AWS in Switzerland and Austria (Alps)
Q3 2023 News About AWS Europe (Zurich) Region
Following the blog post from June where we provided an update on the first half of the year, we are now offering another update on the latest developments in the AWS Europe (Zurich) Region. In this post, we will discuss newly launched services and significant features, instance types in the region, SaaS offerings available on AWS Marketplace, and private connectivity via VPC Endpoints.
Additional Services, Features, and Instance Types
At present, the AWS Europe (Zurich) region offers a selection of 129 services (up from 58 services when the region launched in November 2022) and provides a choice of 171 instance types for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). Additionally, Amazon RDS offers 11 database engines with a total of 198 versions, ranging from the most popular commercial offerings to Amazon’s own offering, Amazon Aurora, as well as open-source-based products like MySQL, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL. Notably, we have introduced the following services and meaningful features since the last update in June 2023.
| Service / Feature / Instance Type | Description |
| Amazon Athena | Analyze data where it lives – on S3, on premises, or on other clouds |
| Amazon CloudWatch Application Insights | Observability for your applications and underlying AWS resources |
| Amazon CloudWatch Internet Monitor | Uncovering Internet Impact on your AWS Application Performance and Availability |
| Amazon EC2 C6in instances | Network optimized instances which offer up to 200 Gbps network bandwidth as well as Intel Total Memory Encryption (TME). |
| Amazon EC2 I4i instances | Instances for databases where low latency local NVMe storage is needed. |
| Amazon EC2 Instance Connect | SSH to your Instances without exposing a port publicly and manage SSH keys |
| Amazon EC2 M6i and R6i instances | Instances with all-core turbo frequency of 3.5 GHz and support for memory encryption using Intel Total Memory Encryption (TME). |
| Amazon EC2 T4g instances | Low cost burstable general purpose instance based on AWS Graviton2 processors |
| Amazon Inspector | Detect software vulnerabilities and unintended network exposure in near real time in AWS workloads |
| Amazon RDS supports M6g and R6g database instances | AWS Graviton2-based Instances for Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL, MySQL, and MariaDB |
| Amazon RDS supports T4g database instances | AWS Graviton2-based Instances for Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL, MySQL, and MariaDB |
| Amazon VPC IP Address Manager | Plan, track, and monitor IP addresses for your AWS workloads. |
| AWS Backup expands cross-account backup | Additional layer of protection should the source account experience disruption from accidental or malicious deletion such as ransomware |
| AWS Backup for Amazon FSx NetApp ONTAP, Windows File Server, and Lustre | Extended covered Services by AWS Backup |
| AWS Backup Storage | Storage service for AWS Backup to provide deduplication of shared chunks, tiering as well as replication. |
| AWS Backup support for Amazon S3 | Automate data protection of Amazon S3 |
| AWS CodePipeline now supports GitLab | Use your GitLab.com source repository to build, test, and deploy code changes using AWS CodePipeline |
| AWS Control Tower | Set up and govern a secure, multi-account AWS environment |
| AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (DRS) | Scalable, cost-effective application recovery to AWS |
| AWS EventBridge Schemas | OpenAPI schemas for events on EventBridge |
| AWS Events Pipes | Integrate event producers and consumers in a simpler and consistent way |
| AWS Global Accelerator | Improve application availability, performance, and security using the AWS global network |
| AWS IAM Identity Center | Centrally manage workforce access to multiple AWS accounts and applications |
| AWS Identity Store | Identity store used by AWS IAM Identity Center (successor to AWS Single Sign-On) |
| AWS Lambda Functions powered by AWS Graviton2 | Lambda Functions running on AWS Graviton |
| AWS Network Firewall | Deploy network firewall security across your VPCs |
| AWS Service Catalog App Registry | Create and manage application metadata in one location |
| AWS Single Sign-On (SSO) OpenID Connect Service | Establish trust between your AWS account and Identity Provider based on OpenID |
| Bring Your Own IP (BYOIP) | Bring your publicly routable IPv4 or IPv6 address range to your AWS account |
| Amazon DynamoDB Global Tables | Fully managed, serverless, multi-Region, and multi-active database |
| Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS (ROSA) | Managed OpenShift integration in the cloud |
| VMware Cloud on AWS | The Fastest, Safest Path for all your VMware Workloads |
Marketplace and Independent Software Vendors
Customers utilize AWS Marketplace to swiftly deploy pre-configured software from third-party vendors. The entire procurement and billing process is streamlined through a single source, with charges seamlessly integrated into the AWS bill. Currently, customers in the AWS Europe (Zurich) region have access to a diverse selection of over 5,400 listings.
Most third-party software vendors are opting to build their Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions on the AWS platform. Noteworthy offerings available in Switzerland include:
- Confluent Kafka
- MongoDB Atlas
- NetApp ONTAP (Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP)
- Red Hat OpenShift (ROSA)
- SAP RISE
- VMware Cloud on AWS
- and more.
Private Connectivity (VPC Endpoints)
Security sensitive customers require private connectivity to AWS services so that traffic does not leave the Amazon network (vs. connecting to public IP addresses over the Internet for API calls). This is enabled by so-called VPC Endpoints (AWS PrivateLink). AWS PrivateLink is also the technology that allows customers to connect privately to 3rd-party SaaS products such as Salesforce, Snowflake, Datadog, Bloomberg and more. The majority of the services offer endpoints in the local Region:
Going forward
Based on customer demand, more services are in the pipeline and will be added over time. Customers can share their interest for local region delivery, request service roadmap information, or gain insight on service interdependency (under NDA) by contacting your AWS sales representative.