All news in category "Vendor and Hyperscaler Watch"

Fortinet Named Google Unified Security Recommended Partner

🔒 Fortinet has been named the inaugural Google Unified Security Recommended partner for network protection, recognizing FortiSASE and FortiGate NGFW running natively on Google Cloud. The collaboration delivers a cloud-native SASE that unifies networking and security with global PoPs on Google’s private backbone, centralized policy and telemetry via FortiManager, and AI-enhanced threat protection from FortiGuard Labs. Customers can deploy through Google Cloud Marketplace and expect lower TCO through a consolidated architecture and simplified operations.

Amazon EC2 I7i Instances Expand to Additional Regions

🚀 Amazon Web Services has expanded availability of Amazon EC2 I7i Storage Optimized instances to AWS Europe (Ireland) and Asia Pacific (Seoul, Hong Kong). Powered by 5th‑generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors and 3rd‑generation AWS Nitro SSDs, I7i delivers up to 23% better compute and notable storage-performance and latency improvements versus I4i. Available in eleven sizes, including bare metal, these instances are aimed at I/O‑intensive, latency‑sensitive workloads that require very high random IOPS and multi‑TB dataset access.

AWS IoT Core Adds Location Resolution for Sidewalk Devices

📡 AWS IoT Core Device Location now resolves approximate positions for Amazon Sidewalk-enabled devices using inputs such as WiFi access points, GNSS, and Bluetooth Low Energy. The service converts those inputs into geo-coordinates and delivers them to AWS IoT rules or MQTT topics to support asset tracking and geo-fencing without GPS hardware. To get started, install Sidewalk SDK v1.19 or later, provision devices in AWS IoT Core for Amazon Sidewalk, and enable location during provisioning. This capability is available in the AWS US-East (N. Virginia) Region; the Amazon Sidewalk network is available only in the United States.

AWS Transform Generates LZA Network Configurations

🔁 AWS now enables AWS Transform for VMware to automatically generate network configuration YAML files that are directly compatible with the Landing Zone Accelerator on AWS (LZA). Building on Transform’s existing infrastructure-as-code outputs for AWS CloudFormation, AWS CDK, and Terraform, the capability converts VMware network environments into LZA-ready YAML that can be imported into LZA’s deployment pipeline. The feature is available in all AWS Transform target Regions and is intended to reduce manual effort and deployment time while improving consistency across multi-account environments.

Amazon EC2 I8g storage-optimized instances expand to EU/Asia

🚀 Amazon Web Services has made Amazon EC2 I8g storage-optimized instances generally available in Europe (Stockholm) and Asia Pacific (Osaka). Built on the AWS Nitro System and using third-generation Nitro SSDs, I8g delivers up to 65% better storage performance per TB, plus lower I/O latency and reduced latency variability versus I4g. The family spans up to 48xlarge and one metal size with up to 1.5 TiB memory, 45 TB local NVMe storage, and up to 100 Gbps network performance, targeting transactional databases, NoSQL, real-time analytics, and LLM pre-processing workloads.

Amazon Connect adds completion metrics for agent evaluations

📊 Amazon Connect now provides metrics that track completion of agent performance evaluations, helping managers verify that required reviews (for example, five per agent per month) are finished. The capability displays real-time analytics in the Connect UI and exposes the same signals via APIs for integration with reporting workflows. Teams can also compare scoring patterns across managers to identify evaluation consistency and accuracy improvements.

Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL: New Minor Versions Available

🐘 Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL now supports minor versions 17.7, 16.11, 15.15, 14.20, and 13.23; AWS recommends upgrading to address known security vulnerabilities and receive community bug fixes. The release adds the pgcollection extension for RDS PostgreSQL 15.15 and above (including 16.11 and 17.7), providing an ordered, efficient key-value collection type usable inside PostgreSQL functions to speed in-memory data processing. Extension updates include pg_tle 1.5.2 and H3_PG 4.2.3, and operators can use automatic minor version upgrades or Blue/Green deployments to minimize disruption during upgrades.

AWS Health Adds Multi-Region EventBridge Resilience

🔁 AWS Health now sends events simultaneously to the impacted AWS Region and US West (Oregon), enabling customers to create multi-region, redundant Amazon EventBridge rules or a simplified single-rule path that captures all commercial-partition Health events. US West (Oregon) serves as the backup for all commercial regions, with US East (N. Virginia) as the backup for US West. In China and AWS GovCloud the service delivers events to their respective paired regions. The update is available in all AWS regions.

Google Sues to Disrupt China-Based SMS Phishing Operation

📱 Google has filed suit in the Southern District of New York to unmask and disrupt 25 unnamed operators tied to Lighthouse, a China-based phishing kit that has victimized over one million people across 120 countries. The complaint alleges Lighthouse powers a “Smishing Triad” that spoofs trusted brands, blasts mass text lures, and automates enrollment of stolen cards into mobile wallets using one-time verification codes. Google asserts trademark infringement and RICO claims and seeks to dismantle the coordinated groups behind the service.

Google Cloud expands Hugging Face support for AI developers

🤝 Google Cloud and Hugging Face are deepening their partnership to speed developer workflows and strengthen enterprise model deployments. A new gateway will cache Hugging Face models and datasets on Google Cloud so downloads take minutes, not hours, across Vertex AI and Google Kubernetes Engine. The collaboration adds native TPU support for open models and integrates Google Cloud’s threat intelligence and Mandiant scanning for models served through Vertex AI.

Finding Salt failures: blaming commits to speed releases

🔍 Cloudflare explains how they accelerated triage and reduced release delays for Salt-managed configuration changes across thousands of servers. They implemented a local job cache on minions to retain job results, built a Salt Blame execution module to correlate failed highstates with commits, releases and external outages, and automated hierarchical triage from chat. These changes removed repetitive SSH-and-log workflows, made root-cause attribution self-service for SREs, and yielded a measurable >5% reduction in time lost to Salt-related release delays while enabling ongoing analytics and feedback.

Microsoft deploys Teams screen-capture prevention rollout

🔒 Microsoft is rolling out a new Teams Premium setting that blocks screenshots and recordings in meetings on Windows desktop and Android devices. The feature, called 'Prevent screen capture', was announced for July 2025 but the rollout was delayed and is being introduced in late November 2025. The control is off by default and must be enabled per meeting by organizers or co-organizers; unsupported clients will join audio-only.

Amazon EventBridge Adds SQS Fair Queue Target Support

🚀 Amazon EventBridge now supports sending events directly to Amazon SQS fair queues, improving message distribution across consumer groups and reducing noisy-neighbor effects in multi-tenant systems. You can choose a fair queue as an EventBridge target via the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, or AWS SDKs and must supply a MessageGroupID, either as a static value or using a JSON path. Fair queues let multiple consumers process messages from the same tenant concurrently while keeping processing times consistent. Support for Fair Queue and FIFO targets is available in all AWS commercial and AWS GovCloud (US) Regions.

Amazon Kinesis Video Streams adds WebRTC multi-viewer

📹 Amazon Kinesis Video Streams now supports WebRTC-based multi-viewer streaming, enabling up to three concurrent viewers of a live feed without increasing device compute or bandwidth. The feature records session audio and video to the cloud for storage, playback, and analytics, and supports two-way audio so participants can communicate in real time. Developers can use the Kinesis Video Streams with WebRTC SDK across cameras, IoT devices, PCs, and mobile devices to build live and on-demand scenarios such as home security, remote proctoring, and robot control centers.

AWS Expands EC2 G6f NVIDIA L4 GPU Instances to More Regions

🚀 Amazon Web Services has expanded availability of EC2 G6f instances powered by NVIDIA L4 GPUs to Europe (Spain) and Asia Pacific (Seoul), improving access for graphics and visualization workloads. G6f instances support GPU partitions as small as one-eighth of a GPU with 3 GB of GPU memory, enabling finer-grained right-sizing and cost savings compared to single‑GPU options. Instances are offered in multiple sizes paired with third‑generation AMD EPYC processors, and are purchasable as On‑Demand, Spot, or via Savings Plans; customers should use NVIDIA GRID driver 18.4 or later to launch these instances.

Amazon EC2 U7i-12tb Instances Launch in Stockholm Region

🚀 Amazon has made EC2 High Memory U7i instances with 12TB of DDR5 memory available in the Europe (Stockholm) Region. The u7i-12tb.224xlarge offers 896 vCPUs, up to 100 Gbps for both EBS and networking, and supports ENA Express for improved network performance. Powered by custom fourth‑generation Intel Xeon (Sapphire Rapids), these instances target mission‑critical in‑memory databases such as SAP HANA, Oracle, and SQL Server, enabling higher transaction throughput and faster data loading.

AWS Network Load Balancer Adds QUIC Passthrough Mode

🚀 AWS announced that the Network Load Balancer (NLB) now supports QUIC in passthrough mode, enabling low-latency forwarding of QUIC traffic while preserving session stickiness via the QUIC Connection ID. This helps mobile applications maintain consistent connections when client IPs change during roaming between cellular towers or when switching between Wi‑Fi and cellular. You can enable QUIC on existing or new NLBs through the AWS Management Console, CLI, or APIs. QUIC support is available at no additional charge in all AWS commercial and AWS GovCloud (US) regions and is metered under existing UDP Load Balancer Capacity Unit entitlements.

ECS Service Connect: Cross-Account Support in GovCloud

🔗 Amazon ECS Service Connect now supports cross-account communication in AWS GovCloud through integration with AWS Resource Access Manager (AWS RAM). You can share the underlying AWS Cloud Map namespaces with individual accounts, Organizational Units (OUs), or your entire AWS Organization to register services from multiple accounts in a single namespace. The capability works for both Fargate and EC2 launch modes in GovCloud (US-West and US-East) and is available via Console, API, SDK, CLI, and CloudFormation, simplifying service discovery and reducing duplication.

Amazon EC2 I8g Storage-Optimized Instances Expand Regions

🚀 Amazon Web Services announced general availability of Amazon EC2 I8g Storage Optimized instances in Asia Pacific (Seoul) and South America (São Paulo). These instances use third-generation AWS Nitro SSDs to deliver up to 65% better real-time storage performance per TB, with significantly lower storage I/O latency and variability. I8g instances target I/O-intensive, low-latency workloads with up to 45 TB local NVMe storage, up to 100 Gbps networking, and 60 Gbps dedicated EBS bandwidth across multiple sizes including a metal option.

From Vulnerability Management to Exposure Platform

🛡️ CrowdStrike argues legacy vulnerability management cannot keep pace with AI-accelerated adversaries. Their Falcon Exposure Management platform leverages a single lightweight sensor to deliver continuous, native visibility across endpoints, cloud, and network assets. It pairs adversary-aware risk prioritization with agentic automation and Charlotte Agentic SOAR to reduce manual triage and remediate high-risk exposures quickly. The emphasis is on speeding effective action, cutting tool sprawl, and focusing teams on the small subset of issues that drive most breach risk.