A few weeks back, we took a look at the highly anticipated AWS Melbourne region, the 31st region to be introduced worldwide. We noted at the time there were 48 services live in Melbourne, in contrast to the robust selection of 205 services already established in the Sydney region.
With Melbourne steadily maturing as a formidable technological hub, more AWS services have surged into operation, bolstering the region’s offerings and providing businesses and developers with even more tools to unleash their full potential.
So what’s changed since the last time we looked at the Melbourne region? Which services have since come online? Let’s find out.
AWS Backup
A benefit of now having a second on-shore AWS region in Australia is it opens up opportunities for improved local data residency, so we’re pleased to say that AWS Backup is now online in Melbourne.
AWS Backup is a fully managed backup service that simplifies the process of protecting and recovering data across various AWS services and on-premises environments. It allows users to centrally manage and automate backup tasks, eliminating the need for manual setup and maintenance of backup infrastructure. AWS Backup supports a wide range of AWS services, including Amazon EBS volumes, Amazon RDS databases, Amazon DynamoDB tables, and more, providing a comprehensive solution for data protection. By utilising AWS Backup, users can efficiently create backup plans, define retention policies, and easily restore data, ensuring business continuity and reducing the risk of data loss.
AWS GuardDuty
AWS GuardDuty is a robust threat detection service that helps protect AWS resources and workloads from potential security threats. Leveraging advanced machine learning algorithms and extensive threat intelligence, GuardDuty continuously analyses various data sources such as VPC flow logs, DNS logs, and AWS CloudTrail event logs to identify suspicious activities, unauthorised access, and potential security breaches. It provides real-time alerts and actionable findings, empowering users to quickly respond to and mitigate security incidents, enhancing the overall security posture of their AWS environments with minimal setup requirements and cost-effective scalability.
AWS Security Hub
AWS Security Hub is a comprehensive security service that helps users centrally manage and gain insights into their security posture across their AWS accounts. By aggregating, organising, and prioritising security findings from various AWS services, third-party tools, and custom checks, Security Hub enables businesses to identify and remediate security vulnerabilities, monitor compliance with industry standards, and streamline security operations, ultimately enhancing the overall security and compliance of their AWS environments.
With security being such a hot topic in Australia over the past few months, it’s great to see AWS prioritising such services. Many organisations will be attracted to the growing presence of security services in the region, making this a step in the right direction.
AWS Shield Advanced
AWS Shield Advanced is an advanced Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection service that provides comprehensive protection against even the most sophisticated and large-scale DDoS attacks. With Shield Advanced, businesses can safeguard their applications and services running on AWS from volumetric, state-exhaustion, and application-layer DDoS attacks, benefiting from real-time attack mitigation, intelligent threat intelligence, and automatic protection scaling. This service offers enhanced visibility and controls, enabling organisations to proactively detect and respond to DDoS threats, ensuring high availability and minimising downtime for their critical workloads.
AWS RAM
AWS RAM (Resource Access Manager) simplifies resource sharing across multiple AWS accounts within an organisation. It allows users to securely share AWS resources such as Amazon VPC subnets, AWS Transit Gateways, and Amazon Aurora database clusters without the need for resource duplication or complex permission setups. With AWS RAM, organisations can easily collaborate and share resources while maintaining granular control over access permissions. It provides a centralised and scalable solution for resource sharing, streamlining workflows, improving resource utilisation, and ensuring consistent security and compliance across accounts.
AWS Service Catalog
AWS Service Catalog enables organisations to create and manage catalogs of approved IT services and resources for their users. It allows administrators to define a selection of pre-configured products, such as virtual machine images, software applications, and databases, which can be easily and securely deployed by authorised users within the organisation. With AWS Service Catalog, administrators can enforce governance and compliance policies, while providing self-service capabilities to users, reducing the time and effort required for provisioning resources and promoting standardised practices across the organisation.
Service Catalog is a main dependency of AWS Control Tower, a service for governing multi-account environments. While Control Tower is not yet available in the Melbourne region, this is a positive sign that it’s likely to be available soon.
AWS DataSync
AWS DataSync is a fully managed data transfer service that simplifies and accelerates moving large amounts of data between on-premises and AWS storage services. It supports a variety of use cases such as data migration, data protection, and data synchronisation, providing a secure and efficient solution. DataSync leverages advanced network optimisation techniques to transfer data quickly and efficiently, even over long distances or challenging network conditions. With built-in encryption and data validation mechanisms, DataSync ensures the security and integrity of data throughout the transfer process. By simplifying data movement, AWS DataSync enables organisations to leverage the scalability and durability of AWS storage services while minimising complexity and reducing transfer times.
AWS CodeBuild
AWS CodeBuild is a fully managed continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) service that simplifies the process of building, testing, and deploying applications. It automates the building and packaging of code, allowing developers to focus on writing quality software. CodeBuild scales automatically to accommodate varying workloads, providing fast and reliable builds. With support for a wide range of programming languages and seamless integration with other AWS services, CodeBuild enables developers to streamline their CI/CD pipelines, accelerate software delivery, and ensure consistent and efficient application deployments.
The road ahead…
These are just a few of the services which have come online since our last post. In just a few short weeks, the number of services offered in Melbourne has grown significantly from 48 to an impressive total of 76. This rapid expansion is a testament to AWS’s commitment to continually enhance the region’s offerings, ensuring that businesses and developers have a diverse array of tools at their disposal to drive innovation and achieve their goals.
While it’s true that Sydney, as the well-established incumbent region, has an impressive portfolio of 205 services, Melbourne is quickly gaining ground as a compelling alternative. With numerous popular services already live and ready to be utilised, the AWS Melbourne region is rapidly emerging as a viable option for a wide range of workloads and use cases.
To stay up-to-date with the latest developments in the AWS Melbourne region, we encourage you to continue following this blog. Our dedicated team of AWS consultants will continue to provide timely updates, ensuring that you are well-informed about the newest services, features, and advancements in this rapidly growing region.
