All news with #product release tag

Amazon ECS: Run Firelens Logging Containers Non-Root

🔒 Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) now lets you run Firelens containers as a non-root user by specifying a numeric user ID in the user field of your Task Definition. Running Firelens as non-root reduces the potential attack surface and helps meet security and compliance requirements, including checks surfaced by AWS Security Hub. This capability replaces the previous default of "user": "0" and is available in all AWS Regions. See the Firelens documentation for configuration details.

Apple Raises Top Bug Bounty to $2M for Zero-Click Exploits

🔒 Apple has expanded its Security Bounty program, doubling the top award to $2,000,000 for exploit chains that achieve goals comparable to sophisticated mercenary spyware. The company says bonuses for Lockdown Mode bypasses and vulnerabilities found in beta software can push payouts past $5 million. New, higher rewards include $100,000 for a complete Gatekeeper bypass, $1,000,000 for broad unauthorized iCloud access, up to $300,000 for one-click WebKit sandbox escapes, and up to $1,000,000 for wireless proximity exploits. Apple is also introducing Target Flags, a mechanism that lets researchers demonstrate exploitability and qualify for accelerated awards processed immediately after verification, even before a fix is released.

AWS Backup Adds Detailed Job and Audit Report Fields

🔍 AWS Backup now returns more detailed metadata in job APIs and Backup Audit Manager reports to improve visibility into backup configuration and compliance. New fields in backup, copy, and restore job APIs expose retention settings, vault lock and type, encryption details, plan and rule names, schedules, and vault access policies. Delegated administrators can view job details across an organization. These fields are available today in supported Regions at no extra charge.

Amazon RDS MySQL and PostgreSQL Zero-ETL to Redshift

⚡Amazon RDS for MySQL and Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL now support zero-ETL integrations with Amazon Redshift in eight additional regions. Data written to RDS is replicated to Redshift within seconds, enabling near real-time analytics and ML on transactional datasets. You can create multiple integrations per database, apply per-integration filtering to include or exclude specific databases and tables, and automate deployment with AWS CloudFormation.

Amazon RDS for Oracle Zero-ETL Integration in 8 Regions

⚡ Amazon RDS for Oracle now offers zero-ETL integration with Amazon Redshift in eight additional AWS Regions, enabling near real-time analytics and ML on transactional data without building ETL pipelines. Data written to an RDS for Oracle instance is replicated to Redshift within seconds. Administrators can configure integrations via Console, API, CLI, or CloudFormation, select specific PDBs and tables, and must use Oracle Database 19c.

Amazon MSK Adds Apache Kafka 4.1 with Queues Preview

📣 Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (Amazon MSK) now supports Apache Kafka 4.1, introducing Queues as a preview feature, a new Streams Rebalance Protocol in early access, and Eligible Leader Replicas (ELR) enabled by default. These features target improved parallelism, optimized Kafka Streams task rebalancing, and stronger availability. To adopt 4.1, select 4.1.x when creating a cluster or perform an in-place rolling update; MSK orchestrates broker restarts to maintain availability. Kafka 4.1 support is available today across all AWS regions where MSK is offered.

Amazon Kinesis Data Streams Adds FIS API Error Actions

🧪 Amazon Kinesis Data Streams now integrates with AWS Fault Injection Service (FIS) to simulate Kinesis API errors and validate application error handling, retry logic, and monitoring. Customers can induce throttling, internal errors, service unavailable, and expired iterator exceptions—covering 500, 503, and 400 responses for GET and PUT operations—to test resilience and CloudWatch alarms. FIS experiments support templates, CI integration, and automatic stop thresholds to keep tests controlled, and are generally available in all Regions where FIS is offered, including AWS GovCloud (US).

ALB Now Supports URL and Host Header Rewrite Across Regions

🔁 With the new URL and Host Header rewrite capability for Application Load Balancer, AWS lets customers modify request URLs and Host headers using regex-based pattern matching before routing to targets. You can rewrite paths (for example, transform "/api/v1/users" to "/users"), standardize URL patterns, remove or add path prefixes, and modify the Host header for internal service routing. Configurable via the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, SDKs, and APIs, the feature incurs no extra charge beyond ALB usage and is available in all AWS commercial regions.

Apigee Named a Leader in Gartner's 2025 API Magic Quadrant

🏆 Google Cloud's Apigee has been named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for API Management and was positioned highest for Ability to Execute. The announcement highlights Apigee's expansion to support generative and agentic AI workloads by acting as an intelligent, secure API proxy that improves governance, security, scalability, and cost control. Key capabilities called out include AI productization, agent-ready API specification boosting (Private Preview), native quota-based token controls and Looker Studio reporting, a centralized API hub with Gemini-driven semantic search, and enhanced security policies including Model Armor and Advanced API Security.

Microsoft and Oracle Expand Oracle Database@Azure Reach

🚀 Microsoft and Oracle have expanded Oracle Database@Azure with broader regional coverage and support for Oracle Database 19c and 23ai, plus full support for Base Database, Exadata (Dedicated and Exascale), and Autonomous Database. The update introduces continuous zero-ETL mirroring into OneLake via Oracle GoldenGate and native integrations with Microsoft Fabric, enabling real-time analytics with Copilot Studio, Azure AI Foundry, and Power BI. Security and operational management are strengthened through Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Sentinel, Entra ID, and Azure Arc, while Azure Accelerate for Oracle and marketplace programs streamline migrations and partner engagement.

IBM Spectrum Symphony HostFactory Connectors for GCP

🚀 Google Cloud announces the general availability of open-source IBM Spectrum Symphony HostFactory connectors for Google Compute Engine and GKE. The connectors enable organizations to extend on‑premises Symphony clusters into Google Cloud or deploy fully cloud-native clusters with automatic provisioning and decommissioning to match workload demand. Partner-built by Accenture and validated by Aneo, the connectors support enterprise features such as Spot and on‑demand VMs, GPUs, Local SSD, Confidential VMs, Pub/Sub event-driven management, Kubernetes CRDs, and integration with managed instance group (MIG) APIs for large-scale HPC operations.

Amazon EC2 M7i arrives in Milan with custom Intel CPUs

🚀 Amazon EC2 M7i instances, powered by custom 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors (Sapphire Rapids), are now available in the Europe (Milan) region. M7i delivers up to 15% better performance versus comparable x86 Intel processors on other clouds and up to 15% improved price-performance compared to M6i. Instances scale to 48xlarge and include two bare-metal sizes (metal-24xl, metal-48xl) with built-in Intel accelerators for data streaming, in-memory analytics, and QuickAssist Technology, making them suited for sustained high-CPU workloads like gaming servers, CPU-based ML, and video streaming.

Google Cloud Adds AI Annotations and Object Contexts

🧠 Google Cloud is introducing two Cloud Storage features—auto annotate and object contexts—that apply pretrained AI to generate metadata and attach custom key-value tags to stored objects. Auto annotate (experimental) produces image annotations such as object detection, labels, and objectionable-content signals tied to an object's lifecycle. Object contexts (preview) let teams add, manage, and query contextual tags with IAM controls and Storage Insights integration. Together they enable scalable discovery, curation, and governance of previously unanalyzed unstructured “dark data.”

Google Cloud NetApp Volumes: iSCSI, FlexCache, Gemini

🚀 Google Cloud announced enhancements to NetApp Volumes, adding unified iSCSI block and file storage to support SAN migrations and NetApp FlexCache for high-performance local caching in hybrid environments. The service integrates with Gemini Enterprise as a data store for retrieval-augmented generation, and includes large-capacity volumes, SnapMirror replication, and auto-tiering to optimize performance and costs.

Amazon AppStream Adds License-Included Microsoft Apps

🧾 Amazon AppStream 2.0 now offers license-included Microsoft Office, Visio, and Project (2021/2024) in Standard and Professional editions, available in both 32‑bit and 64‑bit for On‑Demand and Always‑On fleets. Administrators can add or remove these applications from images and fleets to control availability, and end users access fully integrated Microsoft apps within AppStream sessions. Deployments require an AppStream Image Builder agent released on or after October 2, 2025, or managed image updates dated October 3, 2025 or later. Billing remains hourly for streaming and per-user per-month (non-prorated) for Microsoft apps.

The AI Fix #72 — Hype, Space Data Centers, Robot Heads

🎧 Hosts Graham Cluley and Mark Stockley review episode 72 of The AI Fix, covering GPT-5’s disputed training data, Irish police warnings about AI-generated home-intruder pranks, Jeff Bezos’s proposal for gigawatt-scale data centres in orbit, OpenAI’s drag-and-drop Agent Kit, and a Chinese company’s ultra-lifelike robot head. The episode questions corporate AI hype and highlights rising public disclosures of AI risk, urging attention to data provenance and realistic deployment expectations.

AWS for Fluent Bit 3.0.0 Released with Fluent Bit 4.1.1

🚀 AWS for Fluent Bit 3.0.0, based on Fluent Bit 4.1.1 and built on Amazon Linux 2023, is now available for Amazon ECS and Amazon EKS customers. The release introduces native OpenTelemetry (OTel) support to ingest and forward OTLP logs, metrics, and traces with AWS SigV4 authentication, removing the need for additional sidecars. It delivers faster JSON parsing and higher log throughput per vCPU with lower latency, plus configurable TLS minimum versions and cipher controls to strengthen output security. Upgrade by pulling the 3.0.0 image from the Amazon ECR Public Gallery, updating your ECS FireLens task definition, or updating the DaemonSet/Helm release on EKS.

Amazon EBS Volume Clones for Instant Volume Copies

⚡ Amazon Web Services has launched general availability of Amazon EBS Volume Clones, enabling instant, point-in-time copies of EBS volumes within the same Availability Zone. Cloned volumes are immediately accessible with single-digit millisecond latency and support all EBS volume types. The capability integrates with the EBS Container Storage Interface (CSI) driver and is available via Console, CLI, SDKs, and CloudFormation across AWS Commercial and GovCloud (US) Regions.

Amazon Route 53 Profiles Adds AWS PrivateLink Support

🔒 Amazon Route 53 Profiles now supports AWS PrivateLink, allowing customers to access and manage their Profiles privately over the Amazon network instead of the public internet. When accessed via PrivateLink, management operations such as creating, editing, listing, and deleting Profiles occur over private connectivity between VPCs, AWS services, and on‑premises applications. This capability reduces control‑plane exposure and supports hybrid and regulated deployments.

Amazon Connect Adds Configurable Schedule Adherence

📈 Amazon Connect now supports configurable thresholds for schedule adherence, enabling contact center managers to set allowable early and late windows for shift starts, shift ends, and individual activities. Administrators can apply defaults and customize thresholds at the team level—for example, allowing a 5-minute early start, a 10-minute late end, or a 3-minute late break—so minor timing differences don’t hurt adherence scores. This reduces false violations, helps managers focus on real adherence issues, and improves agent satisfaction and productivity.