2016

CloudWatch announced the extension of metric retention from 14 days to 15 months, free of charge. CloudWatch has already stored at least 2 months of all existing metrics, which customers can begin using immediately to analyze seasonality, monthly trends and in the future, year-over-year comparisons and forecasts.

We’re excited to announce new features to the growing portfolio of Amazon S3 Storage Management capabilities to help you better analyze and manage your storage. Today’s release includes:

We are reducing the base price of CloudWatch Metrics from 3.11 CNY per metric per month to 2.00 CNY per metric per month, a 36% reduction in price. In addition, we are introducing new volume-based tiered pricing with even lower prices per metric, with savings up to 96%. These take effect in Amazon Web Services China (BJS) region, operated by Sinnet, beginning December 1st, 2016.

We happily announce that an EC2 price reduction will go in to effect on December 1, 2016, just in time to make your holiday season just a little bit more cheerful! Our engineering investments, coupled with our scale and our time-tested ability to manage our capacity, allow us to identify and pass on the cost savings to you.

We are reducing prices for C4, M4, and T2 instances, depending on platform (Linux, RHEL, SUSE, Windows, and so forth). Price cuts apply across all Amazon Web Services Regions. For example:

• Amazon Web Services China (BJS) region, operated by SINNET, reduces the price of M4 and T2 instances up to 10%, and C4 instances up to 5%.
  

As always, you do not need to take any action in order to benefit from the reduction in On-Demand prices. If you are using billing alerts or our newly revised budget feature, you may want to consider revising your thresholds downward as appropriate.

Amazon Web Services China (BJS) region operated by SINNET

 

You can now launch R4 instances, the next generation of Amazon EC2 Memory Optimized instances, featuring a larger instance size, a new Intel Broadwell processor, improved networking and EBS performance, and cheaper on per GiB of RAM compared to R3 instances. R4 instances are well-suited for memory-intensive, latency-sensitive workloads like Business Intelligence (BI), data mining & analysis, in-memory databases, distributed web scale in-memory caching, and applications performing real-time processing of unstructured big data.

You can now launch the t2.xlarge and t2.2xlarge, the newest Amazon EC2 burstable-performance instances. The t2.xlarge features 16 GiB of memory and 4 vCPU, and the t2.2xlarge features 32 GiB of memory and 8 vCPU. These two new instances provide burstable-performance options for larger workloads. As with other T2 instances, t2.xlarge and t2.2xlarge are well suited for workloads that require a consistent baseline performance with the ability to burst. T2 instances are backed by Intel Xeon processors with clock speeds up to 3.3 GHz.

You can now use RIs that apply discounts regionally and purchase Convertible RIs in the Amazon Web Services China (Beijing) region.

The Amazon CloudWatch Events service is now available in the China (Beijing) region.

You can now launch D2 instances, the latest generation of Amazon EC2 Dense-storage instances. D2 instances are designed for workloads that require high sequential read and write access to very large data sets, such as Hadoop distributed computing, massively parallel processing data warehousing, and log processing applications.

Amazon Config is now available in the China (Beijing) region. Amazon Config is a fully managed service that gives you an inventory of your Amazon Web Services resources, notifies you when the configurations of your resources change, and lets you audit the history of the configurations for those resources to enable security and governance.

We are excited to announce the availability of the m4.16xlarge, the largest instance size in the latest generation of EC2 General Purpose instances, featuring 64 vCPUs and 256 GiB of memory. The m4.16xlarge offers a balance of compute, memory, and network resources, and is a good choice for many applications including databases, data processing tasks, cluster computing, and web servers that require high computational horsepower or memory size.

Amazon Connect Technology Services (Beijing) Co. Ltd. (“Amazon”) and Beijing Sinnet Technology Co. Ltd. (“Sinnet”) are announcing a broader operating relationship. This new partnership is specifically designed for the Beijing Region and represents a further example of Amazon Web Services commitment to making our best-in-class cloud service available to customers wishing to run workloads from datacenters in China. Beginning 1 August, Amazon Web Services Cloud services in the Beijing Region will be operated and provided by Sinnet. Amazon Web Services will continue to provide technology, guidance, and expertise to Sinnet. Please note that there will be no price changes as part of this transition, nor will there be changes to the Amazon Web Services Cloud services experience. Additionally, customers of the Amazon Web Services Beijing region can expect a simplified billing process.

Questions and Answers

1. Q: Why is Amazon Web Services broadening the operating relationship with Sinnet?

A: Chinese telecom regulations for operators of cloud services continue to evolve. By partnering with Sinnet, Amazon Web Services is able to make its Beijing Region cloud services available to customers in a way that complies with these regulations, while still offering the same best-in-class standards offered in other Amazon Web Services Regions. At the same time, we are simplifying elements of our billing and fapiao processes.

2. Q: Is this model compliant with applicable telecom regulations?

A: Yes, the new operating model is compliant with all current applicable telecom regulations.

3. Q: What is the operating relationship with Sinnet?

A: Beginning 1 August, Amazon Web Services Cloud services from the Beijing Region will be operated and provided by Sinnet, with Amazon Web Services continuing to provide technology, guidance, and expertise to Sinnet. This new operating model will apply to all existing customers and new customers running in the Beijing Region. Under the new operating model, Sinnet will enter into the customer agreement with customers, issue bills and fapiaos, and receive payment for Amazon Web Services services.

4. Q: Sinnet was already an important partner of Amazon Web Services in China. How is this new model different from the earlier one?

A: In the earlier model, Sinnet was Amazon Web Services IDC partner in Beijing, which meant that they provided Amazon Web Services customers IDC services, as well as billed for those services. Amazon Web Services provided and billed for IT and software services. In the new model, Sinnet will provide and bill for both IDC and Amazon Web Services IT and software services. Additionally, Sinnet will enter into customer agreements with users of the Beijing Region and offer customer support via the Amazon Web Services console and other channels.

5. Q: Will service prices be changing as a result of this adjustment to the operating model?

A: No, there will be no service pricing adjustments as a result of this change.

6. Q: How will customer’s bills change and when will that change occur?

A: Beginning with the August billing cycle (which customers will see in September), customers will no longer see the billing lines “Sinnet Services – IDC” and “Sinnet Services – ISP” and related VAT for each itemized service charge. Instead, customers will see two lines per itemized service charge, one from Sinnet for the service charge and another for the VAT. Customers will also see a new logo on the bill (“Amazon Web Services operated by Sinnet”) and references to “Amazon Web Services” replaced by “Sinnet.” There will also be new payment remittance instructions, reflecting a new PayEase bank account.

7. Q: How many fapiaos will customers receive, and who issues them?

A: Under the new operating model, customers will receive only one fapiao, issued by Sinnet.

8. Q: Will my customer agreement change, as a result of this adjustment to the operating model?

A: Sinnet will be the counterparty to all customer agreements as of 1 August, 2016, and not Amazon Web Services. The customer agreement will also be modified to reflect recent regulatory developments. However, the terms and conditions of the agreement will otherwise be substantially similar.

Amazon Web Services, Inc. (Amazon Web Services), in collaboration with Beijing Sinnet Technology Co. Ltd. (“Sinnet”), announced that the Amazon Web Services China (Beijing) Region is generally available to customers from datacenters in China that are being operated by Sinnet. Through this collaboration, Amazon Web Services provides technology, guidance, and expertise to Sinnet while Sinnet operates and delivers Amazon Web Services Cloud services. Specifically designed for the Amazon Web Services Beijing Region, this expanded partnership with Sinnet, which commenced on Aug. 1, 2016, represents Amazon Web Services commitment to bring best-in-class cloud services to customers looking to run workloads from datacenters in China. Developers, start-ups, enterprises, government organizations, and non-profits based in China or internationally can leverage the Amazon Web Services China (Beijing) Region to run their technology applications from infrastructure in China, based on the same technology as Amazon Web Services global service and operated locally by Sinnet.

Users can sign up to start using the Amazon Web Services Beijing Region at: http://www.amazonaws.cn/en/sign-up

In January, Amazon Web Services announced that longer IDs for EBS volumes and snapshots would be available in April. Starting today, you can opt in to using longer volume and snapshot IDs for EBS and Storage Gateway using APIs or the Amazon Web Services Management Console.  

We are excited to announce that Amazon Redshift is now available in the Amazon Web Services China (Beijing) Region.

Amazon Redshift is a fast, fully managed, petabyte-scale data warehouse that makes it simple and cost-effective to analyze all of your data using your existing business intelligence tools for less than a tenth the cost of traditional data warehousing solutions.

As a managed database service, Amazon RDS takes care of the more routine aspects of setting up, running, and scaling a relational database. We first launched support for SQL Server in 2012. Continuing our effort to add features that have included SSL support, major version upgrades, transparent data encryption, enhanced monitoring and Multi-AZ, we have now added support for SQL Server native backup/restore.

SQL Server native backups include all database objects: tables, indexes, stored procedures and triggers. These backups are commonly used to migrate databases between different SQL Server instances running on-premises or in the cloud. They can be used for data ingestion, disaster recovery, and so forth. The native backups also simplify the process of importing data and schemas from on-premises SQL Server instances, and will be easy for SQL Server DBAs to understand and use.

To learn more please visit Amazon Web Services Blog China

We are happy to announce the immediate availability of Amazon CloudWatch Logs in the Amazon Web Services China (Beijing) region.

With CloudWatch Logs, you can monitor and troubleshoot your systems and applications using log data from other Amazon Web Services services along with your own system, application, and custom log files. Logs are streamed in near real-time to highly durable, low-cost storage. In the Amazon CloudWatch Console, you can view and search your logs plus configure metrics extraction for specific phrases, values or patterns in your log data.

To learn more about how CloudWatch Logs can help you better understand and operate your systems and applications, see the Amazon CloudWatch product details.

Today, Amazon Web Services announced that we are collapsing Amazon S3 price tiers and reducing storage prices across Amazon S3 and Amazon Glacier. We will collapse the number of Amazon S3 price tiers from six to three – 0-50 TB; 50 TB-500 TB; and 500+ TB – making it easier to understand your bill and project future costs. We will also reduce Amazon S3 and Amazon Glacier storage prices by more than 20% in global regions. Together, these changes will help Amazon Web Services customers even further reduce their cost of storage while still enjoying the simplicity, durability, and massive scalability of Amazon’s object storage services.
The price adjustment for storage products in Amazon Web Services China (BJS) Region, operated by SINNET, is as below:
Glacier – 0.0334 RMB/GB/MONTH 55% reduction

Amazon Web Services customers will see the effect of these prices in their billing effective December 1, 2016.

In addition to the S3 and Glacier storage price reductions, Glacier is enabling data to be retrieved in minutes, is offering an ultra-low-cost retrieval option, and is replacing the rate-based retrieval pricing with flat per-GB pricing.

New retrieval options
Customers now have three options for retrieving data from Glacier: Expedited, Standard, and Bulk.
• Standard: Customers can access any of their archives within within 3 – 5 hours. This the existing option and is the default option for unspecified requests.
• Expedited: Customers can now quickly access their data when occasional urgent requests for a subset of archives are required. For all but the largest archives (250MB+),data accessed using Expedited retrievals are typically made available within 1 – 5 minutes. There are two types of Expedited retrievals: On-Demand and Provisioned. On-Demand requests are like EC2 On-Demand instances and are available the vast majority of the time. Provisioned requests are guaranteed to be available when you need them (but require the purchase of provisioned capacity for a nominal monthly fee).
• Bulk: Bulk retrievals are Glacier’s lowest-cost retrieval option, enabling customers to retrieve large amounts, even petabytes, of data inexpensively in a day. Bulk retrievals typically complete within 5 – 12 hours.

These retrieval options are effective now.