Latest products and features at DigitalOcean: August 2020

August was a month of consolidation at DigitalOcean. Here are the highlights:

• Memory-Optimized Droplets are now available for BLR1 datacenter region: Memory-Optimized Droplets are the Droplets with maximum memory, 100% dedicated vCPU, and a generous 8GB of memory for each vCPU. These are ideal for RAM-intensive applications like high-performance databases, in-memory caches, and real-time big data processing. Memory-Optimized Droplets went into General Availability (GA) in July and were available in the SFO3 and TOR1 data center regions. We are happy to announce that Memory-Optimized Droplets are now available for the BLR1 datacenter region. 

• Droplet metadata endpoint for live migration: Metadata is a service provided to DigitalOcean Droplets that allows a Droplet to access data about itself. We have released a Droplet metadata endpoint which returns whether or not a Droplet is scheduled for a live migration. The impact of live migrations on Droplets is minimal, so users now only receive direct notifications for migrations that require us to power down a Droplet, which (except in emergencies) we send 7 days in advance.

• End of life for Ubuntu 19.10: On 1 August 2020, Ubuntu 19.10 reached its end of life and will not receive further updates. Per our image deprecation policy, you can only deploy the Ubuntu 19.10 Linux image via the API starting on 1 August 2020. We will remove the Ubuntu 19.10 image from the platform on 1 September 2020.

• Note: As of July 2022, FreeBSD is no longer available. FreeBSD 11.4 UFS and ZFS base images are now available: FreeBSD is an operating system used to power modern servers, desktops, and embedded platforms. FreeBSD 11.4 was recently released and the UFS and ZFS base images are now available in the control panel and via the API. Click here to learn more about the highlights from the 11.4 release. 

• Value added tax (VAT) collection for Indonesia has begun: To comply with Indonesia’s new Regulation no. 48/PMK.03/2020 for non-resident companies like DigitalOcean, we began charging Value Added Tax (VAT) to customers in Indonesia on 1 July 2020 at a rate of 10%. Charges will appear on September invoices. Learn more about Indonesia taxes.

• Marketplace updates: We launched several new preconfigured 1-Click Apps in the DigitalOcean Marketplace to help you save time and remove the hassle of provisioning servers.
  Laravel Hosting - Open-source PHP framework that provides a set of tools and resources to build modern PHP applications.
  Repman - Free, open-source PHP private package repository manager for Composer
  Purdm - Open source expense manager/host it yourself solution web application
  CloudPanel 1 - A free and modern server control panel with lightweight components for PHP applications
  HarperDB - A distributed database focused on making data management easy
  Flipstarter - With this 1-Click deployment on DigitalOcean, you can start a campaign without advanced computer knowledge

Check out the release notes for other minor product updates in August. You can also learn about the updates from the previous month here. 

We hope you give the new updates a try. If you have an idea for improving our products or want to vote on other user ideas so they get prioritized, please submit your feedback. And if you have any questions, please feel free to ask them here. 

Until next month, 

Happy coding!

Shantanu Kedar,

Senior Product Marketing Manager