Today, AWS announced Amazon EKS Hybrid Nodes support for Bottlerocket, the Linux-based operating system purpose-built for containers. EKS Hybrid Nodes unifies Kubernetes management across cloud, on-premises, and edge environments by enabling customers to use their on-premises infrastructure as nodes in EKS clusters. Customers can now use Bottlerocket as the node operating system for hybrid nodes running in VMware vSphere environments.

EKS Hybrid Nodes customers get the security and efficiency benefits of the Bottlerocket operating system purpose-built for containers and supported by AWS. Customers can now use the same Bottlerocket operating system with EKS across their cloud and on-premises environments to further strengthen their operational consistency.

EKS Hybrid Nodes supports VMware variants of Bottlerocket versions 1.37 and newer across all AWS Regions where EKS Hybrid Nodes is available. These variants support Kubernetes versions 1.28 and above. To get started, see the Amazon EKS User Guide.

 

​Today, AWS announced Amazon EKS Hybrid Nodes support for Bottlerocket, the Linux-based operating system purpose-built for containers. EKS Hybrid Nodes unifies Kubernetes management across cloud, on-premises, and edge environments by enabling customers to use their on-premises infrastructure as nodes in EKS clusters. Customers can now use Bottlerocket as the node operating system for hybrid nodes running in VMware vSphere environments. EKS Hybrid Nodes customers get the security and efficiency benefits of the Bottlerocket operating system purpose-built for containers and supported by AWS. Customers can now use the same Bottlerocket operating system with EKS across their cloud and on-premises environments to further strengthen their operational consistency. EKS Hybrid Nodes supports VMware variants of Bottlerocket versions 1.37 and newer across all AWS Regions where EKS Hybrid Nodes is available. These variants support Kubernetes versions 1.28 and above. To get started, see the Amazon EKS User Guide.  

AWS Budgets now offers enhanced filtering capabilities and cost metrics, providing greater flexibility in how customers track and manage their cloud costs. Customers can now create budgets for new cost metrics such as net unblended costs and net amortized costs allowing monitoring for costs after discounts. Customers can also exclude dimension values when creating a budget and include existing Cost Explorer charge types such as reservation applied usage, Savings Plan Upfront Fee, and Savings Plan Covered Usage.

These new capabilities enable customers to budget against the actual cost of their applications, teams, or cost centers with support for automated discounts and advanced filtering. For example, customers can now create budgets that incorporate Savings Plans and Reservation discounts, ensuring alignment between budgeted amounts and actual invoiced costs. The new dimension exclusion capabilities allow customers to create more targeted budgets – for instance, a development team could track their project spending by excluding shared enterprise services, or a finance team could monitor regional spending by excluding global services.

These enhancements are available in all AWS Regions, except the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions and the China Regions. To learn more about this new feature, AWS Budgets, and how to monitor costs, visit the AWS Budget product page and documentation.

 

​AWS Budgets now offers enhanced filtering capabilities and cost metrics, providing greater flexibility in how customers track and manage their cloud costs. Customers can now create budgets for new cost metrics such as net unblended costs and net amortized costs allowing monitoring for costs after discounts. Customers can also exclude dimension values when creating a budget and include existing Cost Explorer charge types such as reservation applied usage, Savings Plan Upfront Fee, and Savings Plan Covered Usage. These new capabilities enable customers to budget against the actual cost of their applications, teams, or cost centers with support for automated discounts and advanced filtering. For example, customers can now create budgets that incorporate Savings Plans and Reservation discounts, ensuring alignment between budgeted amounts and actual invoiced costs. The new dimension exclusion capabilities allow customers to create more targeted budgets – for instance, a development team could track their project spending by excluding shared enterprise services, or a finance team could monitor regional spending by excluding global services. These enhancements are available in all AWS Regions, except the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions and the China Regions. To learn more about this new feature, AWS Budgets, and how to monitor costs, visit the AWS Budget product page and documentation.  

Amazon ElastiCache now supports Global Datastore in the Asia Pacific (Hong Kong, Hyderabad, Jakarta, Malaysia, Melbourne, Thailand), Africa (Cape Town), Canada West (Calgary), Europe (Milan, Spain, Zurich), Israel (Tel Aviv), Mexico (Central), and Middle East (Bahrain, UAE) Regions. Global Datastore is a feature of ElastiCache that provides fully managed, fast, reliable, and secure cross-Region replication. Using Global Datastore, you can write to your ElastiCache cluster in one Region and have the data available for read in two other cross-Region replica clusters, thereby enabling low-latency reads and disaster recovery across Regions.

Customers use Global Datastore for real-time applications with a global footprint, as it provides cross-Region replication with latency of typically under one second, increasing application responsiveness by providing geo-local reads closer to end users. In the unlikely event of regional degradation, one of the healthy cross-Region replica clusters can be promoted to become the primary cluster with full read and write capabilities. Once initiated, the promotion typically completes in less than a minute, allowing applications to remain available. To secure cross-Region data transfer traffic, Global Datastore uses encryption in transit.

To get started, you can set up a Global Datastore with an existing cluster, or create new clusters and designate a primary (active) cluster. Creating a Global Datastore takes only a few clicks in the AWS Management Console for ElastiCache or can be automated by downloading the latest AWS SDK or AWS CLI. For pricing and the regional availability, refer to the Amazon ElastiCache pricing page and our documentation.
 

 

​Amazon ElastiCache now supports Global Datastore in the Asia Pacific (Hong Kong, Hyderabad, Jakarta, Malaysia, Melbourne, Thailand), Africa (Cape Town), Canada West (Calgary), Europe (Milan, Spain, Zurich), Israel (Tel Aviv), Mexico (Central), and Middle East (Bahrain, UAE) Regions. Global Datastore is a feature of ElastiCache that provides fully managed, fast, reliable, and secure cross-Region replication. Using Global Datastore, you can write to your ElastiCache cluster in one Region and have the data available for read in two other cross-Region replica clusters, thereby enabling low-latency reads and disaster recovery across Regions. Customers use Global Datastore for real-time applications with a global footprint, as it provides cross-Region replication with latency of typically under one second, increasing application responsiveness by providing geo-local reads closer to end users. In the unlikely event of regional degradation, one of the healthy cross-Region replica clusters can be promoted to become the primary cluster with full read and write capabilities. Once initiated, the promotion typically completes in less than a minute, allowing applications to remain available. To secure cross-Region data transfer traffic, Global Datastore uses encryption in transit. To get started, you can set up a Global Datastore with an existing cluster, or create new clusters and designate a primary (active) cluster. Creating a Global Datastore takes only a few clicks in the AWS Management Console for ElastiCache or can be automated by downloading the latest AWS SDK or AWS CLI. For pricing and the regional availability, refer to the Amazon ElastiCache pricing page and our documentation.    

Today, AWS Systems Manager announces the launch of just-in-time node access, which helps remove long-standing permissions to nodes while maintaining operational efficiency. Customers can create zero standing privileges to nodes by requiring operators to request access to nodes managed by AWS Systems Manager that are running on AWS, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments before remotely connecting using AWS Systems Manager Session Manager.

As organizations grow, administrators need to track and control access to nodes. Just-in-time node access helps customers limit access to their systems and data to only when needed. Administrators can enable dynamic, time-bound access to nodes through policy-based approvals, controlling who can access which nodes and when. The policies determine whether an operator is denied access, automatically approved, or must obtain human approval before remotely connecting to nodes. Administrators can also increase visibility into Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) sessions by recording session activity and storing recordings in S3.

AWS Systems Manager just-in-time node access is available in the following AWS Regions: Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Asia Pacific (Seoul), Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Canada (Central), Europe (Frankfurt), Europe (Stockholm), Europe (Ireland), Europe (London), Europe (Paris), South America (São Paulo), US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (N. California), and US West (Oregon). Just-in-time node access can be enabled in individual accounts, select organization units (OUs), or across an entire organization through the AWS Systems Manager console.

To get started, visit our user guide. To learn more about pricing, visit our pricing page.

 

​Today, AWS Systems Manager announces the launch of just-in-time node access, which helps remove long-standing permissions to nodes while maintaining operational efficiency. Customers can create zero standing privileges to nodes by requiring operators to request access to nodes managed by AWS Systems Manager that are running on AWS, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments before remotely connecting using AWS Systems Manager Session Manager. As organizations grow, administrators need to track and control access to nodes. Just-in-time node access helps customers limit access to their systems and data to only when needed. Administrators can enable dynamic, time-bound access to nodes through policy-based approvals, controlling who can access which nodes and when. The policies determine whether an operator is denied access, automatically approved, or must obtain human approval before remotely connecting to nodes. Administrators can also increase visibility into Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) sessions by recording session activity and storing recordings in S3. AWS Systems Manager just-in-time node access is available in the following AWS Regions: Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Asia Pacific (Seoul), Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Canada (Central), Europe (Frankfurt), Europe (Stockholm), Europe (Ireland), Europe (London), Europe (Paris), South America (São Paulo), US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (N. California), and US West (Oregon). Just-in-time node access can be enabled in individual accounts, select organization units (OUs), or across an entire organization through the AWS Systems Manager console. To get started, visit our user guide. To learn more about pricing, visit our pricing page.  

Today, AWS announces the general availability of second-generation AWS Outposts racks, marking the latest innovation from AWS at the edge of the cloud for your workloads that require low latency, local data processing, and data residency.

Second-generation Outposts racks support the latest generation of x86-powered Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances, starting with general purpose M7i instances, compute-optimized C7i instances, and memory-optimized R7i instances. These instances deliver twice the virtual CPU, memory, and network bandwidth, and up to 40% better performance compared to C5, M5, and R5 instances on first-generation Outposts racks. Second-generation Outposts racks also feature a new networking architecture that has built-in resiliency to handle network device failures and enables decoupling of compute and networking and self-service local gateway (LGW) configurations. These advancements simplify network operations and enable cost-efficient scaling of on-premises workloads. The launch also introduces a new category of EC2 instances for AWS Outposts racks with accelerated networking. These instances feature specialized network accelerator cards and are designed for the most latency-sensitive, compute-intensive, and throughput-intensive on-premises workloads such as core trading systems of financial exchanges, real-time market data distribution, telecom 5G core, and media distribution.

With second-generation Outposts racks, you can continue to leverage the same APIs, management console, automation, governance policies, and security controls for your applications across AWS Regions and on-premises locations. This allows you to centralize infrastructure management and boost developer productivity by standardizing on a common set of continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines.

For a current list of AWS Regions and countries/territories where Outposts racks are supported, check out the Outposts rack FAQs page.

To learn more, read this blog post.

 

​Today, AWS announces the general availability of second-generation AWS Outposts racks, marking the latest innovation from AWS at the edge of the cloud for your workloads that require low latency, local data processing, and data residency.
Second-generation Outposts racks support the latest generation of x86-powered Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances, starting with general purpose M7i instances, compute-optimized C7i instances, and memory-optimized R7i instances. These instances deliver twice the virtual CPU, memory, and network bandwidth, and up to 40% better performance compared to C5, M5, and R5 instances on first-generation Outposts racks. Second-generation Outposts racks also feature a new networking architecture that has built-in resiliency to handle network device failures and enables decoupling of compute and networking and self-service local gateway (LGW) configurations. These advancements simplify network operations and enable cost-efficient scaling of on-premises workloads. The launch also introduces a new category of EC2 instances for AWS Outposts racks with accelerated networking. These instances feature specialized network accelerator cards and are designed for the most latency-sensitive, compute-intensive, and throughput-intensive on-premises workloads such as core trading systems of financial exchanges, real-time market data distribution, telecom 5G core, and media distribution.
With second-generation Outposts racks, you can continue to leverage the same APIs, management console, automation, governance policies, and security controls for your applications across AWS Regions and on-premises locations. This allows you to centralize infrastructure management and boost developer productivity by standardizing on a common set of continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines.
For a current list of AWS Regions and countries/territories where Outposts racks are supported, check out the Outposts rack FAQs page.
To learn more, read this blog post.  

Amazon DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) now supports R7i instances, powered by custom 4th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors. R7i instances provide instance sizes up to 24xlarge, feature an 8:1 ratio of memory to vCPU, and include the latest DDR5 memory. These instances are now available in the following AWS Regions: US East (N. Virginia, Ohio), US West (N. California, Oregon), Asia Pacific (Mumbai, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo), Europe (Frankfurt, Ireland, London, Paris, Spain, Stockholm), and South America (Sao Paulo).

DAX is a fully managed, highly available caching service built for Amazon DynamoDB that improves performance from milliseconds to microseconds – up to 10 times faster – even at millions of requests per second. As a fully compatible service with existing DynamoDB API calls, DAX requires no application logic modification. The service manages all aspects of cache invalidation, data population, and cluster management, allowing developers to focus on building applications without worrying about performance at scale.

For more information about R7i instance pricing, see DynamoDB pricing. To get started with DAX, see DAX: How It Works.

 

​Amazon DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) now supports R7i instances, powered by custom 4th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors. R7i instances provide instance sizes up to 24xlarge, feature an 8:1 ratio of memory to vCPU, and include the latest DDR5 memory. These instances are now available in the following AWS Regions: US East (N. Virginia, Ohio), US West (N. California, Oregon), Asia Pacific (Mumbai, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo), Europe (Frankfurt, Ireland, London, Paris, Spain, Stockholm), and South America (Sao Paulo). DAX is a fully managed, highly available caching service built for Amazon DynamoDB that improves performance from milliseconds to microseconds – up to 10 times faster – even at millions of requests per second. As a fully compatible service with existing DynamoDB API calls, DAX requires no application logic modification. The service manages all aspects of cache invalidation, data population, and cluster management, allowing developers to focus on building applications without worrying about performance at scale. For more information about R7i instance pricing, see DynamoDB pricing. To get started with DAX, see DAX: How It Works.  

Today, AWS End User Messaging introduces new features to help developers combat artificially inflated traffic (AIT), also known as SMS pumping. AIT occurs when bad actors use automated systems or bots to trigger large volumes of SMS messages, leading to unexpected charges that can cost businesses millions of dollars each year.

End User Messaging SMS Protect now allows developers to configure AIT detections setting rules for entire countries or specific messaging use cases. The granular control helps developers more accurately identify potential abuse while allowing legitimate messages to be delivered. End User Messaging now identifies and block messages that have a potential pumping risk with results shown on in-console dashboards, CloudWatch metrics, and in SMS events.

These new AIT mitigations are available in all AWS Regions where AWS End User Messaging is offered. SMS protect AIT monitoring and filter is priced at $0.01 per message in addition to standard SMS fees. Customers will not be charged SMS per-message fees for messages blocked by SMS protect.

To learn more about these new features, visit the Protect in the AWS End User Messaging SMS User Guide. You can also get started today by visiting the AWS End User Messaging console or reviewing our API documentation.
 

 

​Today, AWS End User Messaging introduces new features to help developers combat artificially inflated traffic (AIT), also known as SMS pumping. AIT occurs when bad actors use automated systems or bots to trigger large volumes of SMS messages, leading to unexpected charges that can cost businesses millions of dollars each year. End User Messaging SMS Protect now allows developers to configure AIT detections setting rules for entire countries or specific messaging use cases. The granular control helps developers more accurately identify potential abuse while allowing legitimate messages to be delivered. End User Messaging now identifies and block messages that have a potential pumping risk with results shown on in-console dashboards, CloudWatch metrics, and in SMS events. These new AIT mitigations are available in all AWS Regions where AWS End User Messaging is offered. SMS protect AIT monitoring and filter is priced at $0.01 per message in addition to standard SMS fees. Customers will not be charged SMS per-message fees for messages blocked by SMS protect. To learn more about these new features, visit the Protect in the AWS End User Messaging SMS User Guide. You can also get started today by visiting the AWS End User Messaging console or reviewing our API documentation.    

Today, Amazon Q Developer announced support for Model Context Protocol (MCP) in Amazon Q Developer Command Line Interface (CLI), enabling developers to leverage tools and prompts to support richer contextual, development workflows. MCP is an open protocol that standardizes how AI models can, in a secure and structured way, access external tools, data sources, and APIs.

Before this launch, you could only use the tools that were natively available in Q Developer CLI to help generate code and execute development workflows. With MCP tools support, now you can integrate into Q Developer CLI tools from an expansive list of AWS pre-built integrations or MCP Servers that support the stdio transport layer. This allows Q Developer to provide more customized responses by orchestrating tasks across native and MCP server based tools.

To get started with using an MCP server in Amazon Q Developer CLI and explore its new capabilities, visit the Amazon Q Developer documentation or read this blog to learn more.

 

​Today, Amazon Q Developer announced support for Model Context Protocol (MCP) in Amazon Q Developer Command Line Interface (CLI), enabling developers to leverage tools and prompts to support richer contextual, development workflows. MCP is an open protocol that standardizes how AI models can, in a secure and structured way, access external tools, data sources, and APIs. Before this launch, you could only use the tools that were natively available in Q Developer CLI to help generate code and execute development workflows. With MCP tools support, now you can integrate into Q Developer CLI tools from an expansive list of AWS pre-built integrations or MCP Servers that support the stdio transport layer. This allows Q Developer to provide more customized responses by orchestrating tasks across native and MCP server based tools. To get started with using an MCP server in Amazon Q Developer CLI and explore its new capabilities, visit the Amazon Q Developer documentation or read this blog to learn more.  

AWS Amplify now supports seeding data across Amazon Cognito, AWS AppSync, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon S3. Developers can programmatically create test users and associated resources through new APIs and a CLI command.

This feature simplifies testing and development workflows by enabling quick population of auth-dependent resources. Create Cognito users, seed DynamoDB records via AppSync with user context, and upload S3 objects – all while maintaining proper authentication relationships. This eliminates manual user creation and authentication steps previously required for testing auth-protected resources.

This feature is available in all regions where AWS Amplify is supported.

To learn more about implementing auth-dependent data seeding in your application, visit the AWS Amplify documentation for seeding.

 

​AWS Amplify now supports seeding data across Amazon Cognito, AWS AppSync, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon S3. Developers can programmatically create test users and associated resources through new APIs and a CLI command. This feature simplifies testing and development workflows by enabling quick population of auth-dependent resources. Create Cognito users, seed DynamoDB records via AppSync with user context, and upload S3 objects – all while maintaining proper authentication relationships. This eliminates manual user creation and authentication steps previously required for testing auth-protected resources. This feature is available in all regions where AWS Amplify is supported. To learn more about implementing auth-dependent data seeding in your application, visit the AWS Amplify documentation for seeding.  

You can now create Amazon S3 Access Grants in the AWS Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Region.

Amazon S3 Access Grants map identities in directories such as Microsoft Entra ID, or AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) principals, to datasets in S3. This helps you manage data permissions at scale by automatically granting S3 access to end users based on their corporate identity.

Visit the AWS Region Table for complete regional availability information. To learn more about Amazon S3 Access Grants, visit our product page.
 

 

​You can now create Amazon S3 Access Grants in the AWS Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Region. Amazon S3 Access Grants map identities in directories such as Microsoft Entra ID, or AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) principals, to datasets in S3. This helps you manage data permissions at scale by automatically granting S3 access to end users based on their corporate identity. Visit the AWS Region Table for complete regional availability information. To learn more about Amazon S3 Access Grants, visit our product page.