an AWS Glue crawler, and establishing a connection between Athena and ThoughtSpot. With the connection, ThoughtSpot can search and visualize the Athena data using AI capabilities.

Fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) is crucial for leveraging their full potential across industries. Quantiphi unveils how fine-tuning supercharges LLMs to deliver domain-specific AI solutions that redefine possibilities. From personalized healthcare to precise financial predictions and streamlined legal reviews, fine-tuned models offer transformative value and unleash the power of customized, efficient, and responsible generative AI deployments.

A content delivery network (CDN) caches content closer to users and reduces load times. Monitoring CDN performance is crucial for optimizing user experience, and this post demonstrates building an Amazon QuickSight dashboard with generative AI capabilities to gain insights from Fastly CDN logs in Amazon S3. It covers configuring real-time log streaming, using AWS Glue to catalog data, accelerating dashboard creation using natural language, and creating rich data stories for stakeholders.

Integrating security scanning into infrastructure as code (IaC) allows detecting misconfigurations early in development. This post explores using the KICS plugin from Checkmarx with AWS CDK. Learn how KICS performs static code analysis to find vulnerabilities and compliance issues in IaC and scans the CDK code to report findings, failing the command for high-severity issues. This shifts security left, mitigating risks in deployed infrastructure.

As data becomes increasingly valuable, robust security measures are critical. This post reviews how Protegrity’s tokenization integration with Amazon Redshift Dynamic Data Masking enables organizations to effectively protect sensitive data. It provides an overview of key concepts like Protegrity Vaultless Tokenization and Redshift Dynamic Data Masking, including code examples to better safeguard sensitive information within their Redshift data warehouse both at rest and in use.

Amazon EC2 Mac instances provide Apple hardware to develop for iOS and macOS at scale. Dependencies for building apps require privileged access, normally needing manual user approval. By enrolling EC2 Macs into Mobile Device Management (MDM) with Jamf Pro, administrators can automate remote configuration and software deployment without per-instance interaction. After launching an instance and installing required profiles with Jamf, users should create an AMI to retain the instance state.

ServiceNow and AWS have collaborated to bridge language barriers in global workforces. Using AWS services like Amazon Translate and Amazon Comprehend, the AWS Translate Spoke for ServiceNow Flow Designer enables automatic translation of text into employees’ native languages. By demonstrating how the AWS Translate Spoke can translate knowledge articles, this post explains how ServiceNow customers can easily build multi-language workflows to serve global users.

Leveraging AWS Lambda response streaming functionality enables progressive data delivery from large datasets, enhancing web application performance. This post compares a traditional API implementation to a Lambda streaming API, demonstrating reduced time-to-first-byte latency and quicker, more dynamic client-side rendering. By incrementally sending data, response streaming eliminates lag from waiting on entire dataset transfers, vastly improving user experience for data-intensive applications.