Cross-region OpenSearch and new Amazon EC2 instances

We're back with another round-up of AWS This Week, where we process the goings-on of the last week to bring you only the finest in AWS news! This week, we’ll be covering the new AWS cost allocation tag API, Amazon OpenSearch cross-regional searches, the new R6id EC2 instance type, and some upcoming AWS events. Ready for all the details? Keep on reading.

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Cost allocation tags are a super important part of managing our costs in AWS, especially in large enterprises where we need to apportion the costs of resources to individual departments, often at enormous scales. But what doesn’t scale quite so well is managing those cost allocation tags. Well, perhaps that is about to change because AWS Cost Allocation Tags can now be activated and deactivated using the AWS API. 

After you’ve decided on the tags you want to use, up until now, you’ve had to log in to the AWS Management Console and activate each of the tags in the Billing Console. With multiple AWS Accounts, you may have needed to perform this several times. With this announcement, AWS has made it possible to manage your cost allocation tags through the AWS API, including the various SDKs and the Command Line. 

If you’re managing a large AWS environment with complex cost allocations, this gives you a lot of opportunities to better manage those tags and remove some of those headaches, with this feature now being available across all regions. 

Amazon OpenSearch now supports cross-region searches. OpenSearch has previously supported the ability to search across domains within the same region, but this comes with some limitations in practice. Many companies will deploy their resources, including OpenSearch clusters, across the different regions to meet architectural requirements, such as data sovereignty. This new feature enables cross-cluster searching for both OpenSearch and version of ElasticSearch after 7.10.

Now beyond the version restrictions, there are a couple of limitations to be aware of. Most notably, you can’t mix-and-match domains running on OpenSearch and ElasticSearch, and you can’t connect to any self-managed clusters due to how the feature operates. There are some more limitations to be aware of, but they’re well-covered in the AWS Documentation. 

If you’re using OpenSearch in your organization, especially across regions, it just might make your life a bit easier. 

A new family of EC2 instances has entered general availability with the new memory-optimized R6id instances. 

Running the same Intel Xeon processors as the rest of the R6i family, the new R6id also includes a huge amount of local NVMe SSD Instance Storage. Compared with the previous R5d series, you are paying about 5% more for on-demand, but with a substantial boost in relative instance storage and performance both for the networking interface and EBS storage. 

It’s fair to call out that the R6gd instance family, powered by AWS’s own Arm-based Graviton2 processors, is still available and has up to 24% lower on-demand costs than their new intel Xeon-powered R6id counterparts. However, to do this, your workloads would need to be able to run on an Arm-based processor, and for this reason, you may be better using these new R6id instances with their x86-64 architecture. 

So, if you’re pushing the limits of instance storage in your current configuration, this may help you scale more effectively. The R6id’s are currently available in the North Virginia (us-east1), Ohio (us-east-2), Oregon (us-west-2), and Ireland (eu-west-1) regions, with more regions to follow. 

AWS is hosting a number of events over the next few weeks, kicking off this week with Amazon re:MARS. 

re:MARS is a conference in Las Vegas, bringing together many of the biggest minds in machine learning, automation, robotics, and space technologies (get it? M-A-R-S!). Sessions cover everything from using AI for clinical medicine, managing fleets of autonomous vehicles, and measuring carbon emissions using satellites and machine learning, and attendees are in for an absolute treat. If you’re interested, you can also watch the keynote talks online through the free live stream. 

Beyond this, AWS Summits are also kicking off this week in Milan and Toronto, continuing to circle around the globe. These are great opportunities to connect with your local tech community and spend the day immersed in learning more about AWS. Head to the AWS events page for a full list of dates and locations.

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