Amazon MSK has added support for Express brokers in all AWS Regions where Amazon MSK offers Graviton3 based M7g instances. You can now benefit from Amazon MSK Express brokers in ten additional AWS Regions: Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Europe (Paris), South America (Sao Paulo), Asia Pacific (Hyderabad), Asia Pacific (Seoul), Asia Pacific (Malaysia), Europe (London), Canada (Central), Europe (Spain), and Middle East (Bahrain).

Express brokers are a new broker type for Amazon MSK Provisioned designed to deliver up to 3x more throughput per broker, scale up to 20x faster, and reduce recovery time by 90% as compared to standard Apache Kafka brokers. Express brokers come pre-configured with Kafka best practices by default, support all Kafka APIs, and provide the same low-latency performance that Amazon MSK customers expect, so they can continue using existing client applications without any changes.

You can now create an MSK cluster with Express brokers in these AWS Regions from the Amazon MSK console. To learn more, check out this blog.
 

 

​Amazon MSK has added support for Express brokers in all AWS Regions where Amazon MSK offers Graviton3 based M7g instances. You can now benefit from Amazon MSK Express brokers in ten additional AWS Regions: Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Europe (Paris), South America (Sao Paulo), Asia Pacific (Hyderabad), Asia Pacific (Seoul), Asia Pacific (Malaysia), Europe (London), Canada (Central), Europe (Spain), and Middle East (Bahrain). Express brokers are a new broker type for Amazon MSK Provisioned designed to deliver up to 3x more throughput per broker, scale up to 20x faster, and reduce recovery time by 90% as compared to standard Apache Kafka brokers. Express brokers come pre-configured with Kafka best practices by default, support all Kafka APIs, and provide the same low-latency performance that Amazon MSK customers expect, so they can continue using existing client applications without any changes. You can now create an MSK cluster with Express brokers in these AWS Regions from the Amazon MSK console. To learn more, check out this blog.    

Cost Optimization Hub now supports idle EC2 Auto Scaling group recommendations and rightsizing recommendations for EC2 Auto Scaling groups with scaling policies and multiple instance types. It also allows you to easily filter and aggregate EC2 Auto Scaling group cost optimization opportunities separately from standalone EC2 instances, making it easier to identify EC2 Auto Scaling groups with the highest cost-saving opportunities.

With this launch, you can view, consolidate, and prioritize cost optimization opportunities for EC2 Auto Scaling groups across your organization’s member accounts and AWS Regions through a single dashboard. Cost Optimization Hub helps you quantify estimated savings from these recommendations, taking into account your specific discounts, such as Reserved Instances and Savings Plans, enabling you to easily compare and prioritize recommendations.

The new EC2 Auto Scaling group experience and recommendations are available in Cost Optimization Hub across all AWS Regions where Cost Optimization Hub and AWS Organizations are supported.
 

 

​Cost Optimization Hub now supports idle EC2 Auto Scaling group recommendations and rightsizing recommendations for EC2 Auto Scaling groups with scaling policies and multiple instance types. It also allows you to easily filter and aggregate EC2 Auto Scaling group cost optimization opportunities separately from standalone EC2 instances, making it easier to identify EC2 Auto Scaling groups with the highest cost-saving opportunities.
With this launch, you can view, consolidate, and prioritize cost optimization opportunities for EC2 Auto Scaling groups across your organization’s member accounts and AWS Regions through a single dashboard. Cost Optimization Hub helps you quantify estimated savings from these recommendations, taking into account your specific discounts, such as Reserved Instances and Savings Plans, enabling you to easily compare and prioritize recommendations.
The new EC2 Auto Scaling group experience and recommendations are available in Cost Optimization Hub across all AWS Regions where Cost Optimization Hub and AWS Organizations are supported.    

AWS WAF’s console dashboard now includes richer visualizations that give you insights into the top sources of traffic in the AWS GovCloud (US). With this feature, customers with CloudWatch logging destinations can view a new top insights section within the all traffic dashboard.

Customers previously used the all traffic dashboard, a default dashboard that populates visualizations based on CloudWatch metrics. As customers strive to continue gaining additional visibility into their traffic, they have requested richer visualizations based on logs in addition to visualizations based on CloudWatch metrics.

Starting today, customers with CloudWatch logging destinations will have access to this new top insights section within the all traffic dashboard, which includes richer visualizations based on terminating rules, client IPs, URI path, and more. These top insights will enable customers to better understand their security posture, quickly identify anomalies, and optimize their WAF configurations accordingly. For example, if a customer sees more than expected traffic from an suspicious IP address, they can take steps to create a IP-blocking rule to address this anomaly.

Standard CloudWatch pricing applies to metrics and logs queried through the dashboard. For more information about pricing, visit the AWS CloudWatch Pricing page. The feature is now available in the AWS GovCloud (US) for all origin types supported by WAF. For more information about the all traffic dashboard, visit the Developer Guide.
 

 

​AWS WAF’s console dashboard now includes richer visualizations that give you insights into the top sources of traffic in the AWS GovCloud (US). With this feature, customers with CloudWatch logging destinations can view a new top insights section within the all traffic dashboard. Customers previously used the all traffic dashboard, a default dashboard that populates visualizations based on CloudWatch metrics. As customers strive to continue gaining additional visibility into their traffic, they have requested richer visualizations based on logs in addition to visualizations based on CloudWatch metrics. Starting today, customers with CloudWatch logging destinations will have access to this new top insights section within the all traffic dashboard, which includes richer visualizations based on terminating rules, client IPs, URI path, and more. These top insights will enable customers to better understand their security posture, quickly identify anomalies, and optimize their WAF configurations accordingly. For example, if a customer sees more than expected traffic from an suspicious IP address, they can take steps to create a IP-blocking rule to address this anomaly. Standard CloudWatch pricing applies to metrics and logs queried through the dashboard. For more information about pricing, visit the AWS CloudWatch Pricing page. The feature is now available in the AWS GovCloud (US) for all origin types supported by WAF. For more information about the all traffic dashboard, visit the Developer Guide.    

AWS IAM Identity Center now provides improved error messages to simplify troubleshooting when syncing users and groups. You can also build automated monitoring and auditing for these errors using the AWS CloudTrail logs.

IAM Identity Center helps you securely connect your workforce identities and manage their access centrally across AWS accounts and applications. With improved error messaging, IAM Identity Center provides actionable information to troubleshoot provisioning issues as you sync your users and groups using SCIM or configurable AD sync. CloudTrail logs enable automated monitoring of synchronization processes and provide audit trails of provisioning issues.

IAM Identity Center is available at no additional cost in all AWS Regions where it is supported. To learn more, see the AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide.

 

​AWS IAM Identity Center now provides improved error messages to simplify troubleshooting when syncing users and groups. You can also build automated monitoring and auditing for these errors using the AWS CloudTrail logs. IAM Identity Center helps you securely connect your workforce identities and manage their access centrally across AWS accounts and applications. With improved error messaging, IAM Identity Center provides actionable information to troubleshoot provisioning issues as you sync your users and groups using SCIM or configurable AD sync. CloudTrail logs enable automated monitoring of synchronization processes and provide audit trails of provisioning issues. IAM Identity Center is available at no additional cost in all AWS Regions where it is supported. To learn more, see the AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide.  

AWS Elemental MediaTailor now supports delivering logs to Amazon S3 and Amazon Data Firehose, in addition to Amazon CloudWatch Logs. Additionally, customers now receive 50 KB of MediaTailor logs per ad inserted (50,000 KB per 1,000 ads inserted) for free when delivering to supported destinations.

Customers delivering MediaTailor logs to CloudWatch logs benefit from advanced log analytics features such as Live Tailing, Anomaly Detection, and Logs Insights as well as metrics and dashboards to monitor ad monetization. Delivery to S3 or Firehose enables offline analysis and real-time streaming to other AWS services and third-party tools.

Usage over the free 50 KB per ad insert will be charged as per MediaTailor logs pricing. For details, please refer to the pricing section of the MediaTailor product page.

Visit the AWS region table for a full list of AWS Regions where AWS Elemental MediaTailor is available. To learn more about MediaTailor, please visit the product page.

 

​AWS Elemental MediaTailor now supports delivering logs to Amazon S3 and Amazon Data Firehose, in addition to Amazon CloudWatch Logs. Additionally, customers now receive 50 KB of MediaTailor logs per ad inserted (50,000 KB per 1,000 ads inserted) for free when delivering to supported destinations. Customers delivering MediaTailor logs to CloudWatch logs benefit from advanced log analytics features such as Live Tailing, Anomaly Detection, and Logs Insights as well as metrics and dashboards to monitor ad monetization. Delivery to S3 or Firehose enables offline analysis and real-time streaming to other AWS services and third-party tools. Usage over the free 50 KB per ad insert will be charged as per MediaTailor logs pricing. For details, please refer to the pricing section of the MediaTailor product page. Visit the AWS region table for a full list of AWS Regions where AWS Elemental MediaTailor is available. To learn more about MediaTailor, please visit the product page.  

Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for Oracle now supports the January 2025 Release Update (RU) for Oracle Database versions 19c and 21c.

To learn more about Oracle RUs supported on Amazon RDS for each engine version, see the Amazon RDS for Oracle Release notes. If the auto minor version upgrade (AmVU) option is enabled, your DB instance is upgraded to the latest quarterly RU six to eight weeks after it is made available by Amazon RDS for Oracle in your AWS Region. These upgrades will happen during the maintenance window. To learn more, see the Amazon RDS maintenance window documentation.

For more information about the AWS Regions where Amazon RDS for Oracle is available, see the AWS Region table.

 

​Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for Oracle now supports the January 2025 Release Update (RU) for Oracle Database versions 19c and 21c. To learn more about Oracle RUs supported on Amazon RDS for each engine version, see the Amazon RDS for Oracle Release notes. If the auto minor version upgrade (AmVU) option is enabled, your DB instance is upgraded to the latest quarterly RU six to eight weeks after it is made available by Amazon RDS for Oracle in your AWS Region. These upgrades will happen during the maintenance window. To learn more, see the Amazon RDS maintenance window documentation. For more information about the AWS Regions where Amazon RDS for Oracle is available, see the AWS Region table.  

AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio Code (VSCode) now includes Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility). This integration allows customers to use VS Code to view, create and manage Amazon DocumentDB resources.

To get started, you can download the latest AWS-Toolkit extension from VSCode marketplace or update your AWS-Toolkit extension if you already have it installed in your VSCode environment. Then you can configure the extension with credentials for your AWS account and connect to AWS explorer in VSCode. Once connected, you can interact with the DocumentDB menu item to create DocumentDB clusters or manage your existing DocumentDB clusters.
To learn more, see Amazon DocumentDB support in VSCode.

Amazon DocumentDB is a fully managed, native JSON database that makes it simple and cost-effective to operate critical document workloads at virtually any scale without managing infrastructure. To learn more about Amazon DocumentDB, please visit the Amazon DocumentDB product page, pricing page and documentation.
 

 

​AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio Code (VSCode) now includes Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility). This integration allows customers to use VS Code to view, create and manage Amazon DocumentDB resources.
To get started, you can download the latest AWS-Toolkit extension from VSCode marketplace or update your AWS-Toolkit extension if you already have it installed in your VSCode environment. Then you can configure the extension with credentials for your AWS account and connect to AWS explorer in VSCode. Once connected, you can interact with the DocumentDB menu item to create DocumentDB clusters or manage your existing DocumentDB clusters. To learn more, see Amazon DocumentDB support in VSCode. Amazon DocumentDB is a fully managed, native JSON database that makes it simple and cost-effective to operate critical document workloads at virtually any scale without managing infrastructure. To learn more about Amazon DocumentDB, please visit the Amazon DocumentDB product page, pricing page and documentation.    

Amazon GuardDuty Malware Protection for Amazon S3 provides a fully-managed offering to scan new object uploads to S3 bucket for malware. Starting February 1, 2025, we are lowering the price for the data scanned dimension by 85%. Over the past few months we have made improvements to our scanning infrastructure and data processing efficiencies, enabling us to reduce the price as part of our commitment to pass savings back to customers.

GuardDuty Malware Protection for S3 is priced based on two dimensions: the number of objects evaluated and the amount of data scanned. We are lowering the price for the data scanned dimension, for example in US East (N. Virginia) from $0.60 to $0.09 per GB. The price for objects evaluated remains unchanged. With this price reduction, you will be more capable of building secure and cost-effective data pipelines on Amazon S3 for applications with untrusted uploads across the enterprise.

The price reduction applies automatically to all AWS Regions where GuardDuty Malware Protection for S3 is available, requiring no action from customers. For additional information visit Amazon GuardDuty pricing page. To receive programmatic updates on new GuardDuty features and threat detections, subscribe to the Amazon GuardDuty AWS Simple Notification Service (SNS) topic.
 

 

​Amazon GuardDuty Malware Protection for Amazon S3 provides a fully-managed offering to scan new object uploads to S3 bucket for malware. Starting February 1, 2025, we are lowering the price for the data scanned dimension by 85%. Over the past few months we have made improvements to our scanning infrastructure and data processing efficiencies, enabling us to reduce the price as part of our commitment to pass savings back to customers. GuardDuty Malware Protection for S3 is priced based on two dimensions: the number of objects evaluated and the amount of data scanned. We are lowering the price for the data scanned dimension, for example in US East (N. Virginia) from $0.60 to $0.09 per GB. The price for objects evaluated remains unchanged. With this price reduction, you will be more capable of building secure and cost-effective data pipelines on Amazon S3 for applications with untrusted uploads across the enterprise. The price reduction applies automatically to all AWS Regions where GuardDuty Malware Protection for S3 is available, requiring no action from customers. For additional information visit Amazon GuardDuty pricing page. To receive programmatic updates on new GuardDuty features and threat detections, subscribe to the Amazon GuardDuty AWS Simple Notification Service (SNS) topic.    

AWS AppSync Events allows developers to create serverless WebSocket APIs that can broadcast real-time data to millions of subscribers without managing infrastructure or connection state. Developers simply create their API, and publish events without having the worry about scale and handling fan-out. Today, AWS AppSync announces the release of AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) L2 constructs for AWS AppSync Events, enabling developers to programmatically create and manage Event APIs and channel namespaces using infrastructure as code. These new constructs simplify the process of creating Event APIs and managing access controls, reducing the complexity of integrating real-time capabilities into applications.

The new L2 constructs provide a higher-level abstraction that makes it easier for developers to define AppSync Event APIs and their associated channel namespaces using familiar programming languages. Developers can now easily grant access to specific channel namespaces to AWS resources such as AWS Lambda functions, streamlining the integration between services. This eliminates the need to manually configure complex IAM permissions and reduces the potential for security misconfigurations.

These CDK L2 constructs are available in all AWS Regions where AWS AppSync is available. To get started with the new AWS AppSync Events CDK L2 constructs, visit the AWS CDK API Reference documentation.
 

 

​AWS AppSync Events allows developers to create serverless WebSocket APIs that can broadcast real-time data to millions of subscribers without managing infrastructure or connection state. Developers simply create their API, and publish events without having the worry about scale and handling fan-out. Today, AWS AppSync announces the release of AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) L2 constructs for AWS AppSync Events, enabling developers to programmatically create and manage Event APIs and channel namespaces using infrastructure as code. These new constructs simplify the process of creating Event APIs and managing access controls, reducing the complexity of integrating real-time capabilities into applications. The new L2 constructs provide a higher-level abstraction that makes it easier for developers to define AppSync Event APIs and their associated channel namespaces using familiar programming languages. Developers can now easily grant access to specific channel namespaces to AWS resources such as AWS Lambda functions, streamlining the integration between services. This eliminates the need to manually configure complex IAM permissions and reduces the potential for security misconfigurations. These CDK L2 constructs are available in all AWS Regions where AWS AppSync is available. To get started with the new AWS AppSync Events CDK L2 constructs, visit the AWS CDK API Reference documentation.    

Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra), a scalable, highly available, and fully managed Cassandra-compatible database service, is now available in the Africa (Cape Town) Region.

With Amazon Keyspaces, you can run your Cassandra workloads on AWS using the same Cassandra application code and developer tools that you use today. The service is completely serverless, eliminating the need to provision, patch, or manage servers, or handle software installation and maintenance. You pay only for the resources you use, and tables automatically scale up and down based on application traffic. Amazon Keyspaces supports applications serving thousands of requests per second with virtually unlimited throughput and storage. The service includes built-in security features with encryption by default and continuous data backup capabilities through point-in-time recovery.

For pricing information in the Africa (Cape Town) Region, visit Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra) pricing. To see the complete list of AWS Regions where Amazon Keyspaces is available, check AWS Regional Services.

To begin using Amazon Keyspaces in the Africa (Cape Town) Region, refer to Getting Started with Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra) in the Amazon Keyspaces Developer Guide.
 

 

​Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra), a scalable, highly available, and fully managed Cassandra-compatible database service, is now available in the Africa (Cape Town) Region. With Amazon Keyspaces, you can run your Cassandra workloads on AWS using the same Cassandra application code and developer tools that you use today. The service is completely serverless, eliminating the need to provision, patch, or manage servers, or handle software installation and maintenance. You pay only for the resources you use, and tables automatically scale up and down based on application traffic. Amazon Keyspaces supports applications serving thousands of requests per second with virtually unlimited throughput and storage. The service includes built-in security features with encryption by default and continuous data backup capabilities through point-in-time recovery. For pricing information in the Africa (Cape Town) Region, visit Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra) pricing. To see the complete list of AWS Regions where Amazon Keyspaces is available, check AWS Regional Services. To begin using Amazon Keyspaces in the Africa (Cape Town) Region, refer to Getting Started with Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra) in the Amazon Keyspaces Developer Guide.