Welcome to above the clouds

AWS – Amazon QuickSight now available in the AWS GovCloud (US-East) Region
Amazon QuickSight is now available in the AWS GovCloud (US-East) Region. AWS GovCloud (US) Regions are isolated AWS Regions designed to host sensitive data and regulated workloads in the cloud, assisting customers who have United States federal, state, or local government compliance requirements. Amazon QuickSight is a fast, scalable, and fully managed Business Intelligence service […]

GCP – How to calculate your AI costs on Google Cloud
What is the true cost of enterprise AI? As a technology leader and a steward of company resources, understanding these costs isn’t just prudent – it’s essential for sustainable AI adoption. To help, we’ll unveil a comprehensive approach to understanding and managing your AI costs on Google Cloud, ensuring your organization captures maximum value from […]

GCP – Best practices for achieving high availability and scalability in Cloud SQL
Cloud SQL, Google Cloud’s fully managed database service for PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQL Server workloads, offers strong availability SLAs, depending on which edition you choose: a 99.95% SLA, excluding maintenance for Enterprise edition; and a 99.99% SLA, including maintenance for Enterprise Plus. In addition, Cloud SQL offers numerous high availability and scalability features that are […]

GCP – Use Gemini 2.0 to speed up document extraction and lower costs
A few weeks ago, Google DeepMind released Gemini 2.0 for everyone, including Gemini 2.0 Flash, Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite, and Gemini 2.0 Pro (Experimental). All models support up to at least 1 million input tokens, which makes it easier to do a lot of things – from image generation to creative writing. It’s also changed how […]

GCP – Not Lost in Translation: Rosetta 2 Artifacts in macOS Intrusions
Written by: Joshua Goddard Executive Summary Rosetta 2 is Apple’s translation technology for running x86-64 binaries on Apple Silicon (ARM64) macOS systems. Rosetta 2 translation creates a cache of Ahead-Of-Time (AOT) files that can serve as valuable forensic artifacts. Mandiant has observed sophisticated threat actors leveraging x86-64 compiled macOS malware, likely due to broader compatibility […]

AWS – Amazon Connect launches the ability for agents to exchange shifts with each other
Amazon Connect now allows agents to exchange shifts with each other, providing greater schedule flexibility without compromising service levels. With this launch, agents can initiate shift trades directly, allowing them to manage unexpected life events without using time off. Additionally, contact center managers can now automate some approvals while ensuring others are approved manually — […]

AWS – Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager now supports AWS PrivateLink
Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager now supports AWS PrivateLink to connect directly to the Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager APIs in your virtual private cloud (VPC) instead of connecting over the internet. Customers create Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager policies to automate the creation, retention, and management of EBS Snapshots and EBS-backed Amazon Machine Images (AMIs). When you […]

AWS – Amazon Connect Contact Lens now offers AI-powered contact categorization in five new regions
Amazon Connect Contact Lens now provides generative AI-powered contact categorization in five additional regions, making it easy to identify top drivers, customer experience, and agent behavior for your contacts. With this launch, you can use natural language instructions to define a criteria to automatically categorize customer contacts (e.g., “show me calls where customers attempted payment”). […]

AWS – Amazon Bedrock launches Session Management APIs for GenAI applications (Preview)
Amazon Bedrock announces the preview launch of the Session Management APIs, a new capability that enables developers to simplify state and context management for generative AI (GenAI) applications built with popular open-source frameworks such as LangGraph and LlamaIndex. Session Management APIs provide an out-of-the-box solution that enables developers to securely manage state and conversation context […]
AWS – Announcing extended support for Kubernetes versions for Amazon EKS Anywhere
Today, AWS announced extended support for Kubernetes versions for Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service Anywhere (Amazon EKS Anywhere). With extended support for Kubernetes versions for Amazon EKS Anywhere, you continue to receive security patches for clusters on any Kubernetes version for up to 26 months after the version is released in Amazon EKS Anywhere. Extended support […]