Field notes from the edge.
What our engineers learned this week. Hands-on technical deep-dives, postmortems, and strategy frameworks.
AWS Elastic Beanstalk introduces Cluster Mode
Since the first launch of AWS Elastic Beanstalk in 2011, customers have deployed full-stack applications in Java, .NET, Python, Node.js, PHP, Ruby, and Go, trusting Elastic Beanstalk to manage deployment and infrastructure operations so they could focus on business logic. Fifteen years later, that trust has only deepened, and the service has been rebuilt to match it. Now, AWS E
AWS reimagines the getting started experience
Amazon Web Services (AWS) started with a handful of foundational infrastructure services such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) , Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) , and Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) , so that anyone with an idea could start building. As the world’s largest companies and governments adopted AWS, they asked for features to optimize
AWS Weekly Roundup: OpenAI GPT-6 Astra on Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Quick desktop GA, Kiro for students, and more (September 14, 2026)
There’s a particular energy to mid-September in New York. Pumpkin spice lattes are flowing, temperatures are dropping, and it’s nearly sweater weather. The city is back at full speed, and so is the AWS launch calendar. This week that energy showed up in a new frontier model on Amazon Bedrock, a desktop app for Amazon Quick, and a reminder that the developers seeing the biggest
Introducing Amazon EBS Volume Clones across AWS accounts
Last year, we introduced Volume Clones of Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) , a new capability that lets you create instant point-in-time copies of your EBS volumes within the same Availability Zone. Today, we are extending Volume Clones with cross-account copy, so you can create copies of your EBS volumes into other AWS accounts and optionally re-encrypt them with an AWS
AWS Weekly Roundup: Claude Fable 5.1 on AWS, Amazon Linux 2027 preview, AWS Certified AI Business Strategist, and more (September 7, 2026)
Last week, Claude Fable 5.1 became available on AWS . According to Anthropic, Claude Fable 5.1 delivers frontier intelligence for ambitious tasks across coding, scientific research, and enterprise workflows. Claude Fable 5.1 is built for long-running, high-stakes work that runs for hours and spans many applications. It can own more of a software project on its own, handling fea
Amazon EC2 R9g and R9gd instances powered by AWS Graviton5 processors are now generally available
Today, Amazon EC2 R9g and R9gd instances are generally available, powered by AWS Graviton5 processors. R9g instances are memory-optimized and deliver up to 25% better compute performance compared to Graviton4-based R8g instances, powered by the most energy efficient processor AWS has ever built. R9g instances are ideal for memory-intensive workloads including databases, in-memo
AWS Weekly Roundup: Welcome DuckLabs to the team, Agentic Resource Discovery (ARD), and more (August 31, 2026)
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
Happy 20th Birthday, Amazon EC2
Twenty years ago today, Jeff Barr wrote a blog post that launched the Amazon EC2 Beta . That single post introduced resizable Linux virtual servers in the cloud, billed by the hour, with one instance type ( m1.small ) in one Region (US East). It was minimal yet useful, and it changed how the world thinks about computing infrastructure. In 2021, Jeff covered the fifteen years of
AWS Weekly Roundup: Student Rewards on AWS Builder Center, Local Zone in Las Vegas, and more (August 24, 2026)
During my time at AWS, I have always looked for opportunities to work with students. I have delivered over 50 talks at universities across the region, and watching the potential in the room is always a strong motivator. It reminds me of why I do this work, and that the students I meet today may well become our customers and collaborators tomorrow. That is why I am happy to open
AWS Glue 6.0 now available with 30% lower price and full Apache Iceberg v3 support
Today, we are announcing the general availability of AWS Glue 6.0 , delivering 30% lower pricing than previous AWS Glue versions and introducing full support for Apache Iceberg v3 features. AWS Glue 6.0 is built on a fully modernized runtime, Apache Spark 4.1, Python 3.12, and Scala 2.13, delivering faster performance. With this release, AWS Glue provides the most complete Iceb
In the works: AWS Builder Lofts in Berlin, Hyderabad, and São Paulo
In the early days of cloud computing, AWS supported intensive learning for builders in a physical space called the AWS Pop-up Lofts in cities worldwide. These spaces were accessible to startup entrepreneurs, developers, and others interested in learning more about AWS for events, meetings, and co-working. With the recent emergence of generative AI, AWS Gen AI Lofts provided pop
AWS Weekly Roundup: EC2 application status checks, IAM role manager, OpenAI Daybreak on Bedrock, and more (August 17, 2026)
Last week, the OpenSearch and Valkey teams visited Seoul to meet open source developers and contributors in the Open Source Summit Korea 2026 and MCP DevSummit Seoul 2026 . At the four-day event, community leaders and users of open source projects and emerging agent AI gathered to share knowledge, collaborate on solutions, and push the projects forward. Leaders of the Korean Op
AIAWS Weekly Roundup: AWS Heroes Summit, Web Search on Amazon Bedrock, Dogwood, Kiro Crew, and more (August 10, 2026)
AWS hosted its annual Heroes Summit bringing together global experts in AI, serverless, and containers for collaboration with AWS product teams. Major launches include Web Search capabilities for Amazon Bedrock with OpenAI GPT-5 models, vector search for DynamoDB, and increased Lambda network bandwidth up to 3,000 Mbps. AWS also open-sourced Dogwood for AI agent governance and introduced support f
AIRuntime instances: persistent compute for production AI agents on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore
Amazon Bedrock AgentCore introduces runtime instances, a new managed compute option that provides persistent EC2 infrastructure for production AI agents requiring extended execution times, GPU acceleration, and multi-agent coordination. Unlike the existing microVM option limited to 8-hour invocations, runtime instances support sessions up to 14 days with features like stop/restart capabilities, sh
AIAmazon DynamoDB now supports real-time vector search at any scale
Amazon DynamoDB now offers general availability of native vector search capabilities, enabling organizations to store vector embeddings alongside operational data and perform similarity searches with single-digit millisecond latency at any scale. This eliminates the need for separate vector databases and synchronization pipelines, reducing operational overhead and costs while maintaining DynamoDB'
AIAWS Weekly Roundup: Price reduction of GPT models in Bedrock, CloudWatch managed collectors for Prometheus metrics, and more (August 3, 2026)
AWS announced significant updates across AI, observability, and multicloud networking, headlined by up to 80% price reductions for OpenAI GPT-5.6 models in Amazon Bedrock. Key launches include managed Prometheus collectors in CloudWatch, general availability of AWS Interconnect for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure connectivity, and enhanced multi-region support for IAM Identity Center.
AWS Weekly Roundup: Local Zone in Athens, Claude Opus 5 on AWS, Lambda durable execution for .NET, and more (July 27, 2026)
Last week I had the privilege of spending three days in São Paulo with technical builders from across Latin America, brought together for a regional tech event full of deep-dive sessions, hands-on workshops, and conversations with customers and partners. What struck me most wasn’t any single session, it was the energy of a technical community that so rarely gets to be in the sa
AWS Weekly Roundup: One-click Lambda setup prompt, OpenAI GPT-5.6 models on Bedrock, and more (July 20, 2026)
Last week, my team visited Seoul to meet AWS Korea User Group (AWSKRUG) leaders. AWSKRUG is the largest cloud developer community in Korea, with 20 meetup groups organized by topic and area that collectively host over 100 events each year, primarily in Seoul. My team regularly visits countries across the Asia-Pacific region, listens to feedback from user group leaders, and work
Amazon SQS turns 20: Two decades of reliable messaging at scale
On July 13, 2006, we launched Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) as one of the first three services available to customers, alongside Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3 . We had learned firsthand that distributed systems need a reliable way to pass messages between components without creating tight dependencies. If one service called another directly and that service was slow or un