AWS Config launched 28 new managed rules today across multiple AWS Regions. Managed Config rules are predefined rules that can help you evaluate whether your AWS resource configurations comply with common best practices.  

Today, AWS announces Systems Manager Explorer availability to customers in AWS GovCloud (US) Regions. 

You can now use Amazon Route 53 Resolver endpoints for hybrid cloud configurations in the Africa (Cape Town) and Europe (Milan) Regions.

Today, we are announcing that customers can create snapshots of their block storage data, including on-premises data using Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) direct APIs. With a set of API calls, customers can use snapshots to store data in AWS, regardless of where it resides. This enables customers to achieve business continuity in AWS at lower cost.  

You can now use AWS Organizations to manage the use of your content by some AWS machine learning services. Certain services (Amazon CodeGuru Profiler, Amazon Comprehend, Amazon Lex, Amazon Polly, Amazon Rekognition, Amazon Textract, Amazon Transcribe, and Amazon Translate) may use content to improve the service. Previously, you could opt out of this use by contacting AWS Support. This new feature allows you to configure an organizational policy to opt out, without the need to contact AWS Support, and to have your configuration applied to all accounts within an organization. 

Starting today, AWS Firewall Manager is available in Asia Pacific (Hong Kong) and Middle East (Bahrain), extending the total to 18 AWS Regions and all Amazon CloudFront edge locations.

Docker and Amazon Web Services have announced a simplified developer experience to deploy and manage containers on Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) directly from Docker tools. Now, customers can use Docker Desktop and Docker Compose to deploy containers on Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) using the AWS Fargate launch type. After customers build and test containers locally using Docker Desktop and Docker Compose, they can now deploy them to Fargate on ECS through the same CLI.  

AWS Direct Connect is now live at MedOne in Haifa, Israel. This is the first AWS Direct Connect location in Israel. Customers in Israel can now locally establish a dedicated network connection from their on-premises to AWS. Using AWS Direct Connect, you can establish private connectivity between AWS and your datacenter, office, or colocation environment, which in many cases can reduce your network costs, increase bandwidth throughput, and provide a more consistent network experience than Internet-based connections. With global access for AWS Direct Connect, you can reach AWS resources in any global AWS region from any AWS Direct Connect locations using global public virtual interface(s) and Direct Connect gateway. When connecting to any AWS region, your data will not hairpin via the associated AWS region for the location if it is not in the shortest path to your desired AWS region. 

AWS now offers the Migration Acceleration Program (MAP) for Storage. MAP for Storage provides services, best practices, and tools to help our customers save costs, accelerate their migrations, and modernize their storage workloads on AWS.

AWS Firewall Manager has introduced new pre-configured rules to help customers audit their VPC security groups and get detailed reports of non-compliance from a central administrator account. This feature makes it easier for customers to centrally audit their security groups using pre-configured rules they can readily enable out of box across their accounts and resources, taking away the heavy-lifting of configuring custom audit checks manually.