All news with #aws tag

🔒 Amazon Aurora now automatically applies server-side encryption by default to all new database clusters created without custom encryption settings, using AWS-owned keys. This fully managed encryption is transparent to users and incurs no cost or performance impact. Existing clusters are unaffected; you can still select customer-managed or AWS-managed KMS keys during creation. Available in all AWS Regions including GovCloud.

🔍 AWS Batch now exposes queue and share utilization metrics to show how compute capacity is used across FIFO and fair-share job queues. Job queue snapshots now include queue utilization and per-allocation capacity consumption, and the ListServiceJobs API returns a scheduledAt timestamp for service jobs. Access the data via the GetJobQueueSnapshot, ListJobs, and ListServiceJobs APIs or the new Share Utilization tab in the AWS Batch console. This feature is available today in all AWS Regions where AWS Batch is offered.

🔔 Amazon Connect now delivers persistent in‑app notifications in the workspace header, visible from any page with a badge indicating unread messages. Click the icon to view messages, follow embedded links, and mark items read or unread without leaving your current task. New public APIs and AWS CloudFormation support enable programmatic, targeted messaging to specific audiences and will also be used for system updates and important announcements across all regions where the service is available.

🤖 Amazon Connect now provides AI-powered Task overviews that summarize prior activities and surface recommended next steps so agents can process work items faster and more consistently. Administrators enable the capability by adding the Connect assistant flow block to flows before Task assignment and can tune guidance with knowledge bases. The feature is available in all AWS regions that support Amazon Connect real-time agent assistance.

🤖 Amazon Connect now provides AI-powered Task overviews and suggested next actions so agents can understand work items faster and resolve them more quickly. The feature uses generative AI to summarize prior activity—such as order verification, return eligibility checks, or payment confirmation—and to surface recommended next steps for completing a task. To enable it, add the Connect assistant flow block to your flows and optionally guide outputs with knowledge bases; it is available in all AWS regions where real-time agent assistance is offered.

🔁 Amazon RDS and Aurora now allow viewing and modifying backup retention periods and preferred backup windows before and during snapshot restores. Previously, restored instances and clusters inherited backup settings from snapshot metadata and required post-restore changes. The update exposes these backup configuration values on automated backups and snapshots and lets you set or change them as part of the restore workflow. This capability is available across all supported engines and regions via the Console, AWS CLI, and SDKs at no additional cost.

🔢 Amazon Aurora DSQL now supports identity columns and sequence objects, enabling auto-incrementing, integer-based IDs to be generated directly in the database. This simplifies migrations from PostgreSQL and reduces the need for application-layer ID generation. The capability is available in all Regions where Aurora DSQL is provided and supports compact, human-readable identifiers such as order numbers and account IDs.

⚙️ AWS now supports the latest x86 Amazon EC2 instance families — C8i, M8i, and R8i — on second-generation AWS Outposts racks. These instances use custom Intel Xeon 6 processors exclusive to AWS and offer about 20% better performance, 2.5× more memory bandwidth, and 20% more compute capacity versus the prior C7i, M7i, and R7i models within the same rack footprint. They are aimed at on-premises workloads such as larger databases, memory-intensive applications, real-time analytics, high-performance video encoding, and CPU-based edge ML inference.

🔐 Amazon announced that Amazon S3 Access Grants are now available in the AWS Asia Pacific (Taipei) Region. Access Grants map corporate identities in directories such as Microsoft Entra ID or AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to S3 datasets, enabling scalable, identity-based data access. The feature automates S3 permission assignment for end users and simplifies data governance for enterprises operating in Taipei. Refer to the AWS Region Table and product documentation for regional availability and deployment guidance.

🔐 AWS has added Amazon DynamoDB to the set of services supported by Resource Control Policies (RCPs), enabling organizations to centrally constrain the maximum permissions available to resources. Administrators can now use RCPs to block identities outside their AWS Organization from accessing DynamoDB, helping enforce a data perimeter and baseline security standards. RCPs are available in all AWS commercial Regions and AWS GovCloud (US) Regions.

🌐 AI troubleshooting in the AWS Support Center is now available in seven additional languages beyond English: Japanese, Korean, Mandarin (Simplified), Mandarin (Traditional), Spanish, Portuguese, and French. The capability provides immediate, contextual recommendations while customers create support cases, helping to diagnose and remediate issues faster. It is integrated into the support experience and available to all customers regardless of support plan; users can enable it via console language settings and the "Try it now" banner.

🚀Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced the general availability of Amazon EC2 X8i instances, next-generation memory-optimized VMs powered by custom Intel Xeon 6 processors exclusive to AWS. X8i delivers up to 43% higher performance, up to 1.5x more memory capacity (to 6 TB) and 3.3x greater memory bandwidth versus the prior X2i generation, targeting SAP HANA, large databases, analytics and EDA. The family includes 14 sizes, two bare-metal options, and is available in select US and EU regions; purchase options include On-Demand, Savings Plans and Spot.

🔒 Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL now supports minor versions 18.2, 17.8, 16.12, 15.16, and 14.21. We recommend upgrading to these latest minor versions to remediate known security vulnerabilities and benefit from upstream bug fixes. The release also includes the pg_stat_monitor extension for unified query and performance metrics. Upgrades can be automated via scheduled maintenance, AWS Organizations rollout policies, or Blue/Green deployments to minimize downtime.

⚡AWS announced general availability of new Amazon EC2 M8azn instances, powered by fifth-generation AMD EPYC (Turin) processors delivering up to 5 GHz maximum CPU frequency. M8azn offers up to 2x compute versus M5zn and up to 24% higher performance than M8a, with increased memory bandwidth, a larger L3 cache, and higher networking and EBS throughput. Available in nine sizes (2–96 vCPU) including two bare-metal options, these Nitro-based instances target latency-sensitive workloads such as HFT, real-time analytics, HPC, gaming, and simulation. Regions at launch include N. Virginia, Oregon, Tokyo, and Frankfurt, and they are available via Savings Plans, On-Demand, and Spot.

🔒 AWS Backup now supports single-action cross-Region copies of database snapshots directly into logically air-gapped vaults for Amazon Aurora, Amazon Neptune, and Amazon DocumentDB. This removes the previous two-step process and eliminates intermediate copy storage and related costs, enabling faster recovery point objectives (RPOs) while reducing operational complexity. The capability is available today in all Regions where AWS Backup supports these databases and air-gapped vaults and can be used via the AWS Management Console, CLI, or SDKs.

📣 Amazon Web Services announced support for partition and sort order definitions in the Amazon S3 Tables CreateTable API, allowing these properties to be set programmatically at table creation. Developers can specify partition transforms and sort order fields directly in CreateTable calls, and the same options are supported in the AWS CLI and AWS SDKs. To use the feature, upgrade to the latest AWS CLI and SDK versions. This support is available in all AWS Regions where S3 Tables are offered.

🔄 Amazon Relational Database Service now supports the latest Cumulative Update, CU23 (KB5078297), for SQL Server 2022 on Amazon RDS for SQL Server. We recommend that customers upgrade affected RDS instances to apply this update to obtain fixes and improvements. You can perform the upgrade through the Amazon RDS Management Console or programmatically using the AWS SDK or CLI, and consult the Amazon RDS SQL Server User Guide for detailed upgrade instructions.

🔐 Amazon Connect dashboards now offer granular access controls for analytics dashboards, enabling administrators to use resource tags to govern who can view metrics for specific resources such as agents, queues, and routing profiles. You can filter metrics by tags to view aggregates for agents or queues that share the same tags. For example, tagging agents with Department:Customer Service lets managers restrict visibility to that team. Dashboards are available in all AWS commercial and AWS GovCloud (US-West) regions.

🔐 Researchers at Flare Systems uncovered a botnet, dubbed SSHStalker, that brute-forces weak SSH passwords and had compromised an estimated 7,000 Linux servers by the end of January, with roughly half located in the United States. The toolkit combines fileless malware, rootkits, log cleaners and a library of kernel exploits — some dating to 2009 — and can harvest AWS credentials. Flare characterizes it as a "scale-first" operation focused on persistence; observed capabilities include DDoS and cryptomining, though monetization has not yet been seen. Immediate mitigations include disabling SSH password authentication, switching to key-based or short-lived credentials, and restricting and rate-limiting SSH access.

🔐 AWS Payment Cryptography is now approved by France’s national card network, Cartes Bancaires (CB), making it one of the first cloud-based payment cryptography services to receive this endorsement. The approval complements existing compliance credentials such as PCI DSS, PCI PIN, and ISO 27001, enabling customers to run compliant payment workloads in AWS without managing HSM hardware. The service is available in multiple AWS Regions and can be accessed via the latest AWS CLI/SDK.