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Amazon Cognito

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Re: Amazon Cognito

#11
A buzzword used in Cognito and Zocalo is "secure". I'm assuming that means that it's server-side encrypted at rest.

What would be really impressive is if there was an option to client-side encrypt the data before sending it to AWS. Of course, that would mean you'd have to move your syncing logic to the client-side, too, but having a good client-side encryption option would be a real differentiator.

Re: Amazon Cognito

#12
post #2

How did this float to the top of my front page so quickly. Are we all genuinely _that_ interested in new AWS products? or did this post receive some "extra" help

To answer your first question: Yes. Many of those who work on services are very interested in cloud-based systems, and Amazon happens to be a major leader in this.

Ancillary factors:

1. The title is clickworthy. While link-baity titles do work well on HN (compared to very vague titles)...this title sticks out because it is two words: One of them is "Amazon", which has very immediate connotations and brand recognition. The second is a proper noun. Those of us who haven't heard of "Cognito" are likely to think, immediately, "Whoa, new Amazon product, must click-through to see how it will impact my work". That it is two words also makes it visually distinctive regardless of what those words even are.

2. It's 11AM, which means almost every developer on the East Coast is awake, and West Coast developers, particularly the ones responsible enough to reserve HN viewing for before-work hours, are getting their coffee and checking HN. So, lots of potential upvoters.

Re: Amazon Cognito

#14
I don't know how Amazon comes up with names for its products, but recently they all strike me as weird and stupid names. Do they confer with marketing first? Zocalo, Cognito? Really? These are the kinds of names you invent when you're looking for a cheap domain name for your startup. For Amazon, they don't make a lot of sense. They just seem like some executive out of their marketing depth and out of touch trying to be clever and anyone with sense afraid to speak up during the meeting when they come up with these names.

Re: Amazon Cognito

#15
post #11

A buzzword used in Cognito and Zocalo is "secure". I'm assuming that means that it's server-side encrypted at rest. What would be really impressive is if there was an option to client-side encrypt the data before sending it to AWS. Of course, that would mean you'd have to move your syncing logic to the client-side, too, but having a good client-side encryption option would be a real differentiator.

Wild guess: Amazon does nothing to solve sync conflicts, because it's highly correlated with your app business. Amazon gives you all conflicting versions and some flags telling your app "there's a conflict, you should fix it". Much like CouchDB.

So if it works like that, you absolutely can encrypt your payload client-side, and use Cognito as a mere transport.

Re: Amazon Cognito

#16
With so many new AWS features rolling out, I am worried that Amazon is spreading themselves too thin and will soon decide to stop supporting some of their less-popular services that I happen to be using.

As far as I can tell, there is no guarantee anywhere that they'll maintain any service for any length of time.

If that happens, it could waste weeks or months of engineering time trying to migrate to something else, or I'll just have to shut down my own services if I decide it's not worth migrating.

Re: Amazon Cognito

#17

I don't know how Amazon comes up with names for its products, but recently they all strike me as weird and stupid names. Do they confer with marketing first? Zocalo, Cognito? Really? These are the kinds of names you invent when you're looking for a cheap domain name for your startup. For Amazon, they don't make a lot of sense. They just seem like some executive out of their marketing depth and out of touch trying to…

Amazon is a weird name too.

Re: Amazon Cognito

#18
post #15
post #11

A buzzword used in Cognito and Zocalo is "secure". I'm assuming that means that it's server-side encrypted at rest. What would be really impressive is if there was an option to client-side encrypt the data before sending it to AWS. Of course, that would mean you'd have to move your syncing logic to the client-side, too, but having a good client-side encryption option would be a real differentiator.

Wild guess: Amazon does nothing to solve sync conflicts, because it's highly correlated with your app business. Amazon gives you all conflicting versions and some flags telling your app "there's a conflict, you should fix it". Much like CouchDB. So if it works like that, you absolutely can encrypt your payload client-side, and use Cognito as a mere transport.

Much like CouchDB.

Exactly. I don't know why people are so attracted to locked in solutions like Parse or now this when Couch has already been doing it for a long time, and there are mature third-party providers (Cloudant, Iriscouch, etc) that can help you get off the ground just as easily without ever being locked in with them.

Re: Amazon Cognito

#20
post #15
post #11

A buzzword used in Cognito and Zocalo is "secure". I'm assuming that means that it's server-side encrypted at rest. What would be really impressive is if there was an option to client-side encrypt the data before sending it to AWS. Of course, that would mean you'd have to move your syncing logic to the client-side, too, but having a good client-side encryption option would be a real differentiator.

Wild guess: Amazon does nothing to solve sync conflicts, because it's highly correlated with your app business. Amazon gives you all conflicting versions and some flags telling your app "there's a conflict, you should fix it". Much like CouchDB. So if it works like that, you absolutely can encrypt your payload client-side, and use Cognito as a mere transport.

The Cognito marketing materials claim that it supports "intelligent conflict resolution".
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