Hi all,
When AWS introduces a new service, its typically "announced". e.g. https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2021/
Some services are released "in preview" and restricted to certain geographic regions and they gradually expand to "all" regions AWS cannot promise to meet SLAs for these "preview" services.
e,g. https://us-east-2.console.aws.amazon.com/rds-preview/
Has anyone come across a whitepaper on the the life-cycle of an AWS service?
Some background:
In the company I work for – (AWS is used as the public cloud provider); I am trying to establish some governance around the use/adaptation of AWS services. i.e. before an AWS service can be chosen (to be eventially used in Production environment), I want to put some level of due-diligence (i.e. a standard list of questionnaire) that will force the user to put in the right level of controls in place when using that service.
A simple example – for S3 – if the type of data is "sensitive" then – that will decide the type of encryption used.
(lets not debate on the definition of "sensitive" for this discussion).
Before I can put this governance in place, I need to understand the life-cycle of a service. Has any one done this in your role?
regards,
Deepak.
1 Answers
Hey Deepak,
What a great thought. Like Carlos mentioned in the comments I don’t think there is a strict flow that AWS follows. Perhaps it would hinder their agility. I would say avoid the following, which are mentioned in their Service Terms. e.g. “beta”, “preview”, “pre-release”, or “experimental”. These types of services will change rapidly and are not protected by SLA.
https://aws.amazon.com/service-terms/
The AWS exams typically wait until a service has been GA for at least 6 months before they start adding it to their exams. Perhaps that’s a good indicator to do the same.
"A new product, service, or feature must be generally available (GA) for 6 months prior to it appearing on a certification exam. Note that this applies only to certification exams, not training: training will cover new services and features more quickly. The AWS Certification team wants to ensure candidates have enough time to work with new services and features before they are assessed against the new material."
https://aws.amazon.com/certification/faqs/
I think the 6 month period will also be sufficient time of the community to work with new services. The AWS community is a great one and when a new service is released it may not have the same level of resources available such as tutorials, walkthroughts, metrics, etc. Most seasoned services will have these to get you going fast.
Hope this helps you!
I have not see anything that relates to your inquiry. It is a great idea to define what can be used. Would be interested in seeing what you put together. I would probably keep it simple as I don’t think AWS follows a set method that they make public. But I would think that if the service is not officially released it can’t be used in production. At our company we state that if the service is not on our list of services approved for use, then the developer must submit a request to put it on the list with a reason as to why and why an approved service does not meet the needs (if there is one).
Thanks Carlos, do you also track EOL for a AWS service at your company, if yes, how? I checked with AWS support and was told that there is nothing out-of-the-box for this.