All news in category "Vendor and Hyperscaler Watch"

Amazon Connect: Conversational Analytics for Self-Service

🔍 Amazon Connect now provides conversational analytics for end-customer self-service across voice and digital channels, including PSTN/telephony, in-app and web calling, chat, SMS, WhatsApp Business, and Apple Messages for Business. The capability analyzes sentiment, redacts sensitive data, surfaces top contact drivers and themes, flags compliance risks, and supports semantic matching rules to categorize interactions. Administrators can use easy-to-customize dashboards to proactively identify areas for improvement and align automated flows with customer needs.

AWS Network Firewall — Managed Rule Groups from Marketplace

🔒 AWS Network Firewall now supports managed rule groups from AWS Marketplace partners, enabling customers to deploy partner-curated threat intelligence directly from the console. These managed rules are continuously updated by vendors and integrate with existing firewall architectures without routing changes. They reduce operational overhead across multiple VPCs and help maintain compliance and security posture. Customers should evaluate partner offerings against their requirements.

Google Named Leader in Gartner MQ for AI Platforms

🚀 Google has been named a Leader in the inaugural 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for AI Application Development Platforms and ranked highest for Ability to Execute. The announcement highlights Vertex AI as a unified, governed platform that delivers model choice, customization, and production-grade agent capabilities across an enterprise. Key capabilities cited include the Vertex AI Model Garden and Gemini 3, Vertex AI Training, Agent Builder and Agent Engine for multi-agent systems, and operational controls for observability, security, and predictable cost.

Amazon Bedrock Expands Availability to New Regions

🚀 Amazon Bedrock is now available in Africa (Cape Town), Canada West (Calgary), Mexico (Central), and Middle East (Bahrain). The managed service provides access to multiple foundation models and tools to build, deploy, and operate secure, scalable generative AI applications and agents. Customers in these Regions can expect lower latency, improved regional data options, and an easier path from experimentation to production.

Amazon Bedrock Expands Availability to Four New Regions

🚀 Beginning today, Amazon has made Amazon Bedrock available in Africa (Cape Town), Canada West (Calgary), Mexico (Central), and Middle East (Bahrain). The managed service provides secure access to a variety of foundation models and tools for building and operating generative AI applications and agents. With regional endpoints, customers can reduce latency and address data residency and compliance needs. To get started, customers can consult the Bedrock documentation and regional resources.

Check Point Launches Managed Rules for AWS Network Firewall

🔒 Check Point and AWS have introduced Check Point Managed Rules for AWS Network Firewall to simplify scaling network security across complex cloud environments. The service provides centrally managed, preconfigured rule sets that reduce the time and effort required to deploy and maintain firewalls across multiple VPCs and subnets. By automating updates and delivering threat-informed rules, the offering aims to lower operational overhead, accelerate response to new attack vectors, and free scarce IT resources for higher-value tasks.

Amazon Connect: Configure Ring Time for Outbound Campaigns

📞 Amazon Connect outbound campaigns now let campaign managers set ring duration from 15 to 60 seconds before a call is marked no answer and the dialer moves on. Each contact logs ring start and end timestamps for detailed, per-call reporting and traceability. The change enables tuning dialing behavior to audience patterns to improve contact rates and agent productivity. The feature is available in multiple AWS regions and follows the platform’s pay-as-you-go billing model.

Amazon: Nation-State Cyber-Enabled Kinetic Targeting

🔎 Amazon Threat Intelligence reports a rising trend in which nation-state actors use cyber operations to collect real-time intelligence that directly supports physical attacks. The team calls this behavior cyber-enabled kinetic targeting, documenting campaigns that compromised AIS platforms, CCTV feeds, and enterprise systems. Amazon highlights multi-source telemetry and partner collaboration, urging defenders to expand threat models to address digital activities that enable kinetic outcomes.

Amazon OpenSearch Serverless: Console Backup & Restore

🗄️ Amazon OpenSearch Serverless now supports backup and restore via the AWS Management Console, giving administrators a graphical option to manage snapshots. The service automatically creates backups for all collections and indexes every hour and retains them for 14 days; this behavior is enabled by default and requires no configuration. Restores can be initiated from either the Console or the API, simplifying recovery and operational workflows for serverless search deployments.

AWS IAM Adds Outbound Identity Federation with JWTs

🔐 AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) now supports outbound identity federation, enabling customers to exchange AWS credentials for short‑lived, cryptographically signed JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) to authenticate workloads with third‑party clouds, SaaS providers, and self‑hosted applications. Tokens include workload context so external services can enforce fine‑grained access control. Administrators can restrict who can generate tokens and configure token properties such as lifetime, audience, and signing algorithm via IAM policies, and audit issuance and usage through CloudTrail. The capability is available in all AWS commercial Regions, AWS GovCloud (US) Regions, and China Regions.

AWS Channel Partner Billing Transfer for Reselling Services

🧾 AWS Channel Partners in the Solution Provider and Distribution programs can now resell AWS services using Billing Transfer. This capability allows partners to assume financial responsibility for customer AWS Organizations while customers retain full control of their management accounts. Partners centrally manage billing and payments, receive eligible program benefits on partner-delivered bills, and can use new Partner Central APIs for channel reporting and incentive qualification.

AWS Get Invoice PDF API Generally Available in US East

📄 AWS has made the Get Invoice PDF API generally available, enabling customers to programmatically download invoice PDF artifacts via SDK or API calls. Callers submit an AWS Invoice ID and receive pre-signed Amazon S3 URLs for immediate download of invoice and supplemental PDF documents. For bulk retrieval, customers can call List Invoice Summaries to obtain Invoice IDs for a billing period and then invoke Get Invoice PDF for each artifact. The API is deployed in US East (N. Virginia) and is accessible to customers in commercial regions except China.

Amazon Inspector: Org-wide Management via AWS Organizations

🔒 Amazon Inspector can now be enabled, configured, and managed centrally across your AWS Organization using a new Inspector policy type in AWS Organizations. Administrators designate a delegated admin, enable the Inspector policies policy type, and create policies that specify scan types (Amazon EC2, ECR, Lambda standard, Code Scanning, Code Security) and Regions. Once attached to a root, OU, or account, the policy automatically enables Inspector for all covered accounts — including new accounts that join or move into covered OUs — ensuring consistent vulnerability scanning coverage and reducing operational overhead.

BigLake Metastore Adds Iceberg REST Catalog Support

🔔 Google Cloud announced general availability of BigLake metastore support for the Iceberg REST Catalog, offering a serverless, standards-based runtime metastore that enables interoperability across Iceberg-compatible engines (Spark, Trino) and BigQuery. The service provides credential vending, integrated governance via Dataplex Universal Catalog for lineage and data quality, and a UX console for creating and managing Iceberg catalogs. By removing the need to run custom metastore deployments, BigLake metastore aims to reduce operational overhead while preserving enterprise scale and security.

Fortinet Adds AI-Driven Managed IPS Rules for AWS Cloud

🔒 Fortinet is an official launch partner for third-party rules on AWS Network Firewall, introducing Fortinet Managed IPS Rules powered by FortiGuard AI-Powered Security Services. The managed service uses AI/ML from FortiGuard Labs to automatically translate global threat telemetry into continuously updated IPS rules, removing manual tuning and improving detection timeliness. Deployment is fast via AWS Marketplace and integrates natively with AWS Network Firewall, helping teams scale protection across cloud workloads while supporting compliance objectives.

Phil Venables on CISO 2.0 and Building CISO Factories

🔒 In this Cloud CISO Perspectives installment, Phil Venables explains how AI is reshaping the chief information security officer role and urges a shift from reactive “fire station” operations to a self-sustaining “flywheel.” He defines CISO 2.0 as business-first, technically empathetic, and focused on long-term strategic outcomes, and introduces CISO Factories—organizations that reliably develop great security leaders. Venables emphasizes clear strategy, stronger board engagement, and using procurement influence to drive safer supplier behavior.

AWS NAT Gateway Adds Regional Availability Mode Across AZs

📢 Amazon Web Services (AWS) has introduced a regional availability mode for NAT Gateways, enabling a single NAT Gateway to automatically expand and contract across Availability Zones within your VPC. A regional NAT Gateway does not require a public subnet and removes the need to create or delete AZ-specific NATs or edit route tables when workloads shift. The feature supports Amazon-provided IPs and bring your own IP (BYOIP) and is available in all commercial AWS Regions except AWS GovCloud (US) and the China Regions.

AWS launches RISP Group Sharing for org-level cost control

💼 AWS announced general availability of Reserved Instances and Savings Plans (RISP) Group Sharing, a Billing and Cost Management feature that gives organizations granular control over how commitments are distributed across accounts and business units. Administrators create groups using AWS Cost Categories and choose Prioritized or Restricted sharing to align savings or enforce isolation. The feature is available in all Regions except AWS GovCloud (US) and China and can be enabled from Billing preferences.

AWS Secrets Manager: Managed External Secrets Launch

🔐 AWS Secrets Manager introduces managed external secrets, a default-enabled feature that automates rotation for third-party SaaS credentials using provider-supported rotation strategies. The service removes the need to build and maintain rotation Lambda functions by enforcing a vendor-prescribed secret format and offering multiple rotation approaches. An onboarding guide enables any SaaS provider to join as a partner and publish prescriptive rotation guidance. At launch, the feature lists Salesforce, BigID, and Snowflake, and is available in all Regions where Secrets Manager operates.

Amazon EKS Adds Enhanced Container Network Observability

🔍 Amazon EKS now delivers enhanced container network observability with granular, network-related metrics and integrated console visualizations to help teams monitor and troubleshoot Kubernetes networking on AWS. Powered by Amazon CloudWatch Network Flow Monitor, the capabilities reveal cross-AZ flows, top-talkers, retransmissions, and retransmission timeouts for faster root cause analysis. Teams can ingest metrics into their preferred observability stacks and use the console views to eliminate blind spots during incidents. These features are available in all commercial Regions where CloudWatch Network Flow Monitor is offered.