All news in category “Vendor and Hyperscaler Watch”

⚙️ Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime now supports the Agent-User Interaction (AG-UI) protocol, enabling developers to deploy AG-UI servers that deliver real-time, interactive agent experiences into user-facing applications. AgentCore Runtime handles authentication, session isolation, and autoscaling for AG-UI workloads so teams can focus on building responsive frontends. AG-UI streams text, reasoning steps, and tool results over SSE and WebSocket and is available across fourteen AWS Regions.

📈 Amazon CloudWatch Application Signals now includes three console-based SLO capabilities: SLO Recommendations, Service-Level SLOs, and SLO Performance Report. The features analyze 30 days of service metrics (P99 latency and error rates) to suggest validated, data-driven SLO targets and allow customers to approve recommendations before rollout. Service-Level SLOs provide a holistic view of service reliability across operations, while SLO Performance Report delivers calendar-aligned historical analysis for daily, weekly, and monthly intervals. These updates aim to reduce misconfigured thresholds and alert fatigue and are available in all Regions where Application Signals runs; pricing is usage-based with per-SLO charges.

🚀 AWS and Kiro introduce the SAM Kiro Power, an agentic-AI extension that brings serverless application development expertise directly into local development environments. It dynamically loads SAM guidance to initialize, build, deploy, and locally test Lambda-based applications while enforcing security best practices for IAM. Built-in defaults require SAM resources and Powertools for AWS Lambda for observability and structured logging, accelerating the path from prototype to production.

⚡ Amazon EC2 R8a instances are now available in the Asia Pacific (Tokyo) Region, powered by 5th Gen AMD EPYC processors with up to 4.5 GHz boost. These instances deliver up to 30% higher performance, up to 19% better price-performance, and 45% more memory bandwidth versus R7a, with up to 60% faster GroovyJVM performance. Built on the AWS Nitro System, R8a is SAP-certified, offered in 12 sizes including two bare-metal options, and is suited to memory-intensive, latency-sensitive workloads.

🚀 Amazon Web Services has launched EC2 M8azn instances in the US East (Ohio) Region. These general-purpose, high-frequency instances use fifth-generation AMD EPYC processors and deliver up to 5 GHz maximum CPU frequency. AWS reports up to 2× compute versus M5zn and up to 24% improvement over M8a, along with up to 4.3× memory bandwidth, a 10× larger L3 cache, and increased networking and EBS throughput. Available in nine sizes (2–96 vCPUs) including two bare-metal variants, they target latency-sensitive, compute-intensive workloads such as high-frequency trading, real-time analytics, HPC, gaming, and simulation.

🔒 Meta will discontinue support for end-to-end encryption for Instagram chats after May 8, 2026, and says affected users will receive instructions to download any messages or media they wish to keep. The company notes some users may need to update older versions of the app before downloading impacted chats. The encrypted-direct-messaging feature was first tested in 2021 and remains available only in select regions and not enabled by default.

🚀Amazon MSK now supports Standard brokers on AWS Graviton3-based M7g instances in the Africa (Cape Town) region. M7g brokers deliver up to 24% compute cost savings and up to 29% higher write and read throughput versus comparable M5-based MSK clusters. You can create new clusters with M7g brokers or upgrade existing M5 clusters via the Amazon MSK console or AWS CLI; consult the Amazon MSK Developer Guide for implementation details.

🔐 Starting today, AWS Network Firewall is available in the AWS European Sovereign Cloud, enabling European customers — especially highly regulated industries, government agencies, and organizations with strict data sovereignty requirements — to deploy managed firewall protections while keeping data and operations within EU borders. The service delivers the same capabilities offered in other AWS Regions and automatically scales with VPC traffic to provide high-availability protections without customers needing to maintain underlying infrastructure. Refer to the AWS Region Table and service documentation for availability and configuration guidance.

🔒 Cloud Run now supports direct Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP) integration and a new option to allow public access compatible with Domain Restricted Sharing. Enable IAP with a single click or via the --iap flag without provisioning load balancers, bringing context-aware, enterprise-grade authentication to serverless apps at no added load balancer cost. The 'Allow Public access' toggle disables the IAM invoker check to support public websites or private microservices that rely on network-level or organizational controls, and IAP’s CORS handling permits unauthenticated OPTIONS for preflight while authenticating other requests.

⚡ Amazon EC2 Hpc8a instances are now available in Asia Pacific (Tokyo) and AWS GovCloud (US‑West), featuring 5th Gen AMD EPYC (Turin) processors with up to 4.5 GHz. Compared with Hpc7a, Hpc8a delivers up to 40% higher compute performance, up to 25% better price performance, and up to 42% higher memory bandwidth. Built on sixth‑generation AWS Nitro Cards, these instances are optimized for tightly coupled, latency‑sensitive HPC workloads such as CFD, weather forecasting, FEA, and multiphysics simulations.

🔒 Google has launched a global, open Chrome Enterprise Customer Community to help IT, security, and business leaders collaborate on browser management and deployment. The moderated platform brings together resources, official announcements, and event listings for teams managing Chrome across Windows, macOS, Linux, and ChromeOS. Members can post questions with a Google Account, access tailored guidance, and track product updates or join conversations about advanced features like Chrome Enterprise Premium.

🔒 BCI has seven Fortinet NSE 8 engineers, the highest concentration among partners globally, demonstrating hands-on mastery of design, implementation, and troubleshooting in complex security environments. These engineers come from diverse career paths but meet a single standard of practical execution under pressure. BCI positions NSE 8 as an operational benchmark that reduces architectural risk, accelerates response, and sustains long-term operability.

🔒 Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware has accelerated migrations to alternatives such as Microsoft Hyper‑V, Azure Stack HCI, Nutanix AHV, Proxmox VE and KVM, but switching hypervisors introduces complex risks around disk formats, drivers, networking models and snapshot behavior. Successful transitions depend not on conversion tools but on verified, restorable, application‑consistent backups and rehearsed recovery drills performed before cutover. A unified, platform‑agnostic cyber protection approach with immutability, tightened RBAC and an off‑site copy reduces downtime, rollback risk and long‑term vendor lock‑in.

🚀 AWS now supports Rust on Lambda Managed Instances, enabling developers to run high-performance Rust functions on Lambda-managed EC2 instances while preserving Lambda’s operational simplicity. The integration exposes specialized compute configurations—latest-generation processors and high-bandwidth networking—and supports parallel request processing within each execution environment. Rust on Lambda Managed Instances is available today in all Regions where the service is offered.

🔗 Amazon OpenSearch Service now supports cross-account data access, allowing users to query OpenSearch domains hosted in different AWS accounts from a single OpenSearch UI application within the same region. The capability works for domains in both public and VPC configurations and removes the need to switch endpoints or replicate data. It supports authentication via IAM (including SAML through IAM federation) and IAM Identity Center, enabling centralized observability and analytics while keeping data in place and preserving account-level access controls.

🔒 Apple announced that iPhone and iPad are the first and only consumer devices certified to meet the information assurance requirements of NATO nations, allowing use with classified information up to the NATO Restricted level. The company says this capability works out of the box with no special software or settings required. Coverage includes independent reporting and a Boing Boing post.

🤖 The open-source Landing Zone Accelerator (LZA) Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server enables management of LZA deployments via natural-language conversations with AI assistants. The containerized MCP endpoint provides 20 specialized tools to search documentation across LZA versions, manage configurations, monitor pipelines, and surface actionable failure insights. It integrates with IDEs such as Kiro, Amazon Q Developer, and Claude Code, uses temporary credentials per AWS security best practices, and is available now in supported commercial and GovCloud regions.

🛠️ AWS Elastic Beanstalk now includes a Deployments tab in the environment dashboard, offering a consolidated view of deployment history and real-time, step-by-step deployment logs. Previously, customers had to wait until a deployment completed and then aggregate events from multiple sources; the new tab surfaces status, events, and detailed logs while deployments are still in progress. The feature covers application deployments, configuration updates, and environment launches, and is supported across all Linux-based platform branches and available in AWS Commercial and GovCloud (US) Regions.

🔒 AWS Private CA Connector for SCEP now supports AWS PrivateLink, enabling clients within an Amazon VPC to request certificates without traversing the public internet. The managed AWS Private CA Connector for SCEP uses SCEP to automate certificate enrollment and renewal for mobile, network, and IoT devices. PrivateLink removes the need for internet gateways, NAT devices, or VPNs while keeping traffic on the AWS network.

🛡️ This post presents the AMI Lineage solution to help organizations track and govern Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) across AWS. It explains how AWS lineage metadata (announced at the end of 2024) can be combined with a centralized Amazon Neptune graph, EventBridge, Lambda, API Gateway, and Security Hub to validate image origins, enforce SCPs, and assess CVE impact. The architecture uses a three-account model (management, security tooling, member) to centralize sensitive processing, automate compliance checks, and provide queryable lineage and remediation workflows for security teams.