AWS ASEAN Devs/Communities — June 2023

?? Welcome to another episode of AWS ASEAN Devs/Communities newsletter. This newsletter, showcases my personal highlights, latest content and a rundown of what's been going on around AWS technologies and community activities.

Hello builders,

June is an interesting month. For other parts of the world, summer starts this month. But, for ASEAN, June is the beginning of the anticipated season, the Durian season.

Whether you are a durian fan or not, don't let it distract you from exciting highlights from developers and communities in ASEAN.

Let's buckle up!

?? My Personal Highlights

Presenting Amazon CodeWhisperer at AWS Summit ASEAN Online keynote

My personal highlight for June was presenting at AWS Summit ASEAN Online keynote! I had a wonderful opportunity (thanks Serena Seah !), to present alongside Joel H. Garcia , Head of Technology ASEAN at AWS.?

Here's a screenshot when I was discussing with Joel on how Amazon CodeWhisperer improves my development productivity:

In short, I presented how Gen AI can improve developer productivity and velocity by using Amazon CodeWhisperer. Short intro about CodeWhisperer, it's a remarkable service that helps you to generate code recommendations. Here's what I presented.

• Code Generation: With Amazon CodeWhisperer, now I don't need to go back and forth to my browser and code snippets to code. I can just use CodeWhisperer and focus on my codes. Everything is on my IDE!

• Reference Tracker: Occasionally, I need to understand the context of how the generated codes are used in another project. I can use the reference tracker (for some codes), to jump into the referenced project from CodeWhisperer.

• IDE Supports and Multiple Languages: I use different tools depending on what my mood is. Sometimes, I use PyCharm for building Python apps, IntelliJ IDEA if I need to build Java apps, and VSCode for anything else. Lucky for me, CodeWhisperer supports different languages and IDEs.?

• Security Scanning: I always believe code will become liability at some point. The more codes that I wrote, the more potential risks it presented. This is why security scan features from CodeWhisperer is a gem. I can have more confidence that my codes will (less likely) produce security issues when I run them in production.

• Integration with Amazon CodeGuru: Taking it further, by combining CodeWhisperer and Amazon CodeGuru, I now have a full report on how I can improve my codes. I can also use the CodeGuru CLI, so I don't need to switch off from my IDE.?

?? New Content Available for You!

In the last newsletter, I mentioned Content Request. This is a new initiative to capture your requests on what kind of content you'd like us to create.

First one first, we received a request from an anonymous based in Thailand. The request was about how to get started with DevOps on AWS. While DevOps is a vast topic, I recommend you to start with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and CI/CD.

This content, titled: "Infrastructure as Code and CI/CD in Practice with AWS CDK" will help you how to get started with two main pillars in DevOps, IaC and CI/CD.

Here’s the presentation deck that I’ve created. Download it here.

In case you want to submit your requests, just head over to?https://go.awscommunity.dev/request?and fill out the form.

?? AWS Launches

As always, here's the list of AWS launches that caught my attention this month:

• New Hands-on Course: Generative AI with LLM — In this post, Antje Barth announced a new course titled “Generative AI with LLM”. DeepLearning.ai and AWS partnered up and built a hands-on course to prepare data scientists and engineers to become experts in selecting, training, fine-tuning, and deploying LLMs for real-world applications. So, if you are on your journey to learn Gen-AI, join this course!
• GA —?Amazon Verified Permissions —? Danilo Poccia wrote a comprehensive post on how you can use Amazon Verified Permissions. With this, you can centralize permissions in a policy store (using CEDAR) and use those permissions to authorize user actions within your applications.
• New —?AWS Payment Cryptography —?If you're working on securing payment processing using HSM for your users, then you might be interested in using AWS Payment Cryptography. AWS Payment Cryptography is an elastic service that manages payment HSMs and keys for payment processing applications in the cloud. Definitely read this post by Danilo Poccia .
• New — AWS AppFabric —?So, I wrote this post. Imagine that you're managing operations to monitor external SaaS usage data by your employees. It's really tough to be able to identify and address security threats. You can use AWS AppFabric to integrate with leading SaaS applications, aggregates and normalizes all security event logs into your Amazon S3 and Amazon Kinesis.
• AWS DMS Serverless — Back in 2016, before I joined AWS, I used AWS Database Migration Service quite frequent. With DMS, I can easily migrate or perform continuous replication for my databases into AWS. Now it comes with a serverless option. No more guesswork for capacity planning.

?? AWS Community Updates

AWS Summit ASEAN Online - Community Track

After the AWS Summit ASEAN in-person event last month, in May, we continued with AWS Summit ASEAN Online on June 6. Special on this event was the Community Track, featuring AWS Heroes, Community Builders, and User Group Leaders across ASEAN.

In short, I'm so proud of them. They delivered top-notch sessions from their real-life experience working with AWS technologies. Here's our amazing speakers at Community Track:

• DBS Bank: Building a secure & scalable multi-AWS account environment —? Badri Kesavan (AWS Community Builder/AWS User Group Singapore)
• Practical security strategies for serverless applications —? Joshua Arvin Lat (AWS Machine Learning Hero/AWS User Group Philippines)
• The art of designing reliable systems —? Mouhannad Al-Ama (AWS User Group Malaysia)
• Practical cost-saving automation for AWS accounts —? Vit Niennattrakul (AWS Community Hero/AWS User Group Thailand) and Kanin Chotvorrarak (AWS User Group Thailand)
• Run event-driven workflows with Amazon EKS Blueprints, Keda & Karpenter —? Vu Dao (AWS Community Builder/AWS User Group Vietnam)
• Easily implement infrastructure as code & CI/CD for your apps —? Nova Lailatul Rizkiyah (AWS Community Builder/AWS User Group Indonesia)
• Observability, reliability & security with service mesh: Istio on Amazon EKS —? Ananda Dwi Rahmawati (AWS Community Hero/AWS User Group Indonesia)
• Implementing Observability using AWS Distro for Open Telemetry —?Dwi Fahni Denni (AWS Community Builder/AWS User Group Indonesia)

You can catch their on-demand videos by visiting?AWS Summit Online ASEAN 2023 | Community Track?page. Again, thank you everyone for your support!

Pop Quiz is happening in AWS User Group Indonesia

Everyone like quizzes, especially if it comes with interesting prizes. AWS Heroes in Indonesia, (Setia Budi, Albert, and Ananda), they're running a weekly pop quiz covering Amazon EC2, Amazon S3 and AWS Global Infrastructure. So far, there are 3 winners. Who knows, you're probably next? Join the Telegram group of AWS User Group Indonesia, here!

?? Upcoming Events

Next month will be amazing. Why? We’re going to have AWS Community Days in Malaysia and the Philippines! Here are the details:

• AWS Community Day, Malaysia, July 22, 2023. Reach out to Kaushik Mohanraj in case you need more info.
• AWS Community Day, Philippines, July 29-30, 2023. Rafi is your go to person!

All the best for Nasi Lemak team and Tapsilog team! You'll rock it. And for all of you, come and join us!

?? Content Request

Just another reminder, that you can now request the kind of content you want me to create.

Just head over to?https://go.awscommunity.dev/request?and fill out the form.

If your request gets selected, I'll be sure to reach out to you. So, don't hesitate to let me know what you're interested in!

That's a wrap!

Let me know your feedback and if there's anything specific you'd like to see in the next edition.

See you next month????!

— D