All news in category "Vendor and Hyperscaler Watch"

Azure Container Storage v2.0.0: NVMe Boosts Kubernetes

⚡ Azure today released Azure Container Storage v2.0.0, a performance-first update that delivers up to 7× higher IOPS, 4× lower latency, and improved resource efficiency for Kubernetes stateful workloads. The release adds built-in support for local NVMe drives, removes prior pricing tiers for large pools, and is available as an open-source local CSI driver for non-AKS clusters. Optimized for storage- and GPU-optimized VM families, the update also enables single-node deployments and integrates with KAITO to speed AI model loading and scaling.

Amazon Connect Cases Adds Date Filters to List View

📅 Amazon Connect Cases now supports date range filters in the case list view, enabling managers and agents to narrow case lists by creation, modification, or upcoming SLA windows. Users can filter cases created in the last 30 days, view items modified in the past 24 hours, or surface cases with potential SLA breaches in the next two days for proactive triage. Amazon Connect Cases is available in multiple AWS regions and documentation is provided to get started.

Amazon OpenSearch Service adds OpenSearch 3.1 for vectors

🚀 Amazon OpenSearch Service now supports OpenSearch 3.1, bringing targeted improvements for vector-driven and traditional search workloads. The release bundles Lucene 10 for optimized vector field indexing, faster indexing times, reduced index sizes, sparse indexing, and vector quantization to lower memory usage. It also improves range query and high-cardinality aggregation latency and introduces a new Search Relevance Workbench for iterative quality testing. Additional vector search enhancements include Z-score normalization for more reliable hybrid search and memory-optimized Faiss support; OpenSearch 3.1 is available in all AWS Regions.

Stop Waiting on NVD: Get Real-Time Vulnerability Alerts

🛡️SecAlerts provides real-time vulnerability alerts that avoid the publication delays commonly associated with NVD by aggregating signals from 100+ sources including vendors, researchers, forums and blogs. The service uses three core components — Stacks (software inventories and SBOMs), Channels (Email, Slack, Teams, Webhook) and Alerts (custom filters for Severity, Known Exploited, EPSS, Trending) — to deliver only relevant notifications. A central Dashboard surfaces affected software, extended metadata and reference links, while Properties enable multi-tenant views useful for MSPs and departments.

Check Point Named Leader in 2025 IDC MarketScape Report

🔒 Check Point has been named a Leader in the 2025 IDC MarketScape for Worldwide Enterprise Hybrid Firewalls, reflecting the maturity of its Hybrid Mesh Firewall capabilities. The recognition highlights the company's focus on unifying, automating and simplifying security operations at scale. IDC reports the firewall market reached $12.3 billion in 2024, underscoring the importance of resilient, centralized protection. Enterprises face wider attack surfaces and operational complexity that such platforms aim to mitigate.

AWS Organizations adds Account State field for members

🛈 AWS Organizations introduces a new State field in the console and APIs (DescribeAccount, ListAccounts, ListAccountsForParent) to provide more granular lifecycle visibility for member accounts. The console Status field has been replaced by State, while both Status and State remain available in APIs until September 9, 2026. New state values include SUSPENDED, PENDING_CLOSURE, and CLOSED (within the 90-day reinstatement window). Customers should update account vending pipelines and governance integrations to reference State before the Status deprecation date.

AWS Launches General Availability of EC2 R8gn Instances

🚀 AWS has made the new Amazon EC2 R8gn instances generally available, built on AWS Graviton4 processors to deliver up to 30% better compute performance than Graviton3. R8gn instances include 6th generation Nitro Cards and offer up to 600 Gbps network bandwidth—the highest among network-optimized EC2 instances—and sizes up to 48xlarge with metal options. They provide up to 1,536 GiB memory, up to 60 Gbps EBS bandwidth, and support Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) on select large and metal sizes for lower latency cluster performance.

On-demand deployment for custom Meta Llama models on Bedrock

🚀 Amazon Bedrock now offers an on-demand deployment option for customized Meta Llama 3.3 models that have been fine-tuned or distilled in Bedrock; models customized on or after September 15, 2025 are eligible. The feature lets customers process requests in real time and pay only for consumed compute, removing the need for pre-provisioned always-on resources. Bedrock continues to provide a managed platform with built-in security, privacy, and responsible AI capabilities.

Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus Adds 11 Regions

📢 Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus is now generally available in 11 additional AWS regions, including Asia Pacific (Jakarta, Hyderabad, Osaka, Melbourne, Taipei), Canada West (Calgary), Europe (Spain), Israel (Tel Aviv), Mexico (Central), Middle East (Bahrain), and US West (N. California). The fully managed, Prometheus-compatible monitoring service makes it easier to collect, store, query, and alarm on operational metrics at scale. Customers can send up to 1 billion active metrics to a single workspace and create multiple workspaces per account to partition workloads. See the AWS user guide or product documentation for the full list of supported regions and configuration details.

Google releases XProf and Cloud Diagnostics XProf tools

🔧 Google has open-sourced XProf, an upgraded ML profiler, and published the Cloud Diagnostics XProf library to simplify profiling and optimizing models on xPUs. The release brings unified XLA-based profiling across JAX, PyTorch/XLA and TensorFlow/Keras, and supports programmatic and on-demand trace capture. The Cloud Diagnostics library packages dependencies, stores profiles in Google Cloud Storage for retention, provisions TensorBoard on VMs or GKE for faster loading, and produces shareable links for collaborative analysis with tunable machine types for performance.

Microsoft warns Windows 10 support ends in 30 days

⚠️ Microsoft reminded customers that Windows 10 will reach end of servicing on October 14, 2025, with the October monthly update being the last security release for affected versions. After that date, Microsoft will no longer provide bug fixes or technical assistance for security, stability, or usability issues. Customers are advised to upgrade eligible devices to Windows 11, migrate to Windows 365 in the cloud, enroll in Extended Security Updates (ESU), or consider LTSC/LTSC alternatives for specialized devices.

ECS Service Connect Enables Cross-Account Namespace Sharing

🚀 Amazon ECS Service Connect now supports cross-account communication by letting teams share AWS Cloud Map namespaces via AWS RAM. Platform engineers can create a resource share and grant access to individual accounts, OUs, or the whole organization so services in multiple accounts register to a single namespace. This reduces duplication, simplifies service discovery, and works with Fargate and EC2 across commercial regions.

AlloyDB on Axion C4A Instances Reaches General Availability

🚀 AlloyDB on Axion-powered C4A virtual machines is now generally available. AlloyDB on C4A offers substantial efficiency gains—up to 45% better price-performance versus N‑series VMs and up to 2× higher throughput versus Amazon Aurora on Graviton4—targeting transactional and data‑intensive workloads. C4A supports shapes from 1 to 72 vCPUs (including a new 48‑vCPU option and a cost‑effective 1‑vCPU/8GB shape for dev/sandbox). Deploy or upgrade C4A instances via the AlloyDB console in supported regions.

AWS Direct Connect Adds Support for 4-Byte AS Numbers

🌐 AWS Direct Connect now supports 4-byte Autonomous System (AS) numbers for virtual interfaces, extending the usable ASN range to the full RFC 6793 limit of 4,294,967,294. The change addresses constraints imposed by the legacy 2-byte ASN space (max 65,536), which can complicate complex or multi-tenant network topologies. Support is available in all AWS regions and across all Direct Connect virtual interface types. To provision, use the Direct Connect Console or the updated APIs to specify 4-byte ASNs when creating virtual interfaces.

Windows 11 23H2 Home and Pro end support Nov 11, 2025

⚠️ Microsoft warned that devices running Windows 11 23H2 Home and Pro editions will reach end of servicing on November 11, 2025, with the November 2025 monthly security update as the last release for those editions. Enterprise and Education SKUs will continue to receive mainstream support until November 10, 2026. Users are advised to upgrade to Windows 11 24H2, but Microsoft has applied safeguard holds for systems with incompatible Intel Smart Sound Technology audio drivers, SenseShield code‑obfuscation drivers, wallpaper customization tools, certain integrated cameras, and Dirac audio software.

OpenTelemetry (OTLP) Support Added to Cloud Trace UI

🚀 Cloud Trace now accepts traces via OTLP through telemetry.googleapis.com, enabling vendor-agnostic ingestion and preserving the OpenTelemetry data model. Using OTLP reduces client-side exporter complexity, improves telemetry integrity, and enables easier routing to other backends. The Trace Explorer leverages OpenTelemetry semantic conventions for improved filtering and diagnostics. Google recommends telemetry.googleapis.com as the best practice for new and high-volume trace pipelines and provides a migration guide to help users transition.

Rent the Runway Boosts Developer Velocity with Cloud SQL

🚀 Rent the Runway migrated from a complex, self-managed MySQL environment to Cloud SQL, gaining managed backups, built-in observability, and simplified disaster recovery. The move removed a third-party 24/7 MySQL support vendor and cut more than $180,000 in annual operational costs. Engineers now work in IAM-controlled instances with query insights, enabling safer schema changes, CI/CD for database updates, and faster, more reliable deployments.

AWS EC2 M4 and M4 Pro Mac instances now generally available

🚀 Amazon EC2 M4 and M4 Pro Mac instances are now generally available, offering up to 20% (M4) and 15% (M4 Pro) improved application build performance versus the M2 families. Powered by the AWS Nitro System, they provide up to 10 Gbps network and 8 Gbps EBS bandwidth and include a 2 TB instance store per Dedicated Host. M4 models use Apple M4 Mac Mini hardware and support macOS Sequoia 15.6+. Available in US East (N. Virginia) and US West (Oregon).

Three Critical Needs for Responding to a Cyberattack

🛡️ When a cyberattack strikes, three capabilities matter most: clarity, control and a dependable lifeline. Real-time visibility and a unified view enable quick detection of anomalies and identification of the blast radius. Rapid containment—isolating endpoints, revoking credentials and enforcing policies—prevents lateral spread. Finally, immutable backups, granular restores and orchestrated disaster recovery ensure fast, trusted restoration of operations.

AWS Adds Five EFA Metrics to Improve Network Observability

🔍 AWS has introduced five new Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) metrics to improve network observability for AI/ML and HPC workloads. The counters track retransmitted packets and bytes, retransmit timeouts, impaired remote connections, and unresponsive remote receivers at the per-EFA device level. Available on Nitro v4+ instances with EFA installer 1.43.0+, metrics are exposed via sysfs and can be exported to Prometheus and tools like Grafana for monitoring and alerting.