All news in category “Vendor and Hyperscaler Watch”

🔒AWS says long-standing infrastructure and cryptographic choices position it to address emerging AI and quantum threats. The company highlights the Nitro hardware platform — enabled by a 2015 semiconductor acquisition and deployed from 2017 — to provide strong isolation, confidential compute, and a 'zero humans' maintenance model. By favoring symmetric cryptography in KMS (launched 2013) and adding S3 controls like an 'active defense' that returns 'Bucket not found', AWS argues most customer data will not require immediate mass re-encryption while it pursues public-certificate post-quantum authentication by 2028–2029.

⚠️ Microsoft is investigating a known issue that prevents some Teams Free users from chatting and calling others. A recently deployed backend change is skipping onboarding and privacy consent screens for affected users, leaving profiles incomplete and causing them to appear as 'Unknown users' to others. Microsoft has flagged the incident as an service degradation, says first reports emerged on April 8, and plans another status update later today.

🚀 Amazon RDS for Db2 is now available in the AWS GovCloud (US‑East, US‑West) Regions, enabling government and regulated customers to deploy Db2 databases in the cloud quickly. The managed service automates configuration for performance and supports Multi‑AZ synchronous replication for high availability. Customers may use Bring Your Own License (BYOL) in Standard and Advanced editions and could be eligible for the Database Savings Plan; consult the documentation and pricing for details.

🐍 Amazon EMR 7.13 is now generally available and ships with Python 3.11 as the default runtime for Apache Spark. The release also includes patch upgrades for Apache HBase (2.6.3), Apache Hadoop (3.4.2), Apache Phoenix (5.3.0) and the AWS SDK (v2.41.11). EMR 7.13 is available in all AWS regions; administrators should validate application compatibility and dependency packaging before rolling out clusters.

🔐 Amazon OpenSearch Service now supports configuring a JSON Web Key Set (JWKS) URL for JWT authentication. With a JWKS URL configured, OpenSearch domains automatically fetch and validate public keys from an identity provider’s JWKS endpoint, removing the need to manually manage static keys when providers rotate signing keys. The feature includes built-in security validation checks and clearer error messaging, requires OpenSearch version 3.3 or later, and can be configured via the console, AWS CLI, or the CreateDomain and UpdateDomainConfig APIs.

🚀 Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime now supports Node.js as a managed language runtime for direct code deployment, joining existing Python support. Developers can package Node.js apps or compiled TypeScript projects and their dependencies into a .zip, upload to Amazon S3, and create an agent runtime without building container images. Node.js agents gain session isolation, built-in SigV4 and OAuth 2.0 authentication, bidirectional streaming, managed session storage, and observability via Amazon CloudWatch and the AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry Node.js auto-instrumentation.

🤖 At Google Cloud Next, public sector leaders showcased how they are using AI agents to boost productivity and mission impact across government and research organizations. Google introduced the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform—an evolution of Vertex AI—plus the Gemini Enterprise App with Gemini 3.1 Pro and an Agent Designer for inspectable, schedule‑based workflows. The announcement also covered AI infrastructure (TPU 8 series), an Agentic Data Cloud, enhanced security and Agentic Defense, partner initiatives, and upskilling through the GEAR program.

🚀 AWS Glue 5.1 is now generally available across commercial and AWS GovCloud (US) Regions, bringing updated runtimes, open-table-format support, and enhanced security controls. This release upgrades core engines to Apache Spark 3.5.6, Python 3.11, and Scala 2.12.18, and refreshes support for Apache Hudi 1.0.2, Apache Iceberg 1.10.0, and Delta Lake 3.3.2. It also adds Apache Iceberg format v3.0 features and extends AWS Lake Formation fine-grained access control to include write DML and DDL for Spark DataFrames and Spark SQL, plus full-table access control for Hudi and Delta tables.

🎮 Amazon GameLift Streams now supports Proton 10, an updated Proton compatibility layer for running Windows games on Linux-based stream classes. Proton 10 expands support to newer titles including modern DirectX 12 games and updates graphics translation layers (VKD3D/DXVK) for improved rendering and performance. The release also addresses Media Foundation video playback issues such as black screens and color bars and is available at no additional cost.

🔌 At Google Cloud Next ’26, Google announced that more than 50 Google-managed MCP servers are generally available or in preview, enabling AI agents to connect securely to Google and Google Cloud services without local MCP deployments. The managed endpoints integrate with major agent runtimes and frameworks including Gemini CLI, LangChain, ADK, and others, supporting Resources and Prompts as protocol primitives in addition to Tools. The offering emphasizes enterprise-grade security, governance, and observability through native IAM controls, Model Armor content safety, OpenTelemetry tracing, and Cloud Audit Logs.

📥 AWS Cost Optimization Hub now offers a one-click CSV download in the console, allowing users to export cost optimization recommendations directly to their local machine. Exports respect current filters, sorting, and grouping and begin immediately for offline analysis or stakeholder sharing. This complements existing automated Data Export to Amazon S3 and is available in all supported regions.

⚙️ Administrators can now migrate Amazon WorkSpaces Personal from PCoIP to Amazon DCV using a guided, single‑click console action in addition to existing CLI and API methods. WorkSpaces take an automatic checkpoint snapshot before migration to enable rollback and protect against data loss, and session provisioning is blocked during the process with clear end‑user messaging. By moving to DCV, customers gain broader OS support—including Windows 11 and Windows Server 2025—along with enhanced security options such as certificate‑based authentication and WebAuthN, and improved streaming performance.

🔐 AWS IAM Identity Center centralizes workforce access and can consume session tags from external SAML providers such as Microsoft Entra ID to enable fine‑grained, attribute‑based access control (ABAC) across multiple AWS accounts. By mapping directory group attributes to session tags, administrators can dynamically apply permissions and runtime configuration—examples include selecting an AWS Glue usage profile or configuring Systems Manager Session Manager run‑as behavior. The post walks through SAML and SCIM setup, creating a custom permission set, mapping claims (for example AccessControl:glue:UsageProfile), testing job creation in the Glue console, and validating session tags via CloudTrail AssumeRoleWithSAML events.

🚀 Amazon EC2 C8gn instances, powered by AWS Graviton4 processors, are now available in AWS Europe (Milan) and Asia Pacific (Hong Kong). The C8gn family delivers up to 30% better compute performance versus Graviton3-based C7gn instances and uses 6th-generation AWS Nitro Cards to provide up to 600 Gbps of network bandwidth. C8gn scales to 48xlarge (up to 384 GiB memory), supports EFA on select large sizes, and offers up to 120 Gbps of EBS bandwidth—suited for network virtual appliances, data analytics, and CPU-based AI/ML inference.

🏆 Microsoft has been named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide API Management 2026 Vendor Assessment, reflecting its emphasis on scaling APIs and AI together. Built on a decade-old foundation, Azure API Management governs over 38,000 customers, nearly 3 million APIs, and 3 trillion monthly requests while extending to AI gateway capabilities used by 2,000+ enterprises. The platform provides a single, Azure-native control plane to enforce policy, observability, and cost controls for both APIs and AI workloads.

🤖 Amazon Connect Talent is now available in Preview as an AI-powered hiring solution that automates structured voice interviews, administers science-backed assessments, and generates consistent candidate scores and transcripts. Candidates can interview 24/7 from any device, while recruiters access a central dashboard, detailed evaluations, and ATS integrations to accelerate and standardize hiring decisions.

🚀 Amazon announced that Amazon Bedrock now provides access to the latest OpenAI models, Codex, and a Managed Agents offering in limited preview. OpenAI models and Codex integrate with Bedrock controls such as IAM, AWS PrivateLink, encryption, and CloudTrail, and usage can be applied toward existing AWS cloud commitments. Managed Agents run on Bedrock AgentCore, log actions per agent, and keep inference within the customer's AWS environment.

🔒 Google Cloud explains how the BSI's new C3A framework validates and shapes its approach to digital sovereignty in Germany. The post presents a tiered Sovereign Cloud portfolio—Data Boundary, Google Cloud Dedicated, Google Distributed Cloud, and Sovereign Workspace by StackIT—designed to deliver graduated isolation, local control and compliance with European rules. It highlights collaboration with German partners and the direct integration of C3A criteria into product design to give public-sector and enterprise customers choice without vendor lock-in.

🚀 AWS announced the general availability of Amazon Connect Decisions, an agentic AI planning and intelligence solution that helps supply chain teams shift from firefighting to proactive operations. The service combines 30 years of Amazon operational science with 25+ specialized supply chain tools so persistent AI teammates can adapt to business rules, learn from human decisions, and continuously improve. These agents harmonize demand signals into consensus forecasts, generate constraint-aware supply plans, and run 24/7 monitoring that detects variances, performs automated root-cause analysis, and triages exceptions, surfacing only prioritized, actionable recommendations to help prevent stockouts and reduce working capital waste.

✨ AWS is previewing new features in Amazon Quick that let non-developers create custom web applications in minutes by describing their needs in natural language. These apps can connect to live data sources, orchestrate complex workflows, and embed AI-powered features without writing code. Built-in publishing and sharing let teams distribute internal tools with one click, and a guided onboarding experience claims value in under five minutes.