Amazon Serverless Updates in August 2023

Amazon Serverless Updates in August 2023

Amazon Serverless Updates in August 2023

Serverless computing is a popular way to run applications without managing servers or provisioning resources. Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers serverless services that let you build and run applications with high availability, scalability, and performance. This blog post will highlight some of the new features and enhancements AWS announced for its serverless portfolio in August 2023.

Amazon Serverless: Lambda Extensions

Amazon Lambda extensions are a new way to integrate your Lambda functions. They can work with other AWS services, third-party tools, or your own custom logic. These extensions run in the same execution environment as your function. They can perform monitoring, logging, security, or configuration management tasks. You can use Lambda extensions from AWS partners. Partners include Datadog, New Relic, or HashiCorp. Alternatively, you can build your own using the Lambda Extensions API. These are now generally available and support Node.js, Python, Ruby, Java, Go, and .NET Core runtimes.

Amazon API Gateway HTTP APIs

API Gateway HTTP APIs are a fast and cost-effective way to create APIs for your serverless applications. HTTP APIs support OpenAPI specifications, JWT authorizations, CORS configurations, and custom domains. They are now integrated with AWS WAF, a web application firewall. AWS WAF helps protect your APIs from common web exploits. You can use AWS WAF to define rules that allow or block requests. Rules are based on criteria such as IP addresses, HTTP headers, or body content. Additionally, you can monitor and analyze your API traffic. This can be done using AWS WAF metrics and logs.

Amazon EventBridge Schema Registry

EventBridge Schema Registry is a feature that aids in discovering, creating, and managing the schemas of events. EventBridge Schema Registry is a feature that helps you discover, create, and manage the schemas of the events that you consume or produce. Now, it supports schema evolution. This means you can update your schemas without breaking compatibility with existing consumers or producers. You can also make use of schema versioning. It helps track changes and the history of your schemas.

Amazon DynamoDB PartiQL

DynamoDB is a key-value and document database that delivers single-digit millisecond performance at any scale. DynamoDB PartiQL is a SQL-compatible query language. It allows you to access data in DynamoDB using familiar SQL syntax. Furthermore, it now supports transactions. This enables you to perform multiple read and write operations atomically and consistently across one or more tables. Transactions can also be used with DynamoDB Streams. These streams capture data changes in DynamoDB tables. They deliver them to other AWS services or applications.

Amazon Serverless: SQS FIFO Queues

SQS is a fully managed message queue service that enables you to decouple and scale your serverless applications. The new SQS FIFO queues are a type of queue. They are designed to preserve the order and uniqueness of messages. These queues now support content-based deduplication. This means you can send messages with different attributes but the same content without creating duplicates. In addition, you can use content-based deduplication with message groups. Message groups allow you to group related messages into ordered sub-queues within a FIFO queue.

Conclusion

AWS continues to innovate and improve its serverless offerings to help you build and run applications faster, easier, and more securely. In this blog post, we covered some of the new features and enhancements that AWS announced for its serverless services in August 2023. We hope you find them useful and exciting. To learn more about AWS serverless services, visit https://aws.amazon.com/serverless/.

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September 1, 2023 AWS - August 2023, AWS - What's New No comments yet
AWS IoT: New Features and Enhancements

AWS IoT: New Features and Enhancements

AWS IoT: What’s New in August 2023?

AWS IoT is a set of services that enable you to connect, manage, and secure your devices and applications on the cloud. This blog post will highlight some of the new features and enhancements AWS IoT introduced in August 2023.

AWS IoT Core for LoRaWAN Now Supports Device Provisioning Through QR Codes

AWS IoT Core for LoRaWAN is a fully managed service that allows you to connect and manage your LoRaWAN devices on AWS. Now, you can provision your devices using QR codes. This simplifies device registration and reduces the risk of human error. Scan the QR code on your device using the AWS IoT Core for the LoRaWAN console or the Device Management mobile app. The service will automatically create a device certificate and assign a thing name and a LoRaWAN profile to your device.

AWS IoT Greengrass Adds Support for Python 3.9 and Node.js 14

AWS IoT Greengrass extends AWS to the edge. It allows you to run local compute, messaging, data management, sync, and ML inference capabilities on your devices. You can use Python 3.9 and Node.js 14 as the runtime for your Greengrass components. This provides access to the latest language features and security updates. Also, use the Greengrass Core SDKs for Python and Node.js to interact with the Greengrass core device and other components.

AWS IoT SiteWise Launches Asset Dashboards and Widgets

SiteWise is a managed service for collecting, storing, organizing, and monitoring data from industrial equipment at scale. With IoT SiteWise, you can now create asset dashboards and widgets. These tools let you visualize and analyze your asset data in real-time. Additionally, you have the option to share your dashboards with others or embed them in your applications. You can also share your dashboards with other users or embed them in your own applications.

Analytics Adds Support for Apache Parquet Format

AWS IoT Analytics enables you to process, enrich, store, analyze, and visualize IoT data at scale. Your processed data can now be stored in Apache Parquet format. This format offers high compression and performance benefits. You can query your Parquet data using standard SQL with IoT Analytics or other AWS services like Amazon Athena, Amazon Redshift Spectrum, or Amazon EMR.

Device Defender Launches Audit Finding Suppressions

Device Defender continuously audits your IoT devices and policies for security best practices. It alerts you to any issues. Now, you can suppress audit findings that aren’t relevant or actionable for your use case. This reduces noise and lets you focus on critical issues. Additionally, you can specify the criteria for suppressing audit findings, such as the audit check name, the resource type, the resource identifier, or the finding severity. Also, view and manage your suppressed audit findings using the Device Defender console or API.

Conclusion

These are some of the new features and enhancements that AWS IoT introduced in August 2023. We hope you find them useful and we look forward to hearing your feedback. To learn more about IoT services and solutions, click here.

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September 1, 2023 AWS - August 2023, AWS - What's New, Internet of Things (IOT) No comments yet
Amazon EC2 Instance: What's New in August 2023

Amazon EC2 Instance: What’s New in August 2023

Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a variety of EC2 instances to suit different use cases and workloads. This blog post will highlight some of the latest updates and features introduced in August 2023 for AWS EC2 instances.

Amazon Linux 2023 on Amazon EC2

Amazon Linux 2023 is a new version of Amazon Linux that provides improved performance, security, and compatibility with modern applications. The Linux 2023 is available as an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) for Amazon EC2, and it supports both x86_64 and arm64 architectures. You can launch an Amazon Linux 2023 instance using the Amazon EC2 console, the AWS CLI, or AWS CloudFormation. For more information, see Amazon Linux 2023 on Amazon EC2.

Amazon EC2 – Classic Networking is Retiring

EC2-Classic is the original network model for Amazon EC2 that was launched in 2006. It provides a flat network with public IP addresses assigned at launch time. However, it has limitations and does not support many of AWS’s newer features and capabilities. Therefore, AWS is retiring EC2-Classic networking and migrating all customers to Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), which offers more flexibility, security, and scalability for your EC2 instances. The retirement process will start on October 30, 2021, and will be completed by August 23, 2023. For more information, see EC2-Classic Networking is Retiring – Here’s How to Prepare.

M7i-flex Instances

M7i-flex instances are new general-purpose instances that offer a balance of compute, memory, and network resources for a broad spectrum of general-purpose applications. These instances are based on the AWS Nitro System, which delivers high performance and security for your EC2 instances. M7i-flex instances also support enhanced networking with up to 25 Gbps of bandwidth and an Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) for low-latency, high-throughput communication between instances. M7i-flex instances are available in eight sizes, ranging from 1 to 32 vCPUs and 4 to 128 GiB of memory.

We hope these updates are helpful for your AWS EC2 instances. Stay tuned for more news and features from AWS in the future.

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September 1, 2023 AWS - August 2023, AWS - What's New No comments yet
Azure Container Apps: What's New - August 2023

Azure Container Apps: What’s New – August 2023

Azure Container Apps: What’s New and Why You Should Care

Azure Container Apps is a service that enables you to deploy and run containerized applications and microservices without managing the underlying infrastructure. It is a serverless hosting service that supports any container and any programming model. You can scale your apps in response to HTTP request events or run them as always-on background jobs.

This blog post will explore some of the latest features and enhancements announced for Azure Container Apps on August 30, 2023.

Workload Profiles Environment

Workload profiles are designed to optimize spend and performance for microservices by selecting either serverless Consumption compute or customized Dedicated compute. These determine the amount of compute and memory resources available to your apps in an Azure Container Apps environment.

You can have multiple workload profiles of varying sizes within the same Container Apps environment and select the optimal compute size for each of your applications’ resource requirements. This is ideal for developers when deploying a microservice solution.

A Consumption workload profile is available by default and provides serverless scale all the way to zero, and bills only for resources your apps use.

Dedicated workload profiles provide dedicated compute resources for your apps and are ideal for running apps requiring more compute and/or memory resources. You can select from a range of compute sizes and types up to 32 vCPUs and 256 GiB of memory. Apps running in these dedicated workload profiles use the new Dedicated pricing plan which bills per compute instance and provides better cost predictability.

Azure Container Apps Dedicated Plan

Dedicated plan is a new option to run your apps on dedicated compute resources, select from a range of compute sizes, and types up to 32 vCPUs and 256 GiB of memory. You can choose from general-purpose or memory-optimized workload profiles depending on your apps’ needs.

The Dedicated plan offers several benefits, such as:

  • Better cost predictability as you are billed per compute instance rather than per app.
  • Higher performance and scalability as you can allocate more resources to your apps.
  • Greater flexibility as you can mix and match Consumption and Dedicated plans within the same Container Apps environment.

Additional Networking Features

Azure Container Apps also supports additional networking features that enable you to configure your apps’ connectivity and security. These include:

  • User defined routes (UDR) – Specify custom routes for outbound traffic from your apps.
  • Smaller subnet sizes – Use smaller subnets for your Container Apps environments, reducing IP address consumption.
  • Network address translation (NAT) gateway – Use a single public IP address for outbound traffic from your apps.

Azure Container Apps Jobs

Jobs are a new feature that allow you to run containerized jobs on demand, on a schedule, or in response to events. These are ideal for scenarios such as data processing, batch processing, or scheduled tasks.

There are certain characteristics that can be attributed to jobs:

  • Run until completion or until a specified timeout.
  • Configured with retries, concurrency limits, and dependencies.
  • Triggered by HTTP requests, events from Event Grid or Service Bus, or cron expressions.
  • Access secrets from Azure Key Vault or environment variables.
  • Use any container image from any registry.

Conclusion

Azure Container Apps is a powerful and flexible service that enables you to run your containerized applications and microservices without having to worry about the infrastructure. With the latest features and enhancements, you can optimize your costs, performance, and scalability and run jobs for various scenarios.

If you want to try out Azure Container Apps, you can get started with the following resources:

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August 31, 2023 Artificial Intelligence (AI), Azure - August 2023, Azure - What's New No comments yet
Azure Virtual Machines: Updates for August 2023

Azure Virtual Machines: Updates for August 2023

Azure VM Updates in August 2023

Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) are undeniably one of the cornerstones of Azure, offering flexible and scalable compute resources for a multitude of workloads. In this blog post, we’ll delve into the latest updates and features for Azure VMs that were unveiled in August 2023.

Azure Advisor’s Availability Zone Recommendation

Azure Advisor now offers an Availability Zone recommendation feature to enhance VM resiliency. This capability assists you in migrating VMs to availability zones within an Azure region, ensuring high availability and fault tolerance for your applications. Azure Advisor takes a deep dive into your VMs, considering performance, cost, and compliance factors. Once the analysis is complete, you can effortlessly implement the recommendation with just a few clicks. Alternatively, Azure Resource Manager templates or PowerShell scripts can automate the process. The good news is that this feature is now generally available.

Cross Subscription Restore for Azure Virtual Machines

Another exciting feature that has become generally available is Cross Subscription Restore for Azure VMs. This capability lets you restore your VMs from a backup to a different subscription within the same Azure Active Directory tenant. It’s an incredibly useful tool, especially in disaster recovery, testing, or migration scenarios. Whether you prefer the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or PowerShell, you have the flexibility to perform cross-subscription restore operations.

Retirement of ND-series and NC-series VMs

In a significant move, Azure will be retiring ND-series and NC-series VMs, powered by NVIDIA Tesla P40 and K80 GPUs, on August 31, 2023. These VMs are making way for newer GPU VMs that offer higher performance and support newer CUDA compute capability levels. If your operations rely on ND-series or NC-series VMs, planning your migration to these newer GPU VMs before the retirement date arrives is essential. To assist you in this transition, you can utilize Azure Migrate or other similar tools to assess your readiness for migration and facilitate the process.

Azure NetApp Files Cloud Backup for Virtual Machines

Introducing Azure NetApp Files Cloud Backup for Virtual Machines is a noteworthy development. This feature empowers you to back up and restore your Azure VMs leveraging Azure NetApp Files as their storage solution. Azure NetApp Files is a fully managed file storage service known for its high performance, scalability, and robust security for file-based workloads. Cloud Backup protects your data from accidental deletion, corruption, or even ransomware attacks. You can configure backup policies, set schedules, and define retention periods per your business needs. Moreover, you can restore your data to any point within the retention period. As of now, this feature is in the public preview stage.

In conclusion, these are just some of the highlights of the Azure VM updates that unfolded in August 2023. For a comprehensive look at these updates and more, please explore the Azure updates page or check out the Azure blog.

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August 31, 2023 Artificial Intelligence (AI), Azure - August 2023, Azure - What's New No comments yet
Exploring the Exciting Azure SQL Updates Unveiled in August 2023

Azure SQL Updates for August 2023

Azure SQL Updates

Azure SQL offers secure SQL database engines for applications. This post highlights August 2023 updates.

External REST Endpoint Invocation

Now, let’s explore External REST Endpoint Invocation. Microsoft Build 2023 introduced it—a way to integrate Azure Services into Azure SQL Database effortlessly with just one line of code. This feature enriches data, handles complex calculations, and invokes machine learning models. For instance, you can analyze customer reviews by calling an Azure Function via an external REST endpoint.

XML Compression for Azure SQL

Next, focus on the second feature, available since August 2023. XML compression reduces storage needs for Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance by compressing off-row XML data. Using ALTER INDEX, apply XML compression to existing XML indexes to reduce storage space by up to 75%.

Always Encrypted with Intel SGX Enclaves

Always Encrypted secures sensitive data within client applications. Extend it with secure enclaves, enabling computations on encrypted data within the database server’s protected memory region. You can perform operations like pattern matching and sorting on encrypted data without decryption.

In August 2023, Always Encrypted with Intel SGX enclaves entered public preview for Azure SQL Database on DC-series hardware with up to 40 vCores, offering better performance.

New JSON Type and JSON Aggregates

Without delay, explore Azure SQL’s latest JSON features. Since 2016, Azure SQL has supported JSON as a native data type. It lets you store and query JSON documents using standard SQL operators and functions. August 2023 introduced two new features: a lightweight JSON type and JSON aggregates.

Currently in public preview, the new JSON type outperforms NVARCHAR(MAX) by offering faster parsing, better storage efficiency, JSON Schema support, partial updates using JSON Patch, and change tracking with JSON Diff.

The JSON aggregates are a set of new aggregate functions that allow you to perform calculations on JSON values and return JSON results. These functions include:

  • JSON_ARRAYAGG: This returns a JSON array containing the aggregated values.
  • JSON_OBJECTAGG: It Returns a JSON object containing the aggregated key-value pairs.
  • JSON_QUOTE: Function returns a JSON string containing the quoted value.
  • JSON_MERGE: Returns a JSON value that results from merging two or more JSON values.

Conclusion

In summary, these updates and enhancements from August 2023 strengthen Azure SQL, helping you build more powerful, secure applications.

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August 31, 2023 Artificial Intelligence (AI), Azure - August 2023, Azure - What's New No comments yet
Azure PostgreSQL Updates for August 2023

Azure PostgreSQL Updates for August 2023

Azure PostgreSQL Updates: Overview

If you are using Azure PostgreSQL, you might be interested in the latest updates and enhancements released in August 2023. It is a fully managed service that offers high availability, scalability, security, and performance for PostgreSQL applications.

Minor Version Updates

Azure PostgreSQL supports multiple minor versions of PostgreSQL, from 11 to 15. In August 2023, PostgreSQL released the latest minor version updates for all supported major versions. These updates include bug fixes, security patches, and performance improvements. You can find the detailed release notes for each minor version on the official PostgreSQL website.

The latest minor versions are:

  • 11.21
  • 12.16
  • 13.12
  • 14.9
  • 15.4

You can upgrade your PostgreSQL server to the latest minor version using the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or PowerShell. Upgrading to the latest minor version is recommended to ensure optimal performance and security for your PostgreSQL server.

Azure PostgreSQL: PgBouncer Support

PgBouncer is a lightweight connection pooler for PostgreSQL that reduces the overhead of opening and closing connections. It can improve the scalability and throughput of your PostgreSQL applications by reusing existing connections and balancing the load among them.

PostgreSQL now supports PgBouncer version 1.20 for all PostgreSQL versions in all supported regions. You can enable PgBouncer for your Azure PostgreSQL server using the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or PowerShell. Also, configure various PgBouncer settings, such as pool mode, max connections, idle timeout, and more.

PgBouncer provides metrics that you can monitor using Azure Monitor or other tools. You can view metrics such as active connections, waiting requests, server latency, etc. These metrics can help you troubleshoot issues and optimize your PgBouncer performance.

Conclusion

The Azure PostgreSQL is constantly adding new features and updates to provide the best experience for PostgreSQL users. In August 2023, it released minor version updates and PgBouncer support for all PostgreSQL versions. These features can help you enhance your PostgreSQL applications with high availability, scalability, security, and performance.

To learn more, visit the official documentation or sign up for a free trial today.

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August 31, 2023 Artificial Intelligence (AI), Azure - August 2023, Azure - What's New No comments yet
Amazon Translate: Real-Time Language Mastery

Amazon Translate: Real-Time Language Mastery

Overview

Amazon Translate is a fully managed service that enables you to translate text and speech in real time. It can automatically translate text between multiple languages, making it useful for tasks like localizing content, providing multi-language support in applications, and improving global communication. You can use it to communicate with customers, partners, and employees across the globe.

Features and Benefits

Here are some of the features and benefits of Amazon Translate:

  • Supports over 70 languages and variants, including Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
  • Uses deep learning models trained on a large and diverse text and speech data corpus. This ensures high-quality and natural-sounding translations.
  • Offers neural machine translation (NMT) and automatic speech recognition (ASR) capabilities. You can use NMT to translate text from one language to another and ASR to convert speech to text in the same or a different language.
  • Integrates with other AWS services, such as Amazon Comprehend, Amazon Polly, Amazon Lex, Amazon Transcribe, and Amazon S3. You can use these services to perform sentiment analysis, text-to-speech synthesis, conversational interfaces, transcription, and storage of translated content.
  • Provides a simple and secure API that you can access from any application or platform. You can use the API to translate text or speech on demand or stream audio data for continuous translation.

Use Cases for Amazon Translate

Some of the use cases for Amazon Translate are:

  • Customer service: Provide multilingual support to your customers via chatbots, email, phone, or social media. You can also use it to translate customer feedback and reviews into your preferred language.
  • E-commerce: Expand your global reach by offering your products and services in multiple languages. You can also use it to translate product descriptions, reviews, and user-generated content.
  • Education: Enhance your learning experience by accessing educational content in different languages. You can also use it to create multilingual courses and assessments for your students.
  • Media and entertainment: Create subtitles and captions for your videos and podcasts in different languages. You can also use it to translate news articles, blogs, and social media posts.
  • Travel and tourism: Communicate with travelers and locals in different languages. You can also use it to translate travel guides, brochures, menus, and signs.

Getting Started

To get started with Amazon Translate, you need to:

  • Sign up for an AWS account if you already have one.
  • Create an IAM user with the necessary permissions to access Amazon Translate.
  • Install the AWS SDK or CLI on your device or platform of choice.
  • Use the API or CLI commands to translate text or speech in real-time.

For more information on how to use Amazon Translate, please refer to the official documentation: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/translate/index.html.

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August 30, 2023 Artificial Intelligence (AI), AWS - What's New No comments yet
Amazon Polly: Your Guide to Voice-Enabled Magic

Amazon Polly: Your Guide to Voice-Enabled Magic

Voice is a powerful way to communicate with your audience. Whether you want to narrate a story, explain a concept, or provide feedback, voice can make your content more engaging and accessible. But how do you create high-quality voice content without hiring professional voice actors or spending hours recording and editing audio files? The answer is Amazon Polly.

Amazon Polly is a service that turns text into lifelike speech. You can use Amazon Polly to generate voice content for your website, app, podcast, video, or any other project that needs voice. Amazon Polly supports over 60 voices and 29 languages, so you can choose the voice that suits your brand and audience. You can also customize the voice output with features such as speech marks, SSML tags, and lexicons.

Benefits of using Amazon Polly

  • Create voice content faster and cheaper than hiring voice actors or recording audio.
  • Easily update your voice content by changing the text input without re-recording or editing the audio.
  • Reach more users by making your content accessible to people who prefer listening over reading or who have visual or reading impairments.
  • Enhance your user experience by adding voice interactivity and personalization to your content.

Use Cases

  • You can create audio versions of your blog posts, articles, ebooks, or newsletters to increase engagement and retention.
  • You can add voice feedback or guidance to your app or website to improve usability and navigation.
  • You can create podcasts or videos with voice narration to share your knowledge and expertise.
  • You can generate voice prompts or messages for your chatbot, IVR, or voice assistant to provide a natural and conversational interface.

Getting started with Amazon Polly is easy. You can access the service through the AWS console, CLI, or the AWS SDKs. You can also use the Amazon Polly WordPress plugin to convert your WordPress posts into podcasts. To learn more about Amazon Polly and how to use it, visit the official documentation here.

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August 30, 2023 Artificial Intelligence (AI), AWS - What's New No comments yet
Amazon Forecast: Precision in Time-Series Prediction

Amazon Forecast: Precision in Time-Series Prediction

Time-series forecasting is a challenging task that requires complex models and large datasets. However, with Amazon Forecast, you can simplify this process and get accurate predictions for your business needs. Amazon Forecast is a fully managed service that uses machine learning to generate forecasts based on historical data and other variables. You can use it for various use cases, such as demand planning, inventory optimization, resource allocation, and anomaly detection. This post will show you how to start with Amazon Forecast and leverage its features and benefits.

Getting Started

First, you must create a dataset group and import your historical data into Amazon Forecast. You can use the AWS console, the AWS CLI, or the AWS SDKs. You can also use built-in data connectors to import data from Amazon S3, Amazon Redshift, or Amazon Athena. Your data should include a timestamp column, a target value column, and any other relevant features that can influence your forecasts.

Next, you need to create a predictor and train a forecasting model. It will automatically select the best algorithm for your data and optimize its hyperparameters. You can also choose from a list of predefined algorithms or provide your custom algorithm. You can also specify how far ahead you want to forecast and how often you want to generate forecasts.

Finally, you need to create a forecast and query the results. You can use the AWS console, the AWS CLI, or the AWS SDKs. You can also use the Amazon Forecast Query API to programmatically access your forecasts. You can view various metrics and visualizations to evaluate the accuracy and quality of your forecasts. You can also export your forecasts to Amazon S3 or consume them in other AWS services.

What Amazon Forecast Offers

Amazon Forecast is a powerful tool that can help you make better decisions based on data-driven insights. You can benefit from:

  • High accuracy: Uses advanced machine-learning techniques to capture complex patterns and trends in your data.
  • Scalability: Handle large volumes of data and generate forecasts for millions of items.
  • Flexibility: Handle different types of data and forecasting scenarios, such as seasonal, intermittent, or irregular patterns.
  • Ease of use: Does not require machine learning expertise and provides a simple and intuitive interface.
  • Cost-effectiveness: Charges you only for what you use and offers a free tier for the first two months.

To learn more about Amazon Forecast, visit the official documentation or check out some of the sample notebooks and tutorials on GitHub. You can also try out the service for free with the AWS Free Tier. Start forecasting today with Amazon Forecast!

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August 30, 2023 Artificial Intelligence (AI), AWS - What's New No comments yet
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