Welcome to above the clouds

AWS – Amazon Connect agent workspace supports third-party applications in general availability
The Amazon Connect agent workspace now supports third-party applications in general availability. Agents can use Amazon Connect’s native agent applications (Q in Connect, Cases, Customer Profiles, and Step-by-step Guides) alongside internal or custom-built agent applications, all within a unified agent workspace. For example, when the customer calls about an order, the agent workspace can automatically […]

GCP – Strengthening Federal Cybersecurity: CISA, Zero Trust, and Google Workspace: Exclusive Sessions at Next ‘24
The Federal IT landscape is undergoing a rapid shift toward stronger cybersecurity, driven by CISA’s Zero Trust Maturity Model v2.0. This model offers a roadmap for federal agencies to boost their cyber posture. For government agencies, selecting the right tools to navigate this transformation is paramount. Google Workspace enters the picture with its robust security […]

AWS – Amazon MSK Connect now supports deleting worker configurations and tagging resources
Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka Connect (Amazon MSK Connect) now supports the ability to delete MSK Connect worker configurations, tag resources, and manage worker configurations and custom plugins using AWS CloudFormation. Amazon MSK Connect is a fully managed service for Apache Kafka Connect. With a few clicks, MSK Connect allows you to easily deploy […]

GCP – Choosing a suitable database for your startup: An overview of AlloyDB and Spanner
In today’s fast-paced business environment, startups need to leverage the power of the cloud to achieve scale, performance, and consistency for their apps. Google Cloud provides three popular cloud databases that enable reliable PostgreSQL: Spanner, AlloyDB and Cloud SQL. In this article, we will explore the features and benefits of these databases, focusing on AlloyDB […]

GCP – At least once Streaming: Save up to 70% for Streaming ETL workloads
Historically, Dataflow Streaming Engine has offered exactly-once processing for streaming jobs. Recently, we launched at-least-once streaming mode as an alternative for lower latency and cost-of-streaming data ingestion. In this post, we will explain both streaming modes and provide guidance on how to choose the right mode for your streaming use case. Exactly-once: what it is […]

GCP – Take control of GKE scaling with new quota monitoring
Managing the growth of your Kubernetes clusters within Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) just got easier. We’ve recently introduced the ability to directly monitor and set alerts for crucial scalability limits, providing you with deeper insight and control over your Kubernetes environment. Effective scalability management is essential for avoiding outages and optimizing resource usage in Kubernetes. […]

GCP – Unlock cloud savings with new Looker Studio Dashboard and Terraform scripts
Cloud spending can be a big concern for financial operations (FinOps) teams. Google Cloud’s Active Assist tooling can help, generating cost savings recommendations for optimizing Google Cloud resources. Then there are tools like Recommendation Hub and FinOps Hub, which offer consolidated views into recommendations for project owners and billing administrators. These tools are a big […]

GCP – Rocky Linux 8 and CentOS 7 versions of HPC VM image now generally available
Today we’re excited to announce the general availability of Rocky Linux 8-based and CentOS 7-based HPC Virtual Machine (VM) images for high-performance computing (HPC) workloads, with a focus on tightly-coupled workloads, such as weather forecasting, fluid dynamics, and molecular modeling. With the HPC VM image, we have made it easy to build an HPC-ready VM […]

GCP – Introducing Cloud Run volume mounts: connect your app to Cloud Storage or NFS
We’ve built Cloud Run, a fully managed container platform, directly on top of Google’s scalable infrastructure to simplify developers’ lives and make it easier to build cloud-native applications. As it stands, each Cloud Run instance has access to its own local file system. But what if you have an existing application that expects to access […]
GCP – Using GKE and applying DevOps principles for scientific research at Stanford
Editor’s note: Stanford University Assistant Professor Paul Nuyujukian and his team at the Brain Inferencing Laboratory explore motor systems neuroscience and neuroengineering applications as part of an effort to create brain-machine interfaces for medical conditions such as stroke and epilepsy. This blog explores how the team is using Google Cloud data storage, computing and analytics […]