News

AWS SDK for C++ Version 1.0 Now Available

• By David Ramel
• 09/08/2016

C++ developers can finally use the open source software development kit (SDK) from Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS) for production use, the cloud giant announced this week.

The company launched a developer preview of the AWS SDK for C++ last March, following an experimental launch in September of last year. Now it's finally ready for real-world development.

"After almost a year of developer feedback and contributions, version 1.0 of the AWS SDK for C++ is now available and recommended for production use," AWS spokesperson Jeff Barr announced in a blog post Tuesday.

According to its GitHub site, "The AWS SDK for C++ provides a modern C++ (version C++ 11 or later) interface for Amazon Web Services (AWS). It is meant to be performant and fully functioning with low- and high-level SDKs, while minimizing dependencies and providing platform portability (Windows, OSX, Linux, and mobile)."

Along with supporting Android and iOS development, it supports CMake, the open source build system generator. In the nuts-and-bolts department, it features customizable memory management so developers can plug in their own solution to fine-tune how memory gets allocated and deallocated.

Its C++ library lets developers easily integrate it with AWS services such as Amazon S3, Amazon Kinesis and Amazon DynamoDB. It will be updated frequently to support the latest AWS API changes. Barr said it will use semantic versioning, so from now on developers can be assured future versions won't break their builds.

Barr also listed the following recent changes to the SDK, based on feedback garnered from the developer preview:

• Transfer Manager -- The original TransferClient has evolved into the new and improved TransferManager interface.
• Build Process -- The CMake build chain has been improved in order to make it easier to override platform defaults.
• Simplified Configuration -- It is now easier to set SDK-wide configuration options at runtime. Encryption – The SDK now includes symmetric cryptography support on all supported platforms.
• Fixes -- The 1.0 codebase includes numerous bug fixes and build improvements.

AWS announced in July that the SDK for C++ was available via NuGet, a primary package manager for .NET developers.

Barr said AWS will release more high-level APIs to make C++ development on AWS easier and more secure, and he invited developers to submit feedback on the 1.0 SDK and file issues or submit pull requests to improve it.