All news in category “Vendor and Hyperscaler Watch”

📣 BigQuery now supports identity columns that automatically generate sequential 64-bit integer values for table rows. This feature simplifies unique identifier management by letting BigQuery handle ID generation natively, reducing ETL complexity and boilerplate SQL. Identity columns integrate with standard DML such as INSERT and MERGE and can be defined in CREATE TABLE statements with options for fully managed sequences or allow manual overrides when needed.

🛡️ Today Google announced the Fairwind Program to provide a select group of government agencies, enterprise customers, and cybersecurity partners with access to advanced Gemini models and the CodeMender harness. The offering pairs Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber with CodeMender to autonomously find, verify, and produce validated code fixes at scale within secure cloud environments. Participants must meet strict operational controls and the program initially prioritizes partners responsible for critical public services and infrastructure.

🔧 AWS CloudFormation now supports contract tests v2 via the --v2 flag on the cfn test command in the CloudFormation CLI. The new suite expands beyond basic CRUD checks to exercise resource type implementations across every handler operation, with live-state verification after create, update, and delete. New resource types can run these tests during registry submission, and Java-based resource types can run them locally with Docker and a built handler package. Additional checks include schema backward-compatibility, input linting, and detailed HTML and JUnit XML reports to reduce iteration cycles.

🟢 AWS Config now supports 60 additional AWS resource types across services such as Amazon Bedrock, Amazon EC2, Amazon SageMaker, and AWS Organizations. If recording for all resource types is enabled, AWS Config will automatically start tracking these resources. The new types are available for use in Config rules and Config aggregators, enhancing discovery, assessment, auditing, and remediation across Regions.

🔒 Palo Alto Networks partners with the Zendesk Startup Program to offer startups enterprise-grade browser security. The post explains how Prisma Browser for Business (PBB) protects support agents and customer data by blocking phishing, preventing data leakage, and applying tailored policies to Zendesk sessions. The program allows eligible startups to access PBB with minimal setup, helping founders build securely from day one while preserving runway.

🔒 Amazon MemoryDB now supports AWS PrivateLink in the AWS GovCloud (US-West) and (US-East) Regions. You can create an interface VPC endpoint in your VPC via the Amazon VPC console, AWS SDK, or AWS CLI to privately access MemoryDB APIs from applications inside your VPC. The VPC endpoint can also be reached from other VPCs via VPC Peering or from on-premises networks using AWS VPN or AWS Direct Connect, keeping traffic off the public internet.

🎛️ AWS User Experience Customization (UXC) is now available in all commercial AWS Regions, allowing account administrators to set a custom account color and control which services and Regions appear in the AWS Management Console. Previously limited to US East (N. Virginia), UXC can now be managed from any commercial Region using the AWS CLI, AWS SDKs, or AWS CloudFormation. The feature is available at no additional charge and integrates with existing infrastructure automation for easier console configuration.

🛡️ Fortinet invites security and IT leaders to the 2026 SASE Summit, "The Age of Autonomous Trust," on September 15 and 17. Speakers include Gartner analysts and Fortinet experts discussing how AI, LLMs, agents, and distributed interactions reshape access, data movement, and policy enforcement. Sessions cover securing GenAI, extending trust to AI-driven activity, modernizing access beyond VPNs, and addressing sovereignty through Sovereign SASE deployments.

🛡️ Anthropic introduced Enterprise Frontier Safeguards (EFS), a framework that combines zero data retention (ZDR) privacy with automated misuse detection while keeping monitoring data in customer-controlled cloud storage. The phased rollout begins this fall and will cover multiple Claude and third-party platforms, with interim ZDR on Fable 5 and 5.1 models. EFS automates detection and routes alerts to customer teams with no Anthropic human review, shifting operational triage and retention responsibilities to enterprises. The feature is free, though standard cloud storage costs apply.

🔒 Organizations are rapidly adopting AI but often lack the governance, controls, and incident readiness to manage the resulting cyber risk. Sygnia’s 2026 CISO Survey highlights extensive AI use and pervasive unpreparedness, driven by shadow AI, ad hoc integrations, and AI agents with excessive permissions. The article argues for a lifecycle approach—identify, classify, assign ownership, limit access, validate controls, and prepare IR—to ensure safe, scalable AI adoption.

🔍 Microsoft is investigating why Defender for Office 365 is incorrectly showing “Opening this website might not be safe” for legitimate Google search links. The company logged the incident as MO1465962 and says the root cause is an inaccurate security classification; copying and pasting the links does not avoid the block. Admins may see related alerts in Microsoft Sentinel and the Defender portal; Microsoft is working to remediate the misclassification.

📡 Comcast has rolled out a WiFi-based motion detection feature on its routers that notifies users when motion is detected near connected devices and provides live activity feeds. The feature includes modes for Home, Sleep, and Away, and its effectiveness varies with home layout, materials, and device placement. Comcast warns it does not guarantee detection performance and notes the system has limitations. The company’s support documentation also states that motion data may be shared with third parties under certain circumstances.

🚀 Starting today, AWS Lambda supports SnapStart for functions packaged as container images, cutting startup times from several seconds to sub-second for latency-sensitive workloads. SnapStart snapshots an initialized execution environment at deployment and resumes from the cache on invocation, avoiding full reinitialization. The feature is opt-in and available in most commercial AWS Regions, and can be enabled via Console, CLI, APIs, and IaC tools.

🤖 Amazon SageMaker Unified Studio CI/CD adds two open-source features: an AI agent skill to auto-generate deployment manifests and native notebook promotion across environments. The manifest skill inspects project resources, applies least-privilege IAM guidance, and substitutes environment variables to avoid hardcoded identifiers. Notebook promotion synchronizes notebooks in place, preserving run history, supports selective promotion and dry-run validation, and integrates with existing CI/CD commands. Both features are available in all Regions offering SageMaker Unified Studio.

🛠️ Amazon RDS for SQL Server now supports 18 additional SQL trace flags that administrators can enable via database parameter groups. These flags adjust engine behaviors like cardinality estimation, lock escalation, statistics management, and memory handling to help optimize and stabilize workloads. AWS recommends testing changes in non-production environments before applying them broadly, as some flags may affect performance or memory usage.

🛠️ Amazon Quick is now generally available, enabling users to create custom applications by describing them in natural language. It connects to existing systems like Salesforce, Jira, Microsoft 365, databases, and data warehouses while honoring identity and access controls. Apps update automatically as source data changes and can be published to specific users or an entire organization. Available to Plus, Professional, and Enterprise customers starting September 1, 2026.

🔒 Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Identity now includes a managed consent portal that removes the need for custom OAuth callback infrastructure when connecting agents to third-party services. The portal is provided per AgentCore Gateway with a hosted web client and credential provider list, enabling platform admins to share a consent URL and users to self-service view connection status. The feature supports agent IDE-based clients that cannot natively handle OAuth consent flows and is available in all commercial regions where Bedrock AgentCore Identity is offered.

📢 AWS Deadline Cloud now supports sharing job bundles to simplify distribution and reuse of render job templates across teams. Bundles include job templates, parameters, and asset references and can be published to a queue from the submitter or CLI. Shared bundles are stored as portable archives in the queue's existing S3 job attachments bucket, requiring no extra infrastructure. Users can browse, preview, and manage bundles via the console or new CLI commands.

🛒 Cloud marketplaces are becoming a primary procurement route and offer partners a chance to move beyond transactions to deliver services and long-term value. Palo Alto Networks highlights the importance of meeting customers where they buy, understanding CSP commitments and leveraging the NextWave Partner Program for commercial benefits. Partners can combine platform technology with services to drive adoption, modernize infrastructure and secure emerging priorities like AI. Effective collaboration among partners, CSPs and vendor teams is key to converting marketplace opportunities into strategic customer outcomes.

🔍 Amazon Kinesis Data Streams introduces a DryRun option allowing customers to validate API requests and permissions without executing operations. Previously, teams used brittle workarounds like deliberately failing requests to check access, risking unintended writes if limits changed. The new optional DryRun parameter returns a DryRunOperationException when validation succeeds and is supported for five APIs across all Regions.