Patch Manager, a capability of AWS Systems Manager, now allows you to deploy patches automatically to instances running Debian 8 (Jessie), Debian 9 (Stretch), and Oracle Linux 7.6, giving you more patching options for your mixed Linux environments. 

The Amazon Corretto team introduces Heapothesys, an open-source benchmark which simulates fundamental application characteristics that affect JVM GC latency. Heapothesys creates scenarios with pre-determined object allocation rates, heap occupancy, and heap sizes, then reports the resulting JVM pauses. The intent is to help OpenJDK developers investigate capability boundaries of the technologies they are implementing. It provides reference points for how different collector implementations perform when these basic stress factors are dialed up and collector leeway to act shrinks. We are working on enhancing Heapothesys to better model and predict additional application behaviors (see issue-12 ).

Starting today, Amazon EC2 M6g instances powered by Arm-based AWS Graviton2 processors are generally available. Amazon EC2 M6g instances deliver up to 40% better price performance over the current generation x86-based Amazon EC2 M5 instances for a broad set of general-purpose workloads including, application servers, microservices, gaming servers, small and mid-size databases, and caching fleets.

Earlier this year, we launched support for Aurora PostgreSQL user authentication with Kerberos and Microsoft Active Directory. In the original release, this support was based on AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory . We have now added support for user authentication using external Kerberos and Microsoft Active Directories, including those running on premises.

AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) now enables you to dynamically transform and manipulate data being replicated to any supported targets . You can create SQLite-based expressions as part of your replication task that will add columns to your target tables with transformed data, reducing the need for further downstream processing. For example, you can now add a target column with data aggregated from two or more source columns or record the before image of an update/delete in separate columns in the target data store. You can also add details about the commit timestamp or transaction log position of a change record from the source for consolidation purposes.

For more information on the entire set of capabilities, see “Replicating Source Table Headers Using Expressions ”.

For DMS availability, refer to the AWS Region Table.

EC2 Image Builder is now integrated with AWS CloudFormation which allows customers to automate the creation, testing, and deployment of custom Amazon Machine Images (AMIs). EC2 Image Builder simplifies the creation, patching, testing, distribution, and sharing of Linux and Windows Server images.  

AWS Service Catalog administrators can now create service actions that use AWS Systems Manager Automation documents with more than one parameter. With this new feature, Service Catalog end users can now execute more complex operational tasks, such as creating a backup or filing a ticket based on content they provided.  

AWS Storage Gateway is now available in AWS Europe (Milan) and AWS Africa (Cape Town) Regions.  

Today we announced the general availability of AWS Elemental Media Event Management (MEM), a support program designed to improve the operational reliability of your business-critical video events. MEM applies a structured process specifically designed for the unique operational requirements of large-scale video events that use AWS Media Services or AWS Elemental Appliances and Software, such as the broadcast of a marquee sports or the launch of a new online video service.

Amazon Comprehend Medical is a natural language processing service that makes it easy to use machine learning to extract relevant medical information from unstructured text. This service API is now available in the AWS GovCloud (US-West) Region.