All news in category "Vendor and Hyperscaler Watch"

Amazon EC2 adds detailed NVMe instance store metrics

📊 Amazon announced detailed performance statistics for EC2 instance store NVMe volumes, providing real-time I/O visibility on Nitro-based instances. The capability exposes 11 metrics at one-second granularity, including IOPS, throughput, queue lengths, and latency histograms broken down by IO size. Available by default across AWS Commercial and China Regions at no extra charge, it aligns NVMe monitoring with EBS detailed metrics for a consistent operational experience.

Google Cloud and Infoblox introduce DNS Armor security

🛡️ DNS Armor is a cloud-native DNS security service from Google Cloud, built in partnership with Infoblox, that provides preemptive detection and mitigation of DNS-based threats for Google Cloud workloads. By intercepting internet-bound DNS queries and inspecting them in real time with Infoblox Threat Defense, it identifies malicious and high-risk domains, C2 activity, DNS tunneling, DGA patterns and evasive techniques such as fast-flux, and forwards detailed logs to Cloud Logging, Security Command Center, or SIEMs. Delivered as a turnkey managed service with no VMs and no impact to Cloud DNS, DNS Armor is enabled at the project level for granular protection and is available now in preview.

Gemini and Open-Source Text Embeddings Now in BigQuery ML

🚀 Google expanded BigQuery ML to generate embeddings from Gemini and over 13,000 open-source text-embedding models via Hugging Face, all callable with simple SQL. The post summarizes model tiers to help teams trade off quality, cost, and scalability, and introduces Gemini's Tokens Per Minute (TPM) quota for throughput control. It shows a practical workflow to deploy OSS models to Vertex AI endpoints, run ML.GENERATE_EMBEDDING for batch jobs, and undeploy to minimize idle costs, plus a Colab tutorial and cost/scale guidance.

Microsoft Purview Updates for Fabric: Securing Data for AI

🔒 Microsoft announced Purview innovations for Fabric at FabCon to unify discovery, protection, and governance across Azure, Microsoft 365, and Microsoft Fabric. New generally available controls include Information Protection policies for Fabric items, DLP for structured data in OneLake, and Insider Risk Management for Fabric. Preview features add DSPM data risk assessments and enhanced Copilot controls, while the Unified Catalog gains finer metadata, tagging, and data‑quality workflows to improve discoverability and trust.

Data Science Agent Adds BigQuery ML, DataFrames, and Spark

🧭 Google Cloud has expanded the Data Science Agent in Colab Enterprise notebooks to support BigQuery ML, BigQuery DataFrames and Spark, enabling large-scale data transformation, model training, and inference directly on BigQuery or via Serverless for Apache Spark. The agent can now auto-retrieve BigQuery table metadata and lets you add tables via an @ mention from your current project to provide prompt context. To invoke frameworks, include keywords such as BigQuery ML, BigFrames, or PySpark; sample prompts are provided to guide forecasting, supervised learning, and dimensionality reduction workflows. Notable limitations: generated PySpark targets Spark 4.0 and @ mentions only search the current project; BigQuery improvements are available now in BigQuery notebooks and coming soon to Vertex AI.

Azure Kubernetes Service Automatic: Simplified AKS for All

🚀 AKS Automatic is now generally available, delivering a fully managed, opinionated Kubernetes experience with production-ready defaults and automated day-two operations. It removes infrastructure toil—automatic node provisioning, scaling, patching, and repairs—while enabling intelligent autoscaling with HPA, VPA, KEDA and Karpenter. Developers retain the full Kubernetes API and toolchain and gain GPU and AI workload optimizations.

Microsoft to Remove WMIC After Windows 11 25H2 Upgrade

🔧 Microsoft has announced that the legacy WMIC command-line tool will be removed after systems are upgraded to Windows 11 25H2 and later. Administrators are advised to migrate scripts and automation to PowerShell or programmatic alternatives such as WMI's COM API or .NET libraries. The change affects only the WMIC client; the underlying WMI infrastructure remains supported. Microsoft says the removal reduces complexity and limits abuse of WMIC by threat actors.

AWS OSPAR 2025 Report: 170 Services Covered Under OSPAR v2.0

🔒 AWS has completed its annual OSPAR 2025 audit cycle under the newly enhanced OSPAR v2.0 guidelines, becoming the first global cloud provider in Singapore to receive the report. The certification covers 170 services in the AWS Asia Pacific (Singapore) Region, including seven newly scoped services such as Amazon DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) and AWS Payment Cryptography. Customers can retrieve the full report through AWS Artifact to support due diligence and compliance.

Oklahoma DOT Modernizes Bridge Management with Google Cloud

🔍 ODOT teamed with Google Cloud and North Highland to centralize decades of bridge inspection, location, and maintenance data into BigQuery and govern it with Dataplex, creating a single trusted source for analysis. Non-technical and technical staff can query complex datasets conversationally through Gemini in Looker, while BigQuery ML powers predictive models to flag at-risk bridges ahead of failures. Secure sharing via Analytics Hub and unified governance enables better resource allocation, improved safety, and faster, data-driven decisions across the agency.

Amazon AppStream Adds Fractional GPU Graphics G6 Instances

🖥️ Amazon AppStream 2.0 now supports Graphics G6 instances with fractionalized GPU sizes, enabling customers to provision GPU capacity in smaller fractions (for example 1/2, 1/4, or 1/8) instead of full GPU instances. The new G6f and Gr6f options are built on the EC2 G6 family and are designed to optimize shared GPU resources for graphics workloads that need less than a full GPU. These instances are available in 10 AWS Regions and use pay-as-you-go pricing; they can be launched from the AWS Management Console or via the AWS SDK when creating an image builder or fleet.

Team-wide VMware Certification: Boost Security and Retention

🔐 Team-wide VMware certification acts as a force multiplier for security, operations, and talent retention. Certified teams share a common language around architecture, reduce misconfigurations, and respond to incidents faster. Expertise in vSphere, NSX, vSAN, and cloud foundations teaches not just deployment but secure, scalable configuration. Programs like VMUG Advantage make broad certification practical with labs, exam vouchers, and personal-use licenses.

Amazon S3 Adds Conditional Deletes for General Buckets

🔒 Amazon S3 now supports conditional deletes in S3 general purpose buckets. You can include an HTTP If-Match header with an object's ETag when calling DeleteObject or DeleteObjects; S3 will only delete the object if the provided ETag matches, reducing accidental removals in high-concurrency, multi-writer environments. Administrators can also enforce conditional deletes using the s3:if-match bucket policy condition. The capability is available at no additional cost in all AWS Regions and accessible via the API, SDKs, and CLI.

AWS Storage Gateway Adds IPv6 Dual-Stack Support Globally

🌐 AWS Storage Gateway now supports IPv6 for endpoints, APIs, and gateway appliance interfaces, offering new dual‑stack access alongside IPv4. Existing IPv4-only endpoints remain available for backward compatibility. Customers can standardize on IPv6 or transition gradually using the dual‑stack appliances and APIs. Support is available in all AWS Regions where the service is offered.

Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL Limitless Now in AWS GovCloud

🚀 Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL Limitless Database is now available in AWS GovCloud (US‑East, US‑West), providing a serverless endpoint that transparently distributes data and queries across multiple Aurora Serverless instances while preserving transactional consistency. The service supports PostgreSQL 16.6, 16.8, and 16.9 compatibility and includes distributed query planning and transaction management so you don’t need to build custom sharding or manage multiple databases. Compute automatically scales up and down within customer-specified budgets, reducing the need to provision for peak capacity.

Check Point Validates CloudGuard with Nutanix AOS 7.3

🔒 Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is now Nutanix Ready validated with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure 7.3, delivering integrated network security for Nutanix environments. The update leverages Nutanix Flow Network Security features—entity groups, vNIC-specific policies, and global policy scopes—to extend microsegmentation and policy consistency. Customers can deploy CloudGuard via native Service Insertion and firewall chaining, enabling protection with minimal operational overhead.

Google Announces AP2: Protocol for Agent-Led Payments

🤖 Google introduced the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), an open standard developed with more than 60 payments and technology firms to enable secure, agent-initiated transactions across platforms. AP2 extends A2A and MCP, using cryptographically-signed Mandates and verifiable credentials to prove authorization, ensure authenticity, and provide a non-repudiable audit trail. The protocol supports cards, real-time bank transfers, and crypto.

FabCon Vienna: Enterprise-ready Microsoft Fabric updates

📢 At FabCon Vienna, Microsoft unveiled a broad set of Microsoft Fabric enhancements to accelerate data-rich agents and enterprise adoption. Key updates include expanded OneLake shortcuts and mirroring (preview for Oracle and BigQuery), a preview Graph database and Maps for geospatial context, developer tooling (MCP, Extensibility Toolkit, CI/CD) and strengthened security controls like Azure Private Link and customer-managed keys. These features focus on zero-copy data access, governance, and operational scalability for mission-critical workloads.

Senator Probes Microsoft over Continued RC4 Use in Kerberos

🔒 Senator Ron Wyden has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Microsoft for its continued use of the RC4 encryption algorithm. The letter highlights a technique called Kerberoasting, which exploits Kerberos ticket encryption to extract service account credentials. The complaint raises concerns about lingering support for weak ciphers in enterprise authentication.

New Practical Guide to Data Science with Google Cloud

📘 Google Cloud has published a new ebook, A Practical Guide to Data Science with Google Cloud, aimed at practitioners adopting an AI-first approach across BigQuery, Vertex AI, and Serverless for Apache Spark. The guide emphasizes unified, streamlined workflows enabled by a central notebook experience that blends SQL, Python, and Spark and includes assistive features in Colab Enterprise to generate multi-step plans and code. It explains how a unified data foundation lets teams manage structured and unstructured data together and use familiar SQL to process documents and images. The ebook also offers real-world use cases with linked notebooks so practitioners can run the examples and accelerate delivery.

Google Cloud and SAP: Unified Data, AI Agents, and HANA

🚀 Google Cloud and SAP announced tighter integration to unify enterprise data and accelerate intelligent automation. SAP Business Data Cloud now connects to BigQuery via Datasphere, enabling bidirectional replication and AI-ready analytics. Procurement is simplified on the Google Cloud Marketplace with SAP BTP. New agent tooling—Agentspace, the Agent Development Kit, A2A and MCP standards—and expanded M4 memory-optimized VMs certified for SAP HANA aim to speed deployments, improve data consistency, and enable autonomous process automation.