All news in category "Vendor and Hyperscaler Watch"

Amazon Connect adds configurable service level calculations

📞 Amazon Connect now lets supervisors and managers customize how service level is calculated directly from the analytics dashboards. Administrators can define time thresholds that determine when a contact meets service level and choose which outcomes to include, such as counting callbacks, excluding contacts transferred out while waiting, or omitting short abandons via a configurable threshold. The feature is accessible in the metric configuration section and is available in all AWS regions where Amazon Connect is offered.

Simplifying Zero Trust Contractor Access with Secure Browser

🔒 A secure enterprise browser provides a practical, cost-efficient Zero Trust approach to managing contractor access, reducing reliance on complex VPNs and broad network privileges. By isolating sessions and enforcing granular policies per user and resource, organizations can grant contractors only the access required for their role. This reduces attack surface, simplifies administration, and lowers operational costs while supporting both short-term and long-term engagements.

ML-Based DLL Hijacking Detection Integrated into SIEM

🛡️ Kaspersky developed a machine-learning model to detect DLL hijacking, a technique where attackers replace or sideload dynamic-link libraries so legitimate processes execute malicious code. The model inspects metadata such as file paths, renaming, size, structure and digital signatures, trained on internal analysis and anonymized KSN telemetry. Implemented in the Kaspersky Unified Monitoring and Analysis Platform, it flags suspicious loads and cross-checks cloud reputation to reduce false positives and support retrospective hunting.

Amazon EC2 C8i and C8i-flex Instances Generally Available

🚀 AWS has announced the general availability of new Amazon EC2 C8i and C8i-flex compute-optimized instances powered by custom Intel Xeon 6 processors available only on AWS. AWS cites up to 15% better price-performance and 2.5x more memory bandwidth versus prior Intel-based instances, and up to 20% higher performance compared with C7i families, with specific gains as high as 60% for NGINX, 40% for deep learning recommendation models, and 35% for Memcached. C8i-flex targets common sizes from large to 16xlarge for workloads that don’t fully use all vCPUs, while C8i offers 13 sizes including two bare-metal options and a new 96xlarge for the largest scale. These instances are available in US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (Oregon), and Europe (Spain) and can be purchased via Savings Plans, On-Demand, or Spot.

Leaked iPad Pro M5 Benchmark Shows Significant Gains

🔍An alleged Apple M5 benchmark for an iPad Pro has surfaced on Geekbench, reporting a single-core score of 4,133 and a multi-core score of 15,437 for a variant clocked at about 4.42 GHz. The listing shows 12 GB of RAM, likely paired with 256 GB or 512 GB of storage. Early comparisons place the M5 narrowly ahead in single-thread tests versus Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite 2 but behind in multi-core throughput, underscoring Apple's strong per-core design.

Leaked iPad Pro M5 Benchmark Nears Laptop CPU Performance

🔍 A leaked Geekbench entry allegedly from an unreleased iPad shows an Apple M5 chip delivering a 4,133 single‑core score and 15,437 multi‑core score, with the processor reported at 4.42 GHz and paired with 12GB of RAM and likely 256/512GB storage. In early comparisons, Apple's per‑core performance edges out Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite 2 in single‑thread tests, while the Snapdragon's higher core count gives it a clear multi‑core lead. The results highlight Apple's continued CPU design strength but should be treated as an unverified leak until independently confirmed.

OpenAI Launches Codex Alpha for Early Model Access

🚀 OpenAI has introduced a new opt-in program, Codex Alpha, offering developers early access to updated Codex models and features ahead of DevDay 2025. The rollout currently exposes several gpt-5 variants (gpt-5-codex low/medium/high, gpt-5 minimal, and gpt-5 low/medium/high) tailored for coding and varied reasoning depths. The author could opt in but did not yet gain access to newer models; broader availability is expected at the October 6 event. Codex operates in Terminal, IDE, and web environments to assist with full application development rather than only snippets.

AWS Glue Adds Write Support for Four Application Connectors

🔁 AWS Glue now supports write operations for SAP OData, Adobe Marketo Engage, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and HubSpot connectors, allowing ETL jobs to create and update records directly in those applications. Announced Oct 3, 2025, the enhancement lets teams sync leads and CRM records, update subscribers and campaign data, and manage contacts, companies, and deals without custom scripts or intermediate systems. This capability simplifies end-to-end ETL pipelines and reduces integration complexity and latency. The feature is available in all Regions where AWS Glue is offered; consult the AWS Glue documentation for supported entities.

Signal Adds SPQR Triple Ratchet to Harden Against Quantum

🔐 Signal announced the rollout of SPQR (Sparse Post‑Quantum Ratchet), a new cryptographic component that augments its existing double ratchet to form a Triple Ratchet. SPQR integrates post‑quantum Key‑Encapsulation Mechanisms (ML‑KEM, including CRYSTALS‑Kyber) with efficient chunking and erasure coding to limit bandwidth. The design was co-developed with PQShield, AIST, and NYU, formally verified, and will be gradually enabled; users only need to keep clients updated.

Amazon OpenSearch Service Adds Batch AI Inference Support

🧠 You can now run asynchronous batch AI inference inside Amazon OpenSearch Ingestion pipelines to enrich and ingest very large datasets for Amazon OpenSearch Service domains. The same AI connectors previously used for real-time calls to Amazon Bedrock, Amazon SageMaker, and third parties now support high-throughput, offline jobs. Batch inference is intended for offline enrichment scenarios—generating up to billions of vector embeddings—with improved performance and cost efficiency versus streaming inference. The feature is available in regions that support OpenSearch Ingestion on domains running 2.17+.

Amazon Kinesis Video Streams Adds IPv6 Dual-Stack Support

📡 AWS now supports IPv6 addressing for Amazon Kinesis Video Streams, providing dual-stack endpoints that accept both IPv4 and IPv6 clients for video streaming at scale. Existing IPv4 implementations continue to work unchanged, while organizations can adopt IPv6 to address private IPv4 exhaustion, eliminate reliance on NAT translation, and simplify long-term network transitions. IPv6 support is available in all commercial Regions where KVS runs except ap-southeast-1 and GovCloud.

Dataproc ML library: Connect Spark to Gemini and Vertex

🔗 Google has released an open-source Python library, Dataproc ML, to streamline running ML and generative-AI inference from Apache Spark on Dataproc. The library uses a SparkML-style builder pattern so users can configure a model handler (for example, GenAiModelHandler) and call .transform() to apply Gemini or other Vertex AI models directly to DataFrames. It also supports loading PyTorch and TensorFlow model artifacts from GCS for large-scale batch inference and includes performance optimizations such as vectorized data transfer, connection reuse, and automatic retry/backoff.

AWS Clean Rooms Adds Cross-Region Data Collaboration

🌐 AWS Clean Rooms now supports cross-region collaboration, letting organizations analyze partner data stored in different AWS and Snowflake Regions without copying or sharing underlying datasets. Collaboration creators can specify allowed result regions to help meet data residency and sovereignty requirements. This reduces integration work—no new pipelines or replication—and enables faster, secure joint analyses across advertising, investment, and R&D use cases.

AWS End User Messaging adds SMS onboarding alerts now

🔔 AWS End User Messaging now sends SMS onboarding progress notifications to Slack, Email, or any Amazon EventBridge destination. Instead of manually checking phone number or sender ID registration status in the console, customers can receive immediate alerts when registrations are created, submitted, denied, or require updates. Support is available in all Regions where End User Messaging is offered. This capability helps developers accelerate onboarding workflows, reduce manual tracking, and improve operational visibility for messaging infrastructure.

Amazon Connect launches generative AI for email support

📧 Amazon Connect now provides generative AI-powered email conversation overviews, suggested actions, and draft responses to help agents resolve customer emails faster and more consistently. Administrators enable the capability by adding the Amazon Q in Connect block to contact flows before an email is assigned to an agent. Outputs can be customized with knowledge bases and tailored prompts to align responses with company tone and policies. The feature is available in all regions where Amazon Q in Connect is offered.

Passwork 7: Unified On-Premises Password and Secrets

🔐 Passwork 7 is an on‑premises unified platform that consolidates password and secrets management with a redesigned interface and reworked core workflows to improve usability and security. The update introduces hierarchical vaults, custom vault types, role‑based access, and comprehensive logging, plus API, Python connector, CLI and Docker support for DevOps automation. Built on a zero‑knowledge AES‑256 model with MongoDB storage and ISO 27001 certification, it targets organizations needing centralized, compliant credential control.

Gmail enterprise users can now send E2EE to anyone

🔒 Gmail enterprise users can now send end-to-end encrypted emails to recipients on any email platform by enabling the Additional encryption option when composing a message. Non-Gmail recipients receive a secure link to view and reply via a guest Google Workspace account, while Workspace-to-Workspace messages decrypt automatically for subscribers. The feature uses client-side encryption (CSE) so organizations can hold keys outside Google's servers to support data sovereignty and regulatory controls. Google began beta testing in April 2025 and will roll the feature out to Enterprise Plus customers with the Assured Controls add-on.

AWS launches self-service invoice correction feature

📄 AWS has made a self-service invoice correction feature generally available, enabling customers to update core invoice attributes and receive corrected PDFs instantly. Accessible from the AWS Billing and Cost Management console, the guided workflow supports edits to purchase order numbers, legal business names, and billing and physical addresses on select invoices. The capability is intended to reduce support cycles, lower administrative friction, and speed reconciliation. The feature is available in all AWS Regions except GovCloud (US) and China (Beijing and Ningxia).

EC2 Image Builder: Pipeline Auto-Disable and Custom Logs

⚙️ EC2 Image Builder pipelines can now be automatically disabled after a configurable number of consecutive failures, and you can assign custom log groups with retention and encryption settings to meet organizational policies. This prevents unnecessary resource creation and repeated failed builds, reducing costs and operational noise. These capabilities are available at no extra charge across all AWS commercial regions and are usable via Console, CLI, API, CloudFormation, or CDK.

AWS Directory Service Adds IPv6 Support for Managed AD

🌐 AWS Directory Service now supports IPv6 connectivity for both Managed Microsoft AD and AD Connector, allowing deployments in IPv4-only, IPv6-only, or dual-stack configurations. This capability is available in all Directory Service regions and accessible via the Console, CLI, and API. Customers can upgrade existing IPv4-only directories to dual-stack by enabling IPv6 in VPC subnets and adding IPv6 support through the Directory Service Management Console. The update helps organizations meet regulatory requirements, including U.S. federal IPv6 transition mandates, while reducing operational complexity associated with maintaining dual protocol stacks.