Amazon has announced several new cloud services during their AWS Summit as well as some new features on existing cloud services.

Today’s AWS Summit Keynote included announcements for four new cloud services; Amazon EFS (Elastic File System), Amazon Machine Learning, AWS Marketplace for Desktop Apps, and Amazon Workspaces Application Manager.  They also showcased new features for EC2 including general availability of their new EC2 Container service supporting Docker containers as well as new features for AWS Lambda Event service.

The Amazon EFS service is a cloud based file system supporting the NFSv4 protocol and can be used by EC2 instances.  EFS is an SSD based file system that is scaled across multiple zones within an AWS region that can be scaled automatically and managed through the standard AWS Management Console.

The Amazon Machine Learning service allows large amounts of data to be ingested and then performs predictions on that data.  The service supports three types of predictions; binary classifications, multiclass classifications, and regression.

  • Binary classification is used to predict one of two possible outcomes. Is this transaction legitimate, will the customer buy this product, or is the shipping address an apartment complex?

  • Multiclass classification is used to predict one of three or more possible outcomes and the likelihood of each one. Is this product a book, a movie, or an article of clothing? Is this movie a comedy, a documentary, or a thriller? Which category of products is of most interest to this customer?

  • Regression is used to predict a number. How many 27″ monitors should we place in inventory? How much should we charge for them? What percent of them are likely to be sold as gifts?

Amazon Workspaces Application Manager is an application virtualization service.  This allows you to host your own applications or you can choose from existing applications from the AWS Marketplace.  The AWS Marketplace for Desktop Apps includes software such as Microsoft Office, Visual Studio, FreeCAD, and Eclipse.

For more information on the new services as well as all of the new features being unveiled at the AWS Summit, check out the AWS Summit News site..  You will also be able to watch the keynote recording by checking at the AWS Live Site.