Welcome to above the clouds

GCP – Cloud CISO Perspectives: 5 tips for secure AI success
Welcome to the first Cloud CISO Perspectives for March 2025. Today, Royal Hansen, vice-president, Engineering, and Nick Godfrey, Office of the CISO senior director, discuss how new AI Protection capabilities in Security Command Center fit in with our overall approach to securing AI — and offer five tips on how organizations can ensure secure AI […]

GCP – Google + Wiz: Strengthening Multicloud Security
Today, Google Cloud announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire Wiz to better provide businesses and governments with more choice in how they protect themselves. Together with Wiz, we are excited about the potential to provide customers with a comprehensive security platform that protects modern IT environments. We wanted to answer a few […]

GCP – Gemini in Workspace apps and the Gemini app are first to achieve FedRAMP High authorization
Building on Google’s commitment to provide secure and innovative AI solutions for the public sector, Gemini in Workspace apps and the Gemini app are the first generative AI assistants for productivity and collaboration suites to have achieved FedRAMP High authorization. This enables agencies to confidently deploy Gemini’s advanced AI capabilities today, within the stringent FedRAMP […]

AWS – Amazon Redshift Serverless now supports Current and Trailing Tracks for release updates
Amazon Redshift Serverless is now available on two different release cycles – Current Track and Trailing Track. With the Current Track you will get the most up-to-date certified release version with the latest features, security updates, and performance enhancements. With the Trailing Track you will be on the previous certified release. With the Trailing Track […]

AWS – AWS announces new upgrades to the Amazon Q Business browser extension
Today, AWS announced several upgrades to the Amazon Q Business browser extension to enhance its utility and improve user efficiency when performing browser-based tasks. The upgrades include company knowledge access, in-line PDF support, the ability to delete previous attachments from conversation context, image file attachment support, and an expanded prompt context window. With the new upgrades, […]

AWS – Amazon Connect Tasks now support durations up to 90 days
Amazon Connect Tasks can now be configured to expire up to 90 days from creation, with a default of 7 days. For example, tasks like auto repairs can take weeks to complete or that have longer follow-up times can stay active for up to 90 days before being escalated to a supervisor, while more time-critical […]

AWS – Amazon RDS Custom for SQL Server supports new minor version in February 2025
A new minor version of Microsoft SQL Server is now available on Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) Custom for SQL Server, providing performance enhancements and security fixes. Amazon RDS Custom for SQL Server now supports this latest minor version of SQL Server 2022 across the Developer, Web, Standard, and Enterprise editions. We encourage you […]

AWS – Manage SLO exclusion time windows using CloudWatch Application Signals
Customers can now set exclusion time windows to avoid affecting a service’s reliability score during planned downtime. This feature works with service-level objectives (SLOs) that are created and tracked using CloudWatch Application Signals. SLOs help track longer term performance of services against pre-defined thresholds. Customers can now gain control for pausing/resuming their SLOs during planned […]

AWS – AWS Transfer Family enhances AS2 certificate management capabilities
AWS Transfer Family enhances certificate management capabilities for Applicability Statement 2 (AS2) with more options to import and monitor your AS2 certificates. This update makes it easier to migrate AS2 trading partner relationships to AWS and ensure uninterrupted communications. AS2 is a widely used business-to-business messaging protocol in industries such as healthcare, retail and supply […]
AWS – Configure Amazon Q in Connect directly from Connect Admin Website
Amazon Q in Connect, a generative AI-powered assistant for customer service, now makes it easy to create and modify generative AI experiences to improve customer interactions through an intuitive user interface within the Amazon Connect admin website. With this no-code approach, contact center administrators can now configure AI agent behaviors, create or edit custom prompts […]