Today, we’re announcing the general availability of the AWS WAF integration with AWS Amplify Hosting.

Web application owners are constantly working to protect their applications from a variety of threats. Previously, if you wanted to implement a robust security posture for your Amplify Hosted applications, you needed to create architectures using Amazon CloudFront distributions with AWS WAF protection, which required additional configuration steps, expertise, and management overhead.

With the general availability of AWS WAF in Amplify Hosting, you can now directly attach a web application firewall to your AWS Amplify apps through a one-click integration in the Amplify console or using infrastructure as code (IaC). This integration gives you access to the full range of AWS WAF capabilities including managed rules, which provide protection against common web exploits and vulnerabilities like SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS). You can also create your own custom rules based on your specific application needs.

This new capability helps you implement defense-in-depth security strategies for your web applications. You can take advantage of AWS WAF rate-based rules to protect against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks by limiting the rate of requests from IP addresses. Additionally, you can implement geo-blocking to restrict access to your applications from specific countries, which is particularly valuable if your service is designed for specific geographic regions.

Let’s see how it works
Setting up AWS WAF protection for your Amplify app is straightforward. From the Amplify console, navigate to your app settings, select the Firewall tab, and choose the predefined rules you want to apply to your configuration. 

Amplify hosting simplifies configuring firewall rules. You can activate four categories of protection.

• Amplify-recommended firewall protection – Protect against the most common vulnerabilities found in web applications, block IP addresses from potential threats based on Amazon internal threat intelligence, and protect against malicious actors discovering application vulnerabilities.
• Restrict access to amplifyapp.com – Restrict access to the default Amplify generated amplifyapp.com domain. This is useful when you add a custom domain to prevent bots and search engines from crawling the domain.
• Enable IP address protection – Restrict web traffic by allowing or blocking requests from specified IP address ranges.
• Enable country protection – Restrict access based on specific countries.

Protections enabled through the Amplify console will create an underlying web access control list (ACL) in your AWS account. For fine-grained rulesets, you can use the AWS WAF console rule builder.

After a few minutes, the rules are associated to your app and AWS WAF blocks suspicious requests.

If you want to see AWS WAF in action, you can simulate an attack and monitor it using the AWS WAF request inspection capabilities. For example, you can send a request with an empty User-Agent value. It will trigger a blocking rule in AWS WAF.

Let’s first send a valid request to my app.

curl -v -H "User-Agent: MyUserAgent" https://main.d3sk5bt8rx6f9y.amplifyapp.com/
* Host main.d3sk5bt8rx6f9y.amplifyapp.com:443 was resolved.
...(redacted for brevity)...
> GET / HTTP/2
> Host: main.d3sk5bt8rx6f9y.amplifyapp.com
> Accept: */*
> User-Agent: MyUserAgent
> 
* Request completely sent off
< HTTP/2 200 
< content-type: text/html
< content-length: 0
< date: Mon, 10 Mar 2025 14:45:26 GMT
 

We can observe that the server returned an HTTP 200 (OK) message.

Then, send a request with no value associated to the User-Agent HTTP header.

 curl -v -H "User-Agent: " https://main.d3sk5bt8rx6f9y.amplifyapp.com/ 
* Host main.d3sk5bt8rx6f9y.amplifyapp.com:443 was resolved.
... (redacted for brevity) ...
> GET / HTTP/2
> Host: main.d3sk5bt8rx6f9y.amplifyapp.com
> Accept: */*
> 
* Request completely sent off
< HTTP/2 403 
< server: CloudFront
... (redacted for brevity) ...
<TITLE>ERROR: The request could not be satisfied</TITLE>
</HEAD><BODY>
<H1>403 ERROR</H1>
<H2>The request could not be satisfied.</H2>

We can observe that the server returned an HTTP 403 (Forbidden) message.

AWS WAF provide visibility into request patterns, helping you fine-tune your security settings over time. You can access logs through Amplify Hosting or the AWS WAF console to analyze traffic trends and refine security rules as needed.

Availability and pricing
Firewall support is available in all AWS Regions in which Amplify Hosting operates. This integration falls under an AWS WAF global resource, similar to Amazon CloudFront. Web ACLs can be attached to multiple Amplify Hosting apps, but they must reside in the same Region.

The pricing for this integration follows the standard AWS WAF pricing model, You pay for the AWS WAF resources you use based on the number of web ACLs, rules, and requests. On top of that, AWS Amplify Hosting adds $15/month when you attach a web application firewall to your application. This is prorated by the hour.

This new capability brings enterprise-grade security features to all Amplify Hosting customers, from individual developers to large enterprises. You can now build, host, and protect your web applications within the same service, reducing the complexity of your architecture and streamlining your security management.

To learn more, visit the AWS WAF integration documentation for Amplify or try it directly in the Amplify console.

— seb

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Last week, I had an amazing time attending AWS Community Day Thailand in Bangkok. This event came at an exciting time, following the recent launch of the AWS Asia Pacific (Bangkok) Region. We had over 300 attendees and featured 15 speakers from the community, including an AWS Hero and 4 AWS Community Builders who shared their technical expertise and experiences.

The highlight was definitely Jeff Barr, AWS Vice President & Chief Evangelist, delivering an inspiring keynote titled “Next-Generation Software Development”, which set the perfect tone for the day. The day kicked off with welcoming remarks from Vatsun Thirapatarapong, AWS Country Manager for Thailand, and was made even more special thanks to the tremendous support from both the AWS User Group volunteers and the AWS Thailand team.

Here’s a photo capturing the excitement from the event: 

Last week’s AWS Launches
There are 30+ launches last week and here are some launches that caught my attention:

DeepSeek-R1 models now available on AWS — Channy wrote on how you can now deploy DeepSeek-R1 models in Amazon Bedrock and Amazon SageMaker AI. This helps you to build and scale generative AI applications with minimal infrastructure investment.

Amazon S3 Tables increases table limit to 10,000 per bucket — S3 Tables now supports creating up to 10,000 tables in each table bucket, allowing you to scale up to 100,000 tables across 10 buckets within an AWS Region per account.

Amazon S3 Metadata now generally available — S3 Metadata provides automated and easily queried metadata that updates in near real-time, simplifying business analytics and real-time inference applications. It supports both system-defined and custom metadata, including integration with AWS analytics services.

AWS Amplify adds TypeScript Data client support for Lambda functions — Developers can now use the Amplify Data client within AWS Lambda functions, enabling consistent type-safe data operations across frontend and backend applications.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk adds Python 3.13, .NET 9, and PHP 8.4 support on Amazon Linux 2023 — AWS Elastic Beanstalk brings the latest language features and improvements to application deployments while benefiting from Amazon Linux 2023 enhanced security and performance features.

From community.aws
Here’s my top 5 personal favorites posts from community.aws:

Upcoming AWS and community events
Check your calendars and sign up for upcoming AWS and community events:

• AWS Korea re:Invent reCap Online, February 2-4 — A virtual event recapping key announcements and innovations from re:Invent 2023 for the Korean audience.
• AWS Community Days – Join community-led conferences that feature technical discussions, workshops, and hands-on labs. Upcoming AWS Community Day is in Ahmedabad (February 8).
• AWS Public Sector Day London, February 27 — Join public sector leaders and innovators to explore how AWS is enabling digital transformation in government, education, and healthcare.
• AWS Innovate GenAI + Data Edition — A free online conference focusing on generative AI and data innovations. Available in multiple Regions: APJC and EMEA (March 6), North America (March 13), Greater China Region (March 14), and Latin America (April 8).

Browse more upcoming AWS led in-person and virtual developer-focused events.

AWS Community re:Invent re:Caps

Lastly, if you want to learn about top announcements and innovations from AWS re:Invent, the AWS Community shares a summary from a community perspective of these announcements so you can get up to speed. Download the AWS Community re:Invent re:Caps deck. 

That’s all for this week. Check back next Monday for another Weekly Roundup!

— Donnie

This post is part of our Weekly Roundup series. Check back each week for a quick roundup of interesting news and announcements from AWS!

The post AWS Weekly Roundup: DeepSeek-R1, S3 Metadata, Elastic Beanstalk updates, and more (February 3, 2024) appeared first on The NOKIA Blog.

Today, Amazon Location Service released 17 new and enhanced APIs that expand and improve capabilities for the Routes, Places, and Maps functionalities, creating a more cohesive and streamlined experience for developers. By introducing enhanced features and offering simplified migration, these updates make Amazon Location Service more accessible and useful for a wide range of applications.

You can now access advanced route optimization, toll cost calculations, GPS traces snapping, and a variety of map styles with static and dynamic rendering options, and perform proximity-based search and predictive suggestions, with rich, detailed information on points of interest.

At Amazon, the vast majority of our roadmaps are driven by customer feedback. Many customers building applications with Amazon Location Service have shared that they need purpose-built APIs and more granular details, such as contact information and business hours, when working with location-based data. Although the current API set has provided valuable tools for many customers, developers have expressed a desire for additional capabilities, such as detailed route planning, proximity-based searches, additional places details, and static map images. These new APIs address these requests and provide a more comprehensive, out-of-the-box location solution.

New and enhanced capabilities
Today’s launch introduces 10 updated APIs and seven entirely new APIs, responding directly to your feedback. Each service—Routes, Places, and Maps—receives specific enhancements designed to support a broader range of use cases.

Routes
The Amazon Location Routes API now supports advanced route planning and customization options, allowing users to:

• CalculateIsolines to identify service areas within specific travel time, or distance
• OptimizeWaypoints to determine the most efficient sequence of waypoints, helping to minimize either travel time or distance
• Calculate Toll Costs to provide precise cost estimates for routes involving toll roads
• SnapToRoads, to enable precise matching of GPS traces by snapping points to the road network

With these capabilities, you can design more accurate and dynamic route experiences for your users. For example, a logistics company could optimize driver routes in real-time, factoring in live traffic and minimizing travel costs for deliveries.

Maps
The updated Amazon Location Maps API includes more purpose-built map styles crafted by skilled cartographers. These map styles offer professional designs that accelerate time to market and eliminate the need for custom map creation. Additionally, the Static Map Image feature allows developers to integrate static maps within applications, reducing the need for continuous data streaming and improving performance in use cases where interactivity isn’t necessary.

Key features of the Maps API include:

• GetTile, to download a tile from a tileset, with a specified X, Y, and Z axis values
• GetStyleDescriptor, to return information about the style
• GetStaticMap, which enables the rendering of non-interactive maps for reporting or visualization purposes

Places
The Amazon Location Places API enhancements allow more detailed search capabilities, addressing requests for increased granularity in location data. The new capabilities include:

• SearchNearby and Autocomplete, which support proximity-based queries and enable predictive text features for better user experiences
• Enhanced business details with categories such as Business Hours, Contact Information, and additional attributes for points of interest

These features are especially useful for applications where users need detailed information about nearby locations, such as food delivery services or retail applications. Imagine that a customer opens a food delivery application, searches for nearby restaurants using SearchNearby, and retrieves restaurant details such as business hours and contact information to confirm availability. Once multiple delivery orders are assigned to a driver, the application uses OptimizeWaypoints to suggest the most efficient route for pickups and deliveries. As the driver follows the route, SnaptoRoads provides precise visualization of their location, enhancing the customer’s real-time tracking experience.

Enhanced Location Service in action
Calling the API is straightforward. You can use the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), one of our AWS SDKs, or the plain REST API. However, displaying the information on a map in a web or mobile app requires some additional setup. Although the process is well documented, it’s too detailed to cover fully here. In this demo, I’ll focus on using the API.

Amazon Location Service allows API calls to be authenticated in two ways: through AWS API authentication (AWS Sigv4 authentication) or through API keys. API keys can be more convenient for developers of mobile applications where the end user is not authenticated or when integrating with Amazon Cognito is not feasible. This is the recommended authentication method for front-end applications.

To demonstrate the versatility of the APIs and how easily you can integrate inside your applications, I use a combination of the AWS CLI, cURL, and a graphical REST API client for each step of the demo.

Step 1: Create an API key

First, I create an API key for my application using the AWS CLI. You can also manage API keys in the AWS Management Console.

REGION=eu-central-1
KEYNAME=geo-key-seb

aws location create-key --region ${REGION} --key-name ${KEYNAME} --restrictions 
AllowActions="geo-routes:*","geo-places:*","geo-maps:*",
AllowResources="arn:aws:geo-routes:${REGION}::provider/default",
"arn:aws:geo-places:${REGION}::provider/default",
"arn:aws:geo-maps:${REGION}::provider/default" 
--no-expiry 

{
    "Key": "v1.public.ey...cy",
    "KeyArn": "arn:aws:geo:eu-central-1:02345678901:api-key/geo-key-seb",
    "KeyName": "geo-key-seb",
    "CreateTime": "2024-09-29T09:35:53.115000+00:00"
}

This command generates the API key, which I can now use to call Amazon Location APIs.

Step 2: Get geographic coordinates

Next, I use cURL to retrieve the geographic coordinates (a longitude and latitude) for the city center of Lille, France, by calling GeoCode and passing an address in the QueryText parameter.

$ curl --silent -X "POST" "https://places.geo.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/v2/geocode?key=v1.public.ey...cy" 
       -d $'{ "QueryText": "Grand Place, Lille, France" }' 
 
{"ResultItems":[{"PlaceId":"AQ...5U","PlaceType":"Street","Title":"Grand'Place, 59800 Lille, France",
                 "Address":{"Label":"Grand'Place, 59800 Lille, France",
                 "Country":{"Code2":"FR","Code3":"FRA","Name":"France"},
                 "Region":{"Code":"HDF","Name":"Hauts-de-France"},"SubRegion":{"Name":"Nord"},
                 "Locality":"Lille","District":"Centre","PostalCode":"59800",
                 "Street":"Grand'Place","StreetComponents":[{"BaseName":"Grand'Place","Language":"fr"}]},
                 "Position":[3.06361,50.63706],
                 "MapView":[3.0628,50.6367,3.06413,50.63729],
                 "MatchScores":{"Overall":1,"Components":{"Address":{"Country":1,"Locality":1,"Intersection":[1]}}}}]}

This returns several data points, including the GPS coordinates for the city center: [3.06361, 50.63706].

Step 3: Search for nearby places

Using the coordinates retrieved, I use a REST API client tool to call the SearchNearby API to find places of interest around Lille’s city center.

On the right side of the screen, I can read the API response: a list of nearby places, such as restaurants, banks, and parking areas. I can further refine the search by specifying categories or restricting the search area.

The SearchNearby API accepts an optional Filter parameter that helps you restrict the search within a bounding box or to include or exclude business chains, categories, countries, or food types.

"Filter": {
   "BoundingBox": [ number ],
   "ExcludeBusinessChains": [ "string" ],
   "ExcludeCategories": [ "string" ],
   "ExcludeFoodTypes": [ "string" ],
   "IncludeBusinessChains": [ "string" ],
   "IncludeCategories": [ "string" ],
   "IncludeCountries": [ "string" ],
   "IncludeFoodTypes": [ "string" ]
},

In my search for nearby points of interest, one of the results returned was a McDonald’s, a well-known international reference 🍔.

Step 4: Get driving directions

Finally, I use the AWS CLI to calculate driving directions between two city centers: Brussels, Belgium, and Lille, France.

aws location calculate-routes    
    --origin 4.35278 50.84687      
    --destination 3.06361 50.63706 
    --key "v1.public.ey...cy"

The response includes a polyline for rendering the path on a map and a step-by-step list of driving directions.

...
          "TravelMode": "Car",
          "Type": "Vehicle",
          "VehicleLegDetails": {
            "TravelSteps": [
              {
                "Duration": 15,
                "Distance": 75,
                "ExitNumber": [],
                "GeometryOffset": 0,
                "Type": "Depart"
              },
              {
                "Duration": 10,
                "Distance": 8,
                "ExitNumber": [],
                "GeometryOffset": 2,
                "Type": "Turn",
                "TurnStepDetails": {
                  "Intersection": [],
                  "SteeringDirection": "Right",
                  "TurnIntensity": "Typical"
                }
              },
...

Step 5: Displaying the driving directions on a map

To visualize the route on a map, I use the MapLibre library, which is a rendering engine for displaying maps in web and mobile applications. Following the Amazon Location Service Developer Guide, I built a basic app to display the route.

In addition to MapLibre, you can use AWS Amplify to integrate and display Amazon Location data in your applications.

Getting started
With these new and updated APIs, Amazon Location Service offers a more comprehensive suite of mapping and location data for your business needs. These will help to accelerate your development lifecyle by increasing developers’ agility and scalability.

To get started, explore the updated Amazon Location Service Developer Guide and begin integrating these features today. You can also visit the Amazon Location Service page to learn more or try out the APIs with your favorite AWS SDKs to see how they can enhance your applications.

— seb

The post Announcing new APIs for Amazon Location Service Routes, Places, and Maps appeared first on The NOKIA Blog.

We are announcing an integration between AWS Amplify Hosting and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). Now, you can deploy static websites with content stored in your S3 buckets and serve over a content delivery network (CDN) with just a few clicks.

AWS Amplify Hosting is a fully managed service for hosting static sites that handles various aspects of deploying a website. It gives you benefits such as custom domain configuration with SSL, redirects, custom headers, and deployment on a globally available CDN powered by Amazon CloudFront.

When deploying a static website, Amplify remembers the connection between your S3 bucket and deployed website, so you can easily update your website with a single click when you make changes to website content in your S3 bucket. Using AWS Amplify Hosting is the recommended approach for static website hosting because it offers more streamlined and faster deployment without extensive setup.

Here’s how the integration works starting from the Amazon S3 console:

Deploying a static website using the Amazon S3 console
Let’s use this new integration to host a personal website directly from my S3 bucket.

To get started, I navigate to my bucket in the Amazon S3 console . Here’s the list of all the content in that S3 bucket:

To use the new integration with AWS Amplify Hosting, I navigate to the Properties section, then I scroll down until I find Static website hosting and select Create Amplify app.

Then, it redirects me to the Amplify page and populates the details from my S3 bucket. Here, I configure my App name and the Branch name. Then, I select Save and deploy.

Within seconds, AWS Amplify has deployed my static website, and I can visit the site by selecting Visit deployed URL. If I make any subsequent changes in my S3 bucket for my static website, I need to redeploy my application in the Amplify console by selecting the Deploy updates button.

I can also use the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) for programmatic deployment. To do that, I need to get the values for required parameters, such as APP_ID and BRANCH_NAME from my AWS Amplify dashboard. Here’s the command I use for deployment:

aws amplify start-deployment --appId APP_ID --branchName BRANCH_NAME --sourceUrlType=BUCKET_PREFIX --sourceUrl s3://S3_BUCKET/S3_PREFIX

After Amplify Hosting generates a URL for my website, I can optionally configure a custom domain for my static website. To do that, I navigate to my apps in AWS Amplify and select Custom domains in the navigation pane. Then, I select Add domain to start configuring a custom domain for my static website. Learn more about setting up custom domains in the Amplify Hosting User Guide.

In the following screenshot, I have my static website configured with my custom domain. Amplify also issues an SSL/TLS certificate for my domain so that all traffic is secured through HTTPS.

Now, I have my static site ready, and I can check it out at https://donnie.id.

Things you need to know
More available features – AWS Amplify Hosting has more features you can use for your static websites. Visit the AWS Amplify product page to learn more.

Deployment options – You can get started deploying a static website from Amazon S3 using the Amplify Hosting console, AWS CLI, or AWS SDKs.

Pricing – For pricing information, visit Amazon S3 pricing page and AWS Amplify pricing page.

Availability – Amplify Hosting integration with Amazon S3 is now available in AWS Regions where Amplify Hosting is available. 

Start building your static website with this new integration. To learn more about Amazon S3 static website hosting with AWS Amplify, visit the AWS Amplify Hosting User Guide. 

Happy building,

— Donnie

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