AWS Updates re:Invent 2013

This blog post will keep you updated on news and events at AWS re-Invent.
re:Invent 2013 is AWS’s second annual conference and is being attended by approximately 9000 people in Las Vegas.
Day 1 Keynote presented some interesting facts that clearly demonstrate how AWS has established itself as a leader in Infrastructure Services, enabling clients to think big and achieve higher goals. Here are some updates:
Gartner’s research found that AWS has five times as much combined capacity than its 14 closest competitors.
AWS is said to have saved $140M annually for its customers through their Trusted Advisor Service.
Customers who have moved their applications to the cloud report a 32% reduction in application downtime.
AWS’s customer “Bristl Mayes Squibb”, a pharmaceutical company, migrated their clinical trials simulation platform from on-premises to cloud. This allowed them to run their simulations in just 1.2 hours instead of 60 hours. This was also possible with a 64% cost reduction.
AWS also launched the following services.
AWS CloudTrail
AWS CloudTrail is a service that AWS gave to developers today as a Christmas present. AWS’s biggest problem was that API calls to AWS Services didn’t have an audit trail. It was impossible to determine who made the API calls, and from where. CloudTrail now allows you to identify the API caller and retrieve the time, source IP address, request parameters, and response elements returned from the AWS service. These logs are sent to an S3 bucket. You can also set up a SNS notification. This service is also available for free… AMAZING. More information is available here.
Amazon WorkSpaces
Amazon’s WorkSpaces virtual desktop service allows you to create cloud-based desktops in your organization. You don’t have to pay an upfront fee and can create as many machines you like by paying a monthly charge per machine. This is a great option for companies with a varied workforce or those who are concerned about security and don’t want sensitive information to reside on the machines of end users. Amazon WorkSpaces allows you to provision desktops on the cloud and all data is stored in AWS cloud. Amazon WorkSpaces integrates with your existing active directory service, making it possible to use existing credentials for corporate resources. WorkSpaces is still in limited preview, but you can read more about it here.
AppStream
AppStream is AWS’s new service. It was created to address a problem that game developers have with limited hardware. AppStream allows developers to perform resource-intensive operations in the cloud while streaming processed information back from their clients. It’s extremely powerful because it allows you to use your application on a wider range of devices, including tablets, smartphones, and PCs. It also comes with an SDK that developers can use to develop their applications. AppStream is available for multiple platforms like Android, iOS and Windows. The SDK for Mac OS X will be announced in 2014. AppStream is still in preview, but you can apply here for more information.
PostgreSQL for RDS
AWS began with MySQL and continued to add more flavors to RDS, Oracle and SQL Server. Now, PostgreSQL is available. This was a highly requested database for RDS. PostgreSQL is available in all regions and comes with all functionality of RDS, including multi-AZ deployment, launching into VPC, point-in time recovery, automated backups, and point-in-time recovery. More information about it can be found here.
Amazon Kinesis
AWS’s new service Kinesis provides real-ti.