All news with #product release tag

Inside Ironwood: Google's Co‑Designed TPU AI Stack

🚀 The Ironwood TPU stack is a co‑designed hardware and software platform that scales from massive pre‑training to low‑latency inference. It combines dense MXU compute, ample HBM3E memory, and a high‑bandwidth ICI/OCS interconnect with compiler-driven optimizations in XLA and native support for JAX and PyTorch. Pallas and Mosaic enable hand‑tuned kernels for peak performance, while observability and orchestration tools address resilience and efficiency across pods and superpods.

Google Cloud previews Axion-based N4A general VMs Series

🚀 Google Cloud has introduced the Axion-based N4A VM series in preview, positioned as the most cost-effective N-series to date with up to 2× better price-performance and 80% better performance-per-watt versus comparable x86 VMs. Available on Compute Engine, GKE, Dataproc and Batch, N4A supports up to 64 vCPUs, 512 GB DDR5, 50 Gbps networking, Custom Machine Types and new Hyperdisk storage profiles (Balanced, Throughput, ML). Early customers report substantial cost and performance gains.

Google Cloud Announces Ironwood TPUs and Axion VMs

🚀 Google Cloud announced general availability of Ironwood, its seventh-generation TPU, alongside a new family of Arm-based Axion VMs. Ironwood is optimized for large-scale training, reinforcement learning, and high-volume, low-latency inference, with claims of 10x peak performance over TPU v5p and multi-fold efficiency gains versus TPU v6e (Trillium). The architecture supports superpods up to 9,216 chips, 9.6 Tb/s inter‑chip interconnect, up to 1.77 PB shared HBM, and Optical Circuit Switching for dynamic fabric routing. Complementary software and orchestration updates — including Cluster Director, MaxText improvements, vLLM support, and GKE Inference Gateway — aim to reduce time-to-first-token and serving costs, while Axion N4A/C4A instances provide ARM-based CPU options for cost-sensitive inference and data-prep workloads.

Google Cloud Announces Axion C4A Metal Bare-Metal Arm

🔧 Google Cloud is introducing C4A metal, a bare-metal instance class powered by its Arm-based Axion processors, entering preview soon. Designed for workloads that require direct hardware access and Arm-native compatibility, C4A metal delivers 96 vCPUs, 768 GB DDR5 memory, up to 100 Gbps networking, and support for Google Cloud Hyperdisk variants. C4A metal targets Android development, automotive simulation, CI/CD, security workloads, and custom hypervisors by eliminating nested virtualization overhead and preserving Arm instruction-set parity.

From Tabletop to Turnkey: Cyber Resilience in Finance

🛡️ Financial institutions face a regulatory shift: cyber‑resilience has moved from best practice to prescriptive requirement under regimes such as DORA, CORIE, MAS TRM, FCA/PRA and others. Filigran’s OpenAEV combines tabletop crisis playbooks with breach-and-attack simulation so teams can rehearse human and technical responses together. The platform synchronizes players via enterprise IAM, translates threat intelligence into timed technical injects and simulated communications, and streamlines logistics, reporting and continual improvement. OpenAEV is free for community use, with a library of scenarios and SIEM/EDR integrations, and Filigran is hosting expert sessions to demonstrate operationalization.

AWS End User Messaging adds SMS Carrier Lookup feature

📲 AWS End User Messaging now offers Carrier Lookup, enabling customers to retrieve carrier-related details for a phone number — including country, number type, dialing code, and mobile network and carrier codes. By validating these attributes before sending, teams can improve SMS deliverability, reduce failed or misrouted messages, and avoid sending to incorrect destinations. The capability supports common use cases such as OTPs, account updates, reminders, and promotions, and is available in all AWS Regions where the service is offered.

Amazon S3 Adds Tagging for S3 Tables (ABAC & Cost)

🔖Amazon S3 now supports tags on S3 Tables to enable attribute-based access control (ABAC) and cost allocation. Tags can be applied to table buckets and individual tables, letting you manage permissions for users and roles without frequent IAM or resource-policy updates. Tagging is available in all Regions where S3 Tables is offered and can be used via the Console, SDK, API, or CLI. Use tags to simplify governance and track costs.

CloudWatch Database Insights expands anomaly detection

🔍 Amazon CloudWatch Database Insights now detects anomalies across additional metrics in its on‑demand analysis experience. The ML-driven on‑demand reports identify anomalies in database-level and OS-level counters and surface per‑SQL anomalies for top statements, automatically comparing selected periods to learned baselines. The feature pairs intuitive visualizations with specific remediation advice to help reduce mean time to diagnosis. Enable Advanced mode for Amazon Aurora or Amazon RDS via the AWS Management Console, APIs, or CloudFormation and consult RDS and Aurora documentation for availability by region, engine, and instance class.

Microsoft to Remove Office Sandbox MDAG from Enterprise

🔒 Microsoft confirmed that Microsoft Defender Application Guard (MDAG) for Office will be removed from enterprise Office builds, with phased removal beginning in 2026 and final cut-offs through 2027. MDAG used Hyper‑V sandboxing to isolate malicious Office documents but incurred slower load times and carried sandbox escape risks. Microsoft advises enabling Attack Surface Reduction (ASR) rules and Windows Defender Application Control (WDAC), and reviewing any automation, workflows, or SIEM integrations that depended on MDAG’s isolation logs.

Azure AI Foundry and UiPath: Agentic Automation in Care

🏥 Microsoft and UiPath describe how integrated agents from Azure AI Foundry and UiPath, orchestrated by UiPath Maestro, can operationalize AI within clinical workflows to surface and act on incidental radiology findings. The workflow uses UiPath medical record summarization agents to flag findings, Azure AI Foundry imaging agents to analyze PACS images and prior results, and UiPath agents to aggregate and forward consolidated follow-up reports to ordering clinicians. Microsoft says this agentic approach accelerates decision-making, reduces physician workload, and improves outcomes while maintaining compliance with DICOMweb and FHIR standards.

Check Point Scores 99.59% in NSS Labs Firewall Test

🔒 Check Point Software achieved the highest security effectiveness rating in the recent NSS Labs Enterprise Firewall Test, posting a 99.59% score. The result spotlights its prevention-first architecture and comprehensive threat coverage, which the company says outperformed competing vendors. The blog links this independent validation to rising AI-driven risks, citing Check Point Research findings that 1 in 54 GenAI prompts carries a high risk of sensitive-data exposure and that 91% of frequent AI users are affected, underscoring the need for robust network defense.

Windows 11 Store adds Ninite-style multi-app installer

🧰 The Microsoft Store web now enables Windows 11 users to create a Ninite-style multi-app installer that downloads and installs multiple apps from a single executable. Users can select apps on the Store website and click Install selected, which generates a background installer to run the installs. The capability currently works only in the Store web, is limited to a curated set of 64 apps, and restricts packages to 16 apps per download to avoid overwhelming Store servers.

Buildertrend Migrates to Memorystore for Valkey at Scale

🚀 Buildertrend describes migrating from Memorystore for Redis to Google Cloud’s managed Memorystore for Valkey to gain native cross‑regional replication, improved networking via Private Service Connect, and performance advantages. The team exported cache data to Google Cloud Storage and seeded Valkey instances to minimize downtime, eliminated a proxy layer, and now uses Valkey for caching, session state, job queues, pub/sub idempotency, and authentication tokens.

When Cybersecurity Theory Meets Operational Reality

🧭 Security teams often implement best practices but face operational gaps: undocumented cloud assets, interrupted scan schedules, noisy threat feeds and endpoints left unmonitored. The piece explains how these real‑world failures turn ideal controls into misleading dashboards and alert fatigue. It warns that stitching together point products multiplies complexity and slows response, and recommends a unified approach that correlates EASM and DRP signals so teams can prioritize remediation with context, citing Outpost24 and its CompassDRP solution as an example.

AWS Launches Memory-Optimized EC2 R8a Instances, GA

🧠 AWS has announced general availability of new Amazon EC2 R8a memory-optimized instances powered by 5th Gen AMD EPYC processors (Turin) with up to 4.5 GHz. R8a delivers up to 30% higher performance, up to 19% better price-performance and 45% more memory bandwidth versus R7a. Available in 12 sizes (including 2 bare metal) and SAP-certified, R8a targets latency-sensitive, memory-intensive workloads and supports Savings Plans, On-Demand and Spot purchasing.

AWS CloudWatch Application Signals Adds AI Canary Debugging

🔍 CloudWatch Application Signals (Model Context Protocol / MCP Server) now ingests CloudWatch Synthetics canary data to enable AI-powered debugging of synthetic-monitoring failures. From natural-language prompts like “Why is my checkout canary failing?”, supported AI assistants (for example Amazon Q or Claude) drive diagnostics that correlate canary failures with metrics, traces, and dependencies. The system analyzes HAR files, CloudWatch Logs, S3 artifacts, and configuration to triage issues across network, authentication, performance, script, infrastructure, and dependency layers. This capability is available in all commercial AWS regions where CloudWatch Synthetics is offered; customers must have access to a compatible AI agent to use the AI-driven debugging features.

Keyspaces Multi-Region Replication: Bahrain and Hong Kong

🔁Amazon Web Services has expanded Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra) to support Multi-Region Replication in Middle East (Bahrain) and Asia Pacific (Hong Kong). The managed capability automatically replicates tables across Regions with typically less than one second of replication lag, allowing applications to read and write the same table in multiple Regions. Customers gain lower latency, improved regional resiliency, and can replicate between these Regions and any other supported AWS Region while paying only for resources they use.

Amazon GameLift Streams Adds AWS Health Lifecycle Alerts

🔔 Amazon GameLift Streams now integrates with AWS Health to deliver automated lifecycle notifications for stream groups. AWS Health will send reminders on day 45 and day 150 about upcoming restrictions at day 180, and a final reminder on day 335 before automatic expiration on day 365. Stream groups older than 180 days cannot add new applications. The feature is available in all Regions at no extra cost, and the ExpiresAt field in the GetStreamGroup API or the Stream group details page in the console shows status.

AWS Marketplace Enables Local INR Transactions for India

🇮🇳 Buyers and sellers in India can now transact locally on AWS Marketplace using INR, with invoices issued in Indian Rupees and tax compliance facilitated by AWS India. India-based sellers can register to sell paid offerings, create private offers in USD or INR, and work with India-based Channel Partners. AWS India will automate WHT and GST-TCS collection and remittance to authorities, simplifying buyer compliance.

Addressing the AI Black Box with Prisma AIRS 2.0 Platform

🔒 Prisma AIRS 2.0 presents a unified AI security platform that addresses the “AI black box” by combining AI Model Security and automated AI Red Teaming. It inventories models, inference datasets, applications and agents in real time, inspects model artifacts within CI/CD and model registries, and conducts continuous, context-aware adversarial testing. The platform integrates curated threat intelligence and governance mappings to deliver auditable risk scores and prioritized remediation guidance for enterprise teams.