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AWS

Monday, August 24, 2026 · 8 stories, curated & summarized — click any story for the source.

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InfoQ generaldevops

OVHcloud hikes non-AI prices up to 87% as memory costs surge

OVHcloud is increasing prices for gaming and standard servers by 40 to 87 percent starting in September. Founder Octave Klaba attributes this to RAM suppliers shifting capacity toward high-bandwidth memory for AI, driving up costs sixfold. The move follows similar repricing actions by AWS on reserved GPU products.

  • Non-AI infrastructure costs are rising sharply due to supply chain shifts toward AI hardware
  • Gaming server prices increase by 87%, while other recent servers see 40-59% hikes
  • Memory costs have increased sixfold as suppliers prioritize high-bandwidth memory for AI
  • Competitors like AWS are also repricing GPU products, indicating broader market trends
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AWS What's New awsdatabase

AWS Direct Connect raises inbound prefix limit to 1,000 per VIF

AWS Direct Connect now supports up to 1,000 inbound route prefixes for both IPv4 and IPv6 on private and transit virtual interfaces. This replaces the previous hard cap of 100 prefixes, allowing networks to advertise routes directly without aggressive summarization. The feature applies to both dedicated and hosted connections, simplifying architecture for larger or growing on-premises environments.

  • Inbound prefix quota increased from 100 to 1,000 for IPv4 and IPv6
  • Applies to both private and transit virtual interfaces on all connection types
  • Eliminates need for route summarization or VIF segmentation to handle scale
  • Reduces architectural complexity for large-scale hybrid network deployments
THE SHIFTAWS Direct Connect Prefix Limit Increase100PREVIOUS CAP1,000NEW LIMITReduces architectural complexity for hybrid networks
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AWS What's New awsdatabase ↺ since 08-21

ARC Region switch adds Amazon RDS Switchover Read Replica execution block

AWS has introduced an execution block for Amazon RDS within ARC Region switch to automate recovery for Oracle Data Guard multi-Region workloads. Previously, reversing primary and replica roles during a regional impairment required manual intervention, but this new feature enables automated failover orchestration. The update aims to help customers achieve bounded recovery times by removing manual steps from the disaster recovery process.

  • Automates Oracle Data Guard role reversal for RDS during regional failovers
  • Reduces manual effort and potential errors in disaster recovery procedures
  • Integrates directly with ARC Region switch for unified recovery orchestration
  • Helps achieve bounded recovery time objectives for multi-Region architectures

Fleet impact: For DBAs managing Oracle RDS on ExaCC or Aurora, this automates the critical role-reversal step in multi-Region DR plans. Verify your ARC Region switch configurations to ensure the new execution block is referenced in your recovery workflows, reducing RTO for Oracle Data Guard scenarios.

HOW IT WORKSAutomated RDS Failover Flow1Regional impairment detected2ARC switch triggers block3RDS executes switchover4Oracle Data Guard reverses roles5Recovery complete
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InfoQ generaldevops ↺ since 08-22

AWS Releases Aws-Bench to Evaluate Agents on Cloud Tasks

AWS has open-sourced aws-bench, a benchmark designed to test AI agents on practical cloud operations like fixing misconfigurations and provisioning infrastructure. The tool runs agents in disposable AWS accounts, allowing for real-world testing without risking production environments. Performance is measured using automated verifiers that confirm task completion and resource state.

  • aws-bench tests agents on real AWS tasks like misconfigurations and provisioning.
  • Uses disposable AWS accounts to ensure safe, isolated evaluation environments.
  • Automated verifiers score agents based on actual infrastructure state changes.
  • Provides a practical alternative to traditional, abstract benchmarking methods.
  • Open-source release allows community contribution and custom task definitions.
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AWS What's New awsdatabase ↺ since 08-21

AWS launches P6-B300 instances with 8x NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs in Seoul

Amazon EC2 P6-B300 instances are now available in the Asia Pacific (Seoul) Region, featuring 8x NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs and 2.1 TB of high bandwidth GPU memory. These instances offer 2x networking bandwidth and 1.5x GPU memory compared to the previous P6-B200 generation, specifically targeting trillion-parameter foundation model training. The configuration includes 6.4 Tbps EFA networking and 300 Gbps dedicated ENA throughput to accelerate AI workloads.

  • P6-B300 provides 8x NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs with 2.1 TB total GPU memory
  • Networking bandwidth doubles to 6.4 Tbps EFA compared to P6-B200
  • GPU TFLOPS increase by 1.5x at FP4 without sparsity
  • Optimized for training and deploying large trillion-parameter LLMs
  • Available now in p6-b300.48xlarge size in the Seoul region
COMPARISONP6-B200 vs P6-B300 SpecsNetworking Bandwidth2xGPU Memory1.5x
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AWS What's New awsdatabase ↺ since 08-22

Aurora DSQL adds CloudWatch Database Insights for per-statement monitoring

Amazon Aurora DSQL now integrates with Amazon CloudWatch Database Insights to provide per-statement and cluster-level performance metrics. The system captures sampled wait states and normalized SQL statements for active sessions at one-minute intervals. These metrics are available by default at no additional cost across all supported regions and can be analyzed via CloudWatch, PromQL, or AI diagnostics.

  • Monitor per-statement performance and wait states at 1-minute intervals for detailed diagnostics.
  • Access normalized SQL statements to identify resource-heavy queries across active sessions.
  • Analyze metrics using CloudWatch Database Insights, PromQL, or Aurora DSQL AI skills.
  • Feature is enabled by default with no extra cost in all Aurora DSQL regions.
CHECKLISTQuick Start for DSQL InsightsMonitor per-statement performance at 1-minute intervalsAccess normalized SQL statements for active sessionsAnalyze metrics via CloudWatch or PromQLEnable AI diagnostics for deeper insights
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AWS What's New awsdatabase ↺ since 08-20

SageMaker Notebooks Add Trusted Identity Propagation for Athena, Redshift, EMR

Amazon SageMaker Notebooks now support Trusted Identity Propagation (TIP) with Athena, Redshift, and EMR Serverless. This feature routes individual IAM Identity Center identities through to AWS Lake Formation, enforcing per-user row and column-level access controls. It eliminates the need for broad execution roles while enabling precise audit attribution via CloudTrail without requiring additional login steps.

  • Enforces per-user data access boundaries in Lake Formation based on individual identities.
  • Removes reliance on shared broad execution roles for notebook-to-analytics connections.
  • Provides granular audit trails in CloudTrail showing exactly which user accessed data.
  • Integrates automatically with existing compute connections without extra token management.
TRADE-OFFOld vs New Identity ModelLegacy ApproachBroad shared execution rolesNo per-user audit trailsImpersonated service accessTrusted Identity…Individual IAM Identity CenterGranular CloudTrail attributionLake Formation row limitsvs
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The Register general ↺ since 08-22

AWS Security's Credential Quarantine Strategy Falls Short

AWS Security has adopted a quarantine mechanism for leaked credentials, but this approach is widely viewed as insufficient. The strategy fails to adequately address the root cause of credential exposure or provide robust remediation. Critics argue that merely isolating compromised keys does not secure the underlying infrastructure or prevent future leaks.

  • AWS quarantine is insufficient for securing leaked credentials
  • Root cause analysis and remediation are lacking in current approach
  • Infrastructure security remains vulnerable despite isolation efforts
  • Practitioners should not rely solely on AWS quarantine mechanisms
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