NET+ AWS by DLT Newsletter
Here is our latest NET+ AWS program newsletter. This newsletter contains 5 sections including: program news and notes, community events, AWS feature releases, general updates from Internet2 and general updates from DLT.
News and Notes
AWS SSO & Grouper: Seeking Additional Participants
This group is exploring best practices in the use of Grouper with AWS to manage roles and permissions within the AWS environment. The current goals are to document the best practices, including sharing working examples, to identify gaps and propose future work to fill them. If you are interested in participating, please contact Oren Sreebny (osreebny@internet2.edu).
AWS Technology and Tactics calls
For the past year there have been two regular calls on specific AWS technology topics: AWS Organizations and AWS Control Tower. For 2021 we have replaced those calls with a single bi-weekly call on AWS Technology and Tactics. The goal is to have a regular discussion forum for subscribers implementing AWS in the NET+ program, along with colleagues from AWS and DLT, to discuss the technical topics of interest to them. If you are interested in participating in these calls, please contact Oren Sreebny (osreebny@internet2.edu).
Welcome new NET+ AWS Service Advisory Board Members
Join us in welcoming The Pennsylvania State University and the J. Paul Getty Trust to the NET+ AWS SAB. They are represented by Rick Rhoades and David Lacey respectively. We also welcome Chris Manly replacing Sarah Christen representing Cornell University and James Bennett replacing Bob Flynn at Indiana University. See the full list of SAB members and how to contact them on the NET+ AWS service page https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=158663221
Community Stories and Events
Kevin Murakoshi’s Re:Invent Recap
On January 26 Kevin Murakoshi from AWS held a session where he went over announcements from Re:Invent 2020 that he thought were of potential interest to higher education. The recording of the event and Kevin’s slides are available here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WtZS89vMsRqyeFHxzcwFJz5x3qja9HyI?usp=sharing
I2 Online: Self-service research environments
An upcoming I2 Online event will explore two new AWS-based services that enable campuses to manage self-service environments for researchers. Parice Brandies and Nathan Albrighton will speak about RONIN and its use at the University of Sydney, and Paul Avillach and Madhu Bussa will show the AWS Service Workbench and its use at Harvard Medical School. The event will take place on February 24 from 3:30 - 5:00 pm Eastern. To register for the live event and receive notification of the availability of the recording, see https://bit.ly/2YhmZeC.
Cloud Forum
The February session of the Cornell Cloud Forum will feature Dr. Julia Lane, Professor at the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service whose team was asked by the OMB and the Census Bureau to build a secure environment to inform the decision-making of the Commission on Evidence-Based Policy. The result was The Administrative Data Research Facility, a repository of over 100 confidential data sets, built on AWS. The event opens with a presentation on using Terratest to manage IaC by the cloud team at the University of Colorado.
The Cloud Forum takes place this Friday, February 12 at 12pm ET. Details available at http://blogs.cornell.edu/cloudforum/home/agenda/
Key Product or Feature Updates
Amidst the sea of announcements and updates from AWS Re:Invent this year (I personally hope the new virtual format is here to stay!) there were a few that stick out to me (Oren) as worthy of special mention (for more on Re:Invent 2020, see Kevin Murakoshi’s recap session linked above).
The introduction of container image support for AWS Lambda feels like a fairly fundamental shift in the way Lambda services are deployed and managed. If you’re using Lambda at all, or looking into building serverless apps (and why wouldn’t you be doing that?), you should watch Chris Munn’s talk on YouTube: https://youtu.be/X-1xf-DbCBk
At last! A browser-based Cloud Shell comes to AWS! https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cloudshell/latest/userguide/welcome.html
Understanding ML bias and why ML models make the predictions they do is increasingly important. Sagemaker Clarify is a new service that helps do just that. Here’s a Re:Invent talk on it. https://youtu.be/kJdOxZwiyJo
And if you’ve got departments looking for ways to teach practical applications of ML, the new Sagemaker Jumpstart offers prebuilt models as starting points for exploration of using ML in common scenarios. The initial batch of models include financial fraud detection, demand forecasting, purchase modeling, handwriting recognition, and others. Could be very useful in business schools, econ departments, and beyond. Here’s a blog post about it: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/amazon-sagemaker-jumpstart-simplifies-access-to-prebuilt-models-and-machine-learning-models/
Updates from Internet2
Welcome Bob Flynn
We are pleased to welcome Bob Flynn to the Internet2 team as program manager for Cloud Infrastructure & Platform Services. Bob joins us after 20+ years at Indiana University where in recent years he managed cloud technologies. He has served on the NET+ AWS SAB for several years and chaired the NET+ GCP SAB. Bob is an active leader in the higher ed cloud conversation as an organizer of the Cornell Cloud Forum and serving as co-chair of the Cloud Computing Community Group from 2017-2020. You can reach Bob at bflynn@internet2.edu.
Check out the Latest NET+ Update
Our latest community update includes service news, a recap of virtual events and opportunities to help us plan for 2021. Of particular interest to our NET+ AWS community might be the CloudCheckr Premium service validation. Check it out! Get involved.
Cloud Retention and Storage Working Group: Seeking Additional Participants
Cost-effective storage of video assets has become a hot-button issue as work and teaching were forced to go virtual during the pandemic. This CSTAAC working group is working with NET+ members and service providers to identify and document best practices (in both policy and technical realms) for video storage and to recommend opportunities for concerted community action. If you are interested in participating, please contact Oren Sreebny (osreebny@internet2.edu).
Updates from DLT
DLT & AWS continue to help education institutions of all sizes soar higher and further in the cloud. Cloud computing has been touted as a disruptive technology for years. Nothing has tested those claims more than the COVID-19 Pandemic. Cloud adoption at this scale normally would have taken years has been accelerated to months. Even with a surge of schools opting for in-person learning starting in February many are still continuing to conduct instruction and operations online. Schools are embracing the vast delivery of courses and operational benefits cloud provides. Each month DLT and AWS will be focusing on a specific education-focused cloud solution. DLT along with our strategic partners have aligned to help support schools by region and solution offering. Starting in February here’s a preview of what to expect…
Back-Up & Recover Data Simply and Securely with Storage Solutions from AWS and DLT
Universities have complex data storage and retrieval needs ranging from admissions, distance learning, research, and general operations to human resources. Accidental file deletion, ransomware attacks, or unforeseen events can be both costly and distressing resulting in downtime and lost revenue.
Cloud-based backup and disaster recovery solutions are becoming increasingly popular among educational institutions. Education entities of all sizes are getting away from traditional on-premises backup and recovery solutions due to the large upfront investment in infrastructure and ongoing, specialized maintenance. More schools are now leveraging the flexibility and scalability of the cloud for more efficient, durable, and secure backup storage.
Migrate Windows workloads to AWS
If I asked you which cloud provider had the most experience running Microsoft applications, would you know the answer? You might be surprised. Customers have been running Microsoft Workloads on AWS since 2008 – two years before Microsoft Azure became commercially available.
With Microsoft applications making up 60% or more of most on-premises data centers, more and more schools are moving their Microsoft workloads to AWS to improve performance, increase availability, and improve their security posture. AWS offers the ideal infrastructure for Windows. Migrate to AWS with DLT to secure your Windows workloads.