All news in category “Vendor and Hyperscaler Watch”

🔒 Apple has introduced end-to-end encryption for RCS messaging in the iOS and iPadOS 26.4 developer beta, enabling encrypted conversations between Apple devices during testing. The feature remains in beta and is not available for all devices or carriers, and it currently does not extend to non-Apple platforms such as Android. The release also introduces an opt-in for full Memory Integrity Enforcement and signals forthcoming Stolen Device Protection defaults.

📈 AWS HealthImaging now provides additional Amazon CloudWatch metrics to monitor storage at both the account and individual data store levels. Customers can track storage volume, the number of image sets, and counts of DICOM studies, series, and instances to understand growth trends. These granular metrics support management of single-tenant and multi-tenant workloads at petabyte scale and are available in select AWS Regions.

🚀Amazon Web Services announced the new Amazon EC2 Hpc8a instances, a next-generation offering optimized for high performance computing and powered by 5th Gen AMD EPYC (Turin) processors. Hpc8a delivers up to 40% higher compute performance, up to 25% better price performance, and up to 42% higher memory bandwidth versus Hpc7a, with 192 cores, 768 GiB RAM and 300 Gbps EFA networking. Built on sixth-generation AWS Nitro Cards, these instances target tightly coupled, latency-sensitive HPC workloads and are available today in US East (Ohio) and Europe (Stockholm).

🛡️ This article presents a layered, AI-enhanced defense-in-depth architecture for protecting serverless microservices on AWS. It outlines seven security layers—from edge DDoS and WAF protections to identity, API gateway controls, network isolation, compute hardening, secrets management, and data encryption—integrating GuardDuty, Cognito, API Gateway, Secrets Manager, and DynamoDB. The guidance emphasizes continuous monitoring, automated incident response using Amazon Bedrock and EventBridge, and operational practices that balance security, compliance, and developer velocity.

🔔 Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility) now offers Long-Term Support on DocumentDB 5.0, delivering security and stability patches without feature changes. To adopt LTS, create a new cluster using engine version 5.0.0 or patch an existing 5.0.0 cluster during your maintenance window. Verify your Engine Patch Version with db.runCommand({getEngineVersion: 1}) and ensure it is 3.0.17983 or later. LTS is available in all AWS regions where DocumentDB is offered.

🔒 AWS Backup now supports AWS PrivateLink for SAP HANA systems running on Amazon EC2. This lets customers route backup traffic over private VPC endpoints instead of the public internet, helping meet security and compliance requirements for regulated workloads. Organizations subject to HIPAA, PCI DSS and privacy frameworks can maintain end-to-end private connectivity for both application and backup data. The feature is available in all AWS Regions that support SAP HANA on EC2; to enable it, update the Backint agent and add the backup-storage VPCE to your VPC.

🚀 AWS Glue 5.1 is now available in eighteen additional AWS Regions, bringing the service to thirty-three Regions worldwide. The release upgrades core engines to Apache Spark 3.5.6, Python 3.11, and Scala 2.12.18, and refreshes support for open table formats including Apache Hudi, Apache Iceberg, and Delta Lake. It introduces Iceberg format v3.0 features, deletion vectors, multi-argument transforms, and row lineage tracking, and extends AWS Lake Formation fine-grained access control to write operations as well as full-table access control for Hudi and Delta tables. Customers can begin using the update via APIs, CLI, SDKs, Glue Studio, or SageMaker Unified Studio and should consult the documentation for migration and configuration guidance.

🚀 Amazon EC2 M7i instances powered by AWS-custom 4th Gen Intel Xeon (Sapphire Rapids) are now available in the Israel (Tel Aviv) Region. These AWS‑exclusive processors deliver up to 15% better performance versus comparable x86 Intel processors and up to 15% improved price-performance compared to M6i. M7i offers sizes up to 48xlarge plus bare-metal options (metal-24xl, metal-48xl) with built-in Intel accelerators — suitable for gaming servers, CPU-based ML, and high-throughput video streaming.

🔒 Kiro is now available in AWS GovCloud (US-East) and AWS GovCloud (US-West), enabling agentic AI development for compliance-sensitive workloads. The platform combines an integrated development environment (IDE) and a command-line interface (CLI) to support spec-driven workflows that turn prompts into specs, working code, documentation, and tests. Native Model Context Protocol (MCP) support lets Kiro connect to documentation, databases, APIs, and other enterprise resources while integrating with AWS IAM Identity Center for enterprise authentication.

🔒 Amazon Aurora now automatically applies server-side encryption by default to all new database clusters created without custom encryption settings, using AWS-owned keys. This fully managed encryption is transparent to users and incurs no cost or performance impact. Existing clusters are unaffected; you can still select customer-managed or AWS-managed KMS keys during creation. Available in all AWS Regions including GovCloud.

🔒 A strategic partnership between the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and Schwarz Digits, the IT arm of the Schwarz Group, was announced at the Munich Security Conference to develop sovereign cloud solutions for German public administration. The organizations said they will jointly build control layers and secure systems to protect critical data and enhance cybersecurity situational awareness. The collaboration aims to strengthen technological independence and improve resilience against hybrid threats. Both parties framed the effort as part of a broader push for digital sovereignty in Germany and Europe.

🖥️ Amazon Web Services now allows customers to run nested virtual machines inside virtual Amazon EC2 instances, enabling KVM and Hyper‑V stacks on non‑bare‑metal hosts. This expands prior capability that was limited to bare metal instances and supports use cases such as mobile emulators, in‑vehicle hardware simulation, and Windows Subsystem for Linux on Windows workstations. The feature is available on C8i, M8i, and R8i in all commercial regions; see the EC2 nested virtualization documentation for enabling hardware virtualization extensions.

🔔 Amazon Web Services expanded availability of its EC2 High Memory U7i instances to additional regions, adding U7i-6tb.112xlarge in South America (São Paulo) and Europe (Milan), U7i-12tb.224xlarge in AWS GovCloud (US‑East), and U7in-16tb.224xlarge in Europe (London). These 7th-generation instances are powered by custom 4th-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors (Sapphire Rapids) and offer DDR5 memory up to 16 TiB with ENA Express support. Network and EBS performance scales to support up to 100 Gbps for most sizes and up to 200 Gbps on the 16 TiB variant, targeting mission-critical in-memory databases like SAP HANA, Oracle, and SQL Server.

🔍 AWS Batch now exposes queue and share utilization metrics to show how compute capacity is used across FIFO and fair-share job queues. Job queue snapshots now include queue utilization and per-allocation capacity consumption, and the ListServiceJobs API returns a scheduledAt timestamp for service jobs. Access the data via the GetJobQueueSnapshot, ListJobs, and ListServiceJobs APIs or the new Share Utilization tab in the AWS Batch console. This feature is available today in all AWS Regions where AWS Batch is offered.

🔔 Amazon Connect now delivers persistent in‑app notifications in the workspace header, visible from any page with a badge indicating unread messages. Click the icon to view messages, follow embedded links, and mark items read or unread without leaving your current task. New public APIs and AWS CloudFormation support enable programmatic, targeted messaging to specific audiences and will also be used for system updates and important announcements across all regions where the service is available.

🤖 Amazon Connect now provides AI-powered Task overviews that summarize prior activities and surface recommended next steps so agents can process work items faster and more consistently. Administrators enable the capability by adding the Connect assistant flow block to flows before Task assignment and can tune guidance with knowledge bases. The feature is available in all AWS regions that support Amazon Connect real-time agent assistance.

🤖 Amazon Connect now provides AI-powered Task overviews and suggested next actions so agents can understand work items faster and resolve them more quickly. The feature uses generative AI to summarize prior activity—such as order verification, return eligibility checks, or payment confirmation—and to surface recommended next steps for completing a task. To enable it, add the Connect assistant flow block to your flows and optionally guide outputs with knowledge bases; it is available in all AWS regions where real-time agent assistance is offered.

🔒 Fortinet marks the 10-year anniversary of NSE 8, its most rigorous certification that validates expert-level ability to architect, implement, and troubleshoot complex security environments. Unlike memorization-based tests, NSE 8 requires hands-on, real-world problem solving under pressure and synthesis across networking and security domains. The credential signals operational judgment and helps close critical gaps in organizational capability.

🔍 Criminal IP has integrated with IBM QRadar SIEM and SOAR, embedding external IP-based threat intelligence directly into detection, investigation, and response workflows. Firewall traffic forwarded to QRadar is analyzed via the Criminal IP API and observed IPs are automatically scored as High, Medium, or Low to help prioritize actions. Analysts can right-click IPs in Log Activity to view detailed Criminal IP reports, while pre-built SOAR playbooks automate IP and URL enrichment to accelerate response without leaving the QRadar environment.

🔁 Amazon RDS and Aurora now allow viewing and modifying backup retention periods and preferred backup windows before and during snapshot restores. Previously, restored instances and clusters inherited backup settings from snapshot metadata and required post-restore changes. The update exposes these backup configuration values on automated backups and snapshots and lets you set or change them as part of the restore workflow. This capability is available across all supported engines and regions via the Console, AWS CLI, and SDKs at no additional cost.