All news in category “Vendor and Hyperscaler Watch”

🚀 AWS has announced general availability of Amazon EC2 X8i instances, a new family of memory-optimized instances built on custom Intel Xeon 6 processors exclusive to AWS. X8i offers up to 43% higher overall performance, 1.5x more memory capacity (up to 6 TB) and 3.4x greater memory bandwidth compared to prior X2i instances. Designed for SAP HANA, large databases, data analytics and EDA, X8i is SAP-certified and available in 14 sizes including two bare-metal options. Instances are initially available in US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (Oregon) and Europe (Frankfurt) and can be purchased via Savings Plans, On-Demand or Spot.

🧭 Microsoft Marketplace positions itself as the central catalog for organizations choosing how to adopt AI—whether to build, buy, or blend solutions. It hosts more than 11,000 prepackaged models and over 4,000 AI apps and agents, accessible via the storefront, Azure portal, and Microsoft Foundry. The platform supports both pro-code and low-code development workflows, including Copilot Studio, and emphasizes integration, governance, and faster time-to-value for enterprise deployments.

🔒 This article describes a pre-built Tines workflow that automates Just-In-Time (JIT) access to applications by orchestrating Okta, Jira, and Slack (or Teams) for request intake, approval, provisioning, and revocation. Users submit a self-service request via a customizable Tines Page; approvers receive interactive notifications and can approve instantly. On approval the workflow adds the user to the correct Okta group, logs actions in Jira for auditability, and enforces a timed revocation. The outcome is faster access for users, enforced least privilege, and a clear, auditable trail without manual click-ops.

🔁 AWS Lambda now supports cross-account access for DynamoDB Streams event-source mappings, enabling streams in one account to trigger Lambda functions in another. By attaching a resource-based policy to a DynamoDB stream, owners can grant functions in other accounts permission to consume change events without replicating data. The capability is generally available across AWS Commercial and AWS GovCloud (US) Regions and can be configured via the Console, CLI, SDKs, CloudFormation, or APIs. This reduces operational overhead and simplifies multi-account event-driven architectures.

📦 Amazon EBS now permits up to four Elastic Volumes modifications per volume within a rolling 24-hour window. Elastic Volumes lets you increase size, change volume type, and adjust performance without detaching volumes or restarting instances, and you may start a new modification immediately after the previous one completes so long as fewer than four modifications were initiated in the prior 24 hours. This capability is automatically enabled in all commercial AWS Regions, AWS GovCloud (US) Regions, and China Regions.

🔧 Amazon Redshift Serverless introduces queue-based query resource management. You can create dedicated query queues with customized monitoring rules and metrics-based predicates to control workload behavior, including automated responses such as aborting long-running or resource-heavy queries. Queues are assignable to user roles and query groups and operate independently, replacing prior workgroup-wide QMR. The feature is available in all regions that support Redshift Serverless and can be managed via the AWS Console and Redshift APIs.

📊 AWS Data Exports now surfaces granular Amazon Bedrock operation types in billing outputs, replacing generic "Usage" labels with explicit actions such as InvokeModelInference and InvokeModelStreamingInference. These operation values appear in Legacy CUR and CUR 2.0 via the line_item_operation column, in FOCUS exports via x_Operation, and as Operation dimension values in the Cost Explorer API. The visibility applies across all Bedrock foundation models and is intended to help FinOps and cost optimization teams perform more precise usage tracking and billing analysis.

📊 AWS Data Exports now surfaces granular operation types for Amazon Bedrock in cost reports, replacing generic "Usage" labels with explicit operations such as InvokeModelInference and InvokeModelStreamingInference. These operation values appear in the line_item_operation column for Legacy CUR and CUR 2.0, the x_Operation column in FOCUS exports, and as Operation dimension values in the AWS Cost Explorer API. The change applies to all foundation models on Bedrock and is intended to help FinOps and cost optimization teams analyze and optimize model-driven spend.

🌐 Amazon VPC Route Server is now available in 16 additional AWS Regions, bringing total availability to 30 regions. The service simplifies dynamic routing between virtual appliances by letting those appliances advertise routes via BGP and automatically update VPC route tables for subnets and internet gateways. This expansion broadens regional deployment choices for customers using third-party virtual network appliances and streamlines multi-region and hybrid routing architectures.

🟦Amazon has expanded VPC Route Server to 16 additional AWS Regions, bringing total availability to 30 regions worldwide. The service lets virtual appliances advertise routes using BGP and dynamically update VPC route tables associated with subnets and internet gateways. This expansion broadens deployment choices and helps customers apply consistent dynamic routing across more geographies. It simplifies management of virtual appliances and supports scalable, resilient network architectures.

🔒 Amazon VPC IPAM now supports centrally managed IP allocation policies for RDS instances and ALB resources, enabling administrators to enforce public IP assignment rules. The policies cover RDS, Application Load Balancers, NAT Gateways in regional mode, and Elastic IPs and cannot be overridden by application teams, improving compliance. Available in all AWS commercial and GovCloud (US) Regions, the capability is offered in both IPAM Free and Advanced tiers; the Advanced tier supports cross-account and cross-region policy application.

🔐 Amazon Bedrock now supports API keys in AWS GovCloud (US), extending the capability first introduced in commercial regions in July 2025. Developers can create short-term API keys (valid for the console session or up to 12 hours) and long-term keys with configurable lifetimes. Long-term keys are manageable through the AWS IAM console, reducing the need to manually configure IAM principals and policies and streamlining generative AI development.

🤖 Palo Alto Networks automated creation of its internal Document of Record (DOR) using an agent built with Google's open-source Agent Development Kit (ADK) and hosted on Vertex AI Agent Engine. The agent leverages Vertex AI RAG Engine, Vertex AI Discovery Search, Gemini models, and Cloud Storage to retrieve and synthesize grounded answers to a standardized set of 140+ questions. A FastAPI webserver on GKE orchestrates parallel processing, manages state, and publishes completed DORs back to Salesforce via Cloud Pub/Sub, reducing manual effort and improving consistency.

🔎 Comments to SQL in BigQuery introduces an AI-driven way to write queries by placing natural-language expressions inside SQL comments. The system analyzes surrounding SQL context and translates plain English prompts into executable BigQuery SQL across SELECT, FROM, WHERE, GROUP BY and other clauses. It supports iterative refinement and aims to help both non-SQL users and experienced analysts move faster.

📶 AWS IoT Device Management now offers Wi‑Fi Simple Setup (WSS) through its managed integrations feature. Developers can add QR code scanning so end users provision Wi‑Fi devices with a barcode scan, reducing manual configuration and support needs. WSS lets users store credentials in managed integrations; a new device scans a QR code, joins a hidden network broadcast by the IoT hub, and receives credentials securely for near zero‑touch onboarding. The feature is available in Canada (Central) and Europe (Ireland).

🔒 AWS Transform custom now supports AWS PrivateLink and is available in the Europe (Frankfurt) Region in addition to US East (N. Virginia). The service automates repetitive code transformation tasks—language version upgrades, API migrations, and framework updates—using natural language, documentation, and code samples or AWS-managed transformations for Java, Python, and Node.js. With PrivateLink, customers can invoke Transform custom from an Amazon VPC without routing traffic over the public internet, helping address security and compliance requirements while enabling consistent, repeatable changes across large codebases.

🔒 Microsoft was named a Leader in the 2025–2026 IDC MarketScape for Worldwide Unified AI Governance Platforms, recognizing its integrated approach to governing generative, agentic, and traditional ML across hybrid and multicloud environments. The company emphasizes centralized control, observability, and automated compliance through Microsoft Foundry, Agent 365, Purview, Entra, and Defender. Backed by the Responsible AI standard and an Office of Responsible AI, Microsoft highlights built-in transparency, fairness, explainability, and real-time security protections for regulated enterprises.

🧾 AWS has updated the AWS Billing and Cost Management Console Payments page to provide much faster performance, improved data accuracy, and simplified payment reconciliation. Pages now load in milliseconds rather than minutes, allowing customers with tens of thousands of transactions to access complete histories without timeouts. The enhanced view adds consolidated balance tracking, clear transaction status indicators, advanced filtering, and a Usage Consolidation Account column to help track Billing Transfer activity across accounts.

📅 Amazon Connect adds a visual calendar and recurring hours-of-operation overrides to simplify scheduling for holidays, maintenance windows, and promotional periods. Administrators can create weekly, monthly, or every-other-Friday overrides that automatically take effect and revert without manual changes. The feature supports public APIs and AWS CloudFormation and is available in all regions where Amazon Connect is offered.

🔒 SpyCloud announced Supply Chain Threat Protection, a new offering that extends identity threat monitoring across an organization’s entire vendor ecosystem using recaptured darknet data from breaches, malware, and successful phishes. The solution emphasizes verified, timely evidence of compromise over static scoring and external surface indicators. It provides an Identity Threat Index, visibility into compromised applications on supplier devices, and integrated response tools to help security, vendor risk, and GRC teams act on real threats.