The news that interested me the most last week was the DuckLabs acquisition. AWS has signed a definitive agreement to acquire DuckLabs, the Amsterdam-based company behind DuckDB, the popular open source analytical database that runs in-process and executes SQL directly against files like Parquet, CSV, and JSON. DuckDB stays open source under its independent foundation and the MIT license, and over time AWS plans to combine its speed at everyday queries with the enterprise scale of services like Amazon S3, Amazon Redshift, and Amazon Athena.

Co-founded by Hannes Mühleisen and Mark Raasveldt, DuckDB runs locally or on Amazon S3, which makes it remarkably fast for the everyday queries (a terabyte or less) that make up the bulk of real-world analytics. It also happens to pair beautifully with AI agents, which “poke” and experiment their way through data much like humans do. The co-founders will continue leading its technical direction while AWS combines DuckDB’s speed with analytics services like Amazon EMR, AWS Glue, and Amazon SageMaker. For the bigger picture on why this matters, Andy Warfield, Vice President and Distinguished Engineer shared his thoughts on the post DuckDB and the changing physics of analytics on All Things Distributed.

Now, let’s get into this week’s AWS news…

Last week’s launches
Here are some launches and updates from this past week that caught my attention:

• Amazon ECS now automatically detects and recovers container instances that lose agent connectivity – Amazon ECS now continuously monitors agent connectivity to the control plane and surfaces a new AGENT_CONNECTIVITY health event across AWS Fargate, Amazon ECS Managed Instances, and Amazon ECS on EC2. On Fargate and Managed Instances, ECS handles recovery automatically, draining tasks, launching replacements, and deregistering the impaired instance. On EC2, you can wire the event into your own workflow. Available at no additional cost in all AWS Commercial and AWS GovCloud (US) Regions.
• AWS Lambda introduces public preview runtimes, starting with Node.js 26 and Python 3.15 – You can now test upcoming Lambda runtimes before they reach general availability. Preview runtimes use the same identifier as the eventual GA version, so your functions graduate automatically with no action required. Third-party tools and deployment frameworks can also validate compatibility ahead of GA. Not meant for production yet (breaking changes are possible), but a great way to get ahead of your next upgrade. Available in all AWS commercial, AWS GovCloud (US), and China Regions.
• AWS IoT Core adds a native InfluxDB rule action – You can now route time-series data from your IoT devices straight into InfluxDB (Amazon Timestream-managed or self-hosted) without writing custom code or standing up an intermediate service. IoT Core formats data into InfluxDB’s line protocol and supports device-side and server-side batching. Available in all AWS Regions where Amazon Timestream for InfluxDB is offered.
• Amazon GameLift Servers now includes enhanced DDoS protection – Your game servers now get automatic protection against network and transport layer (layers 3 and 4) DDoS attacks – UDP reflection, SYN floods, and similar vectors – with nothing to enable or opt into. Built on top of AWS Shield Standard with gaming-optimized traffic shaping, it turns on the moment your servers start running (Server SDK 5) at no extra cost. It’s available in all supported GameLift Servers Regions except China (Beijing) and China (Ningxia).
• Amazon SageMaker HyperPod expands support for Ray – You can now run Ray workloads on SageMaker HyperPod with built-in observability, resilient training, and accelerated inference. Create and manage Ray clusters from Amazon SageMaker Studio, attach JupyterLab or your local IDE so a multi-node cluster behaves like a local dev environment, and get auto-provisioned Grafana dashboards. Node auto recovery, hung job detection, and tiered checkpointing keep large training runs healthy, while Ray Serve adds a tiered KV cache for inference. Your existing open source Ray code runs unchanged. Available for HyperPod clusters orchestrated by Amazon EKS.

For a full list of AWS announcements, be sure to keep an eye on the What’s New with AWS page.

Other AWS news
Here are some additional posts and resources that you might find interesting:

• Happy 20th birthday, Amazon EC2! – Amazon EC2 turns 20. Channy Yun looks back at how EC2 grew from a single m1.small instance type in one Region to more than 1,200 instance types across 39 Regions, along with the custom silicon journey from the first Graviton to Graviton5 and Trainium3. A fun and worthwhile read on the service that still underpins so much of AWS – including Amazon ECS, Amazon EKS, AWS Lambda, Amazon SageMaker, and Amazon Bedrock.
• Agentic Resource Discovery (ARD): an open specification for agent discovery – As organizations scale up agents, tools, and MCP servers, those resources end up scattered across clouds, on-premises infrastructure, and SaaS platforms – each with its own registry and metadata. ARD is a new open specification (Apache 2.0) that defines a common way to describe and discover agentic resources, so publishers “describe once” and consumers “discover everywhere” – think DNS, but for agents. AWS contributed feedback but doesn’t own the spec, and it complements the AWS Agent Registry by letting you federate across catalogs without migrating.
• Get started with the Agent Toolkit for AWS in the AWS CLI – A single AWS CLI command (aws configure agent-toolkit) now equips AI coding agents like Kiro, Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor with curated, up-to-date AWS knowledge and a secure connection to thousands of AWS APIs through the AWS MCP Server. If you build with an AI coding assistant, this helps it choose the right services, use modern APIs, and follow security best practices – so it gets AWS code right more often the first time.

Upcoming AWS events
Check your calendar and sign up for upcoming AWS events:

• AWS Summits – Free in-person events where builders come together to learn, connect, and explore the latest in cloud and AI. Upcoming stops include Zurich (September 2), São Paulo (September 3), Tel Aviv (September 10), and Dubai (September 30). Can’t attend in person? You can stream sessions through the Global Livestream and On-Demand Hub. I’ll be presenting two sessions on generative AI and Amazon Bedrock at the São Paulo Summit – if you’re there, come say hello.
• AWS Community Days – Community-led conferences where content is planned, sourced, and delivered by community leaders. Upcoming events include JAWS SONIC 2026 in Tokyo (September 5) and Warsaw, Poland (September 8).

Join the AWS Builder Center to connect with builders, share solutions, and access content that supports your development. Browse here for upcoming AWS-led in-person and virtual events and developer-focused events.

That’s all for this week. Check back next Monday for another Weekly Roundup!

— Daniel Abib

This post is part of our Weekly Roundup series. Check back each week for a quick roundup of interesting news and announcements from AWS!

The post AWS Weekly Roundup: Welcome DuckLabs to the team, Agentic Resource Discovery (ARD), and more (August 31, 2026) appeared first on The NOKIA Blog.

Since Amazon Web Services (AWS) introduced Savings Plans, customers have been able to lower the cost of running sustained workloads while maintaining the flexibility to manage usage across accounts, resource types, and AWS Regions. Today, we’re extending this flexible pricing model to AWS managed database services with the launch of Database Savings Plans, which help customers reduce database costs by up to 35% when they commit to a consistent amount of usage ($/hour) over a 1-year term. Savings automatically apply each hour to eligible usage across supported database services, and any additional usage beyond the commitment is billed at on-demand rates.

As organizations build and manage data-driven and AI applications, they often use different database services, engines and deployment types, including instance-based and serverless options, to meet evolving business needs. Database Savings Plans provide the flexibility to choose how workloads run while maintaining cost efficiency. If customers are in the middle of a migration or modernization effort, they can switch database engines and adjust deployment types, such as from provisioned to serverless as part of ongoing cost optimization, while continuing to receive discounted rates. If a customer’s business expands globally, they can also shift usage across AWS Regions and continue to benefit from the same commitment. By applying a consistent hourly commitment, customers can maintain predictable spend even as usage patterns evolve and analyze coverage and utilization using familiar cost management tools.

New Savings Plans

Each plan defines where pricing applies, the range of available discounts, and the level of flexibility provided across supported database engines, instance families, sizes, deployment options, or AWS Regions.

The hourly commitment automatically applies to all eligible usage regardless of Region, with support for Amazon Aurora, Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS), Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon ElastiCache, Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility), Amazon Neptune, Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra), Amazon Timestream, and AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS). As new eligible database offerings, instance types, or Regions become available, Savings Plans will automatically apply to that usage.

Discounts vary by deployment model and service type. Serverless deployments provide up to 35% savings compared to on-demand rates. Provisioned instances across supported database services deliver up to 20% savings. For Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon Keyspaces, on-demand throughput workloads receive up to 18% savings, and provisioned capacity offers up to 12%. Together, these savings help customers optimize costs while maintaining consistent coverage for database usage. To learn more about the pricing and eligible usage, visit the Database Savings Plans pricing page.

Purchasing Database Savings Plans

AWS Billing and Cost Management Console helps you choose Savings Plans and guides you through the purchase process. You can get started from the AWS Management Console or use the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) and the API. There are two ways to evaluate Database Savings Plans purchases, in the Recommendations view and in the Purchase Analyzer.

Recommendations – are automatically generated from your recent on-demand usage. To reach the Recommendations view in the Billing and Cost Management console, choose Savings and Commitments, Savings Plans, and Recommendations in the navigation pane. In the Recommendations view, select Database Savings Plans and configure the Recommendation options. AWS Savings Plans recommendations analyze your historical on-demand usage to identify the hourly commitment that delivers the highest overall savings.

The Purchase Analyzer – is designed for modeling custom commitment levels. If you want to purchase a different amount than the recommended commitment on the Purchase Analyzer page, select Database Savings Plans and configure Lookback period and Hourly commitment to simulate alternative commitment levels and see the projected impact on Cost, Coverage, and Utilization.

This way is preferred if your purchasing strategy includes smaller, incremental commitments over time or if you expect future usage changes that could affect your ideal purchase amount.

After reviewing the recommendations or running simulations in Savings Plans Recommendations or Savings Plans Purchase Analyzer, choose Add to cart to proceed with your chosen commitment. If you prefer to purchase directly, you can also navigate to the Purchase Savings Plans page. The console updates estimated discounts and coverage in real time as you adjust each setting, so you can evaluate the impact before completing your order.

You can learn more about how to choose and purchase Database Saving Plans by visiting the Savings Plans User Guide documents.

Now available

Database Savings Plans are available in all AWS Regions outside of China. Give them a try and start shaping your database strategy with more flexibility and predictable costs.

– Betty

The post Introducing Database Savings Plans for AWS Databases appeared first on The NOKIA Blog.

Last Friday, I had the privilege of attending China Engineer’s Day 2024(CED 2024) in Hangzhou as the Amazon Web Services (AWS) speaker. The event was organized by the China Computer Federation (CCF), one of the most influential professional developer communities in China.

At CED 2024, I spoke about how AI development tools can improve developer productivity. I was honored to receive a certificate of excellence from CCF, and Amazon Q garnered significant attention from the attendees.

Now, let’s turn to other exciting news in the AWS universe from last week.

Last week’s launches
Here are some launches that got my attention:

Amazon Q Business is now HIPAA eligible – Amazon Q business has received Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) certification. This means healthcare and life sciences organizations such as health insurance companies and healthcare providers can now use Amazon Q Business to run sensitive workloads regulated under the US HIPAA law.

NICE DCV renames to Amazon DCV – NICE DCV is rebranded to Amazon DCV. This high performance remote display protocol allows secure delivery of remote desktops and application streaming from any cloud or data center to any device, even over varying network conditions. Amazon DCV supports both Windows and major Linux distributions on the server side. Clients can use native DCV client for Windows, Linux, or macOS, as well as web browsers, to receive desktops and application streamings. The DCV server and client only transfer encrypted pixels, not data, ensuring no confidential information is downloaded. When using Amazon DCV on AWS with Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), you can take advantage of the AWS 108 Availability Zones across the 33 geographic Regions and 31 local zones. The 2024.0 release now supports the latest Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. For more details, check out Sébastien Stormacq’s new launch blog post.

AWS re:Post launches re:Post Agent – AWS re:Post provides access to curated knowledge and a vibrant community that helps users become even more successful on AWS. re:Post Agent is a generative AI assistant designed to provide rapid, intelligent responses to questions in the re:Post community. It expands the available AWS knowledge base, and community experts will earn reputation points by reviewing the AI-generated answers.

Advanced configuration with Amazon Timestream for InfluxDB – This new launch introduces a feature that allows uses to monitor instance CPU, memory, and disk utilization metrics directly from the AWS Management Console.

A new stop ingestion API of Amazon Bedrock Knowledge Bases – This new API allows users to halt ongoing ingestion jobs at will. Providing greater control over data ingestion workflows, users can quickly stop accidental or unwanted ingestion processes without waiting for completion. By using the new StopIngestionJob API, you can respond rapidly to evolving needs and potentially reduce costs. This capability is available across all AWS Regions where Amazon Bedrock Knowledge Bases are offered.

Higher storage limit of Amazon AppStream 2.0 – Amazon AppStream 2.0 has expanded the default size limit for application settings persistence from 1 GB to 5 GB. This increase allows end users to store more application data and settings without manual intervention and without affecting performance or session setup time.

There were over 40 launches and releases last week. It was difficult for me to select the important ones. In addition to those already mentioned, here’s a list of potentially important feature updates:

For a full list of AWS announcements, be sure to keep an eye on AWS’s What’s New Feed page.

Other AWS news
Here are some other noteworthy items from last week.

Amazon WorkSpaces Thin Client – Amazon WorkSpaces Thin Client inventory is now available to purchase in the UK on Amazon Business, in addition to the US, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. It’s a sleek, cost-effective device that brings secure access to AWS end user computing services right to your fingertips. This nifty gadget is like a digital fortress, preventing unauthorized data storage and applications, while giving IT admins the tools to manage and monitor their fleet of thin clients with ease.

Helping communities impacted by Hurricane Helene – AWS Disaster Response team is working closely with local partners and humanitarian organizations to deliver critical supplies to those in need in the Southeast. We’re also deploying AWS technology to help with re-connectivity, aid relief operations on the ground, and support food distribution needs in the region.

The life of a prescription at Amazon Pharmacy – Read the Amazon Pharmacy AI use case to remove the complexity of the process of dispensing medications and improve patients’ experiences. The system transcribes raw prescription data into standardized formats, transforms medical abbreviations into full-text equivalents, and validates medication details against an industry database. This automated process, followed by pharmacist review, has reduced potential medication errors by 50 percent and improved processing speed by up to 90 percent, allowing pharmacists to focus on critical tasks and personalized care.

A thought leadership article on generative AI in the WIRED magazine – Read Antje‘s news column in Wired. It discusses how AWS opens the transformative power of AI to organizations of any size and level of experience. I recommend it to all AI enthusiasts and business innovators. AWS is on a mission to bring generative AI magic to businesses of all sizes, offering a buffet of AI tools for tech wizards and newcomers alike. Whether you’re a startup with big dreams or a corporate giant looking to stay ahead, AWS is rolling out the red carpet to the AI revolution. Don’t miss this chance to turn your wildest tech fantasies into reality!

Upcoming AWS events
Check your calendars and sign up for these AWS events:

AWS re:Invent 2024 – Registration is now open for the annual tech extravaganza, taking place December 2 – 6 in Las Vegas. I’m eager to learn about the new launches and excited to contribute to two chalk talks focusing on security topics (Dev311 – Enhance code security with generative AI and SEC228 – Navigate multi-level protection scheme compliance in AWS China Regions).

AWS Innovate Migrate, Modernize, and Build – Whether you are new to the cloud or an experienced user, you will learn something new at AWS Innovate. This is a free online conference. Register at a time and region convenient to North America (October 15), or Europe, Middle East & Africa (October 24).

AWS Community Days – Join community-led conferences featuring technical discussions, workshops, and hands-on labs led by expert AWS users and industry leaders from around the world. Don’t miss out on the AWS Community Days happening on October 12 in Sofia and October 19 in Vadodara, Spain, and Guatemala.

Browse more upcoming AWS led in-person and virtual events and developer-focused events.

That’s all for this week. Check back next Monday for another Weekly Roundup!

— Betty

This post is part of our Weekly Roundup series. Check back each week for a quick roundup of interesting news and announcements from AWS!

The post AWS Weekly Roundup: HIPAA eligible with Amazon Q Business, Amazon DCV, AWS re:Post Agent, and more (Oct 07, 2024) | Amazon Web Services appeared first on The NOKIA Blog.