Hello! I’m Daniel Abib, and this is my first AWS Weekly Roundup. I’m a Senior Specialist Solutions Architect at AWS, focused on the generative AI and Amazon Bedrock. With over 28 years of experience in solution architecture, software development, and cloud architecture, I help Startups & Enterprises harness the power of generative AI with Amazon Bedrock. I’ve been at AWS for more than six and a half years, working closely with customers across Latin America, and I’m also passionate about Serverless technologies.
Outside of work and endurance sports, I’m a dedicated father to Cecília (7) and Rafael (4), who keep me busier—and happier— than any distributed system ever could. I’m based in São Paulo, you can find me on LinkedIn and X (@DCABib), where I share insights about generative AI, Amazon Bedrock, AWS serverless services, and the occasional Ironman throwback.
Now, let’s get into this week’s AWS news…
Last week’s launches
Here are some launches and updates from this past week that caught my attention:
- Amazon Redshift increases performance for new queries in dashboards and ETL workloads by up to 7x — Amazon Redshift now delivers up to 7x faster performance for new queries in dashboards and ETL workloads. Queries you run for the first time — without cached results — now execute significantly faster, reducing wait times for interactive dashboards and accelerating your ETL pipelines. This is particularly impactful for workloads with high query variability where cache hits are less frequent.
- NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super now available on Amazon Bedrock — NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super is now available in Amazon Bedrock, expanding the lineup of foundation models you can access through the unified Bedrock API. Nemotron 3 Super is a high-performance language model optimized for tasks such as text generation, complex reasoning, summarization, and code generation. You can now invoke Nemotron 3 Super alongside other foundation models in your existing Bedrock workflows, without managing any infrastructure.
- Introducing Nova Forge SDK, a seamless way to customize Nova models for enterprise AI — Nova Forge SDK provides a streamlined way to fine-tune and customize Amazon Nova models for enterprise use cases. You can adapt Nova models to your domain-specific data and deploy them directly within Amazon Bedrock, reducing the complexity of building tailored AI solutions. The SDK handles the heavy lifting of model customization, letting you focus on your business logic rather than the underlying infrastructure.
- Amazon Corretto 26 is now generally available — Amazon Corretto 26, the latest long-term support (LTS) release of the no-cost, production-ready distribution of OpenJDK, is now generally available. Corretto 26 includes the latest Java language features, performance improvements, and security patches, all backed by long-term support from AWS. You can use it across development and production environments on Amazon Linux, Windows, macOS, and Docker images.
- AWS Lambda now supports Availability Zone metadata — AWS Lambda now provides Availability Zone metadata for your function invocations. You can now identify which Availability Zone your Lambda function is running in, enabling better observability, more informed architectural decisions, and simplified troubleshooting for latency-sensitive and multi-AZ workloads. This is particularly useful when correlating Lambda execution with other AZ-aware services in your architecture.
- Amazon CloudWatch Logs now supports log ingestion using HTTP-based protocol — Amazon CloudWatch Logs now supports ingesting logs using an HTTP-based protocol, making it simpler to send logs from applications and services that use standard HTTP endpoints. You can now route logs to CloudWatch Logs without requiring custom agents or additional SDK integrations, lowering the barrier to centralized log management across your workloads.
- Amazon EKS announces 99.99% Service Level Agreement and new 8XL scaling tier for Provisioned Control Plane clusters — Amazon EKS now offers a 99.99% Service Level Agreement (SLA) for clusters running on Provisioned Control Plane, up from the 99.95% SLA offered on standard control plane. EKS is also introducing the 8XL scaling tier, the largest available Provisioned Control Plane tier, which doubles the Kubernetes API server request processing capacity of the next lower 4XL tier — ideal for large-scale workloads like AI/ML training, high-performance computing (HPC), and large-scale data processing.
Other AWS news
Here are some additional posts and resources that you might find interesting:
- Kiro for students — Kiro is now available for students, giving the next generation of builders access to AI-powered development tools at no cost. As Swami Sivasubramanian shared on LinkedIn, “Students are the future decision-makers shaping technology” — and Kiro gives them hands-on experience building with AI from day one. If you’re a student or know someone who is, this is a great opportunity to start building with AI-assisted development.
- Strands Steering Hooks achieved 100% agent accuracy — The Strands Agents team published results showing that Steering Hooks can achieve 100% agent accuracy, outperforming both prompt engineering and rigid workflow approaches for controlling agent behavior. As Swami highlighted on LinkedIn, building reliable AI agents often means rethinking how we guide model behavior — and Steering Hooks offer a compelling new path to agent reliability.
- Introducing Badges on AWS Builder Center — AWS Builder Center now features badges that recognize your contributions and achievements within the builder community. You can earn badges by sharing solutions, participating in challenges, and engaging with fellow builders. It’s a great way to showcase your expertise and track your growth.
- Keep Building Together: The Power of Community — A thoughtful read on the power of community-driven learning and collaboration in the AWS ecosystem. Whether you’re just getting started with AWS or you’ve been building for years, the builder community is a place to connect, share knowledge, and grow together. I highly recommend checking it out.
Upcoming AWS events
Check your calendar and sign up for upcoming AWS events:
- AWS Summits — Join AWS Summits in 2026, free in-person events where you can explore emerging cloud and AI technologies, learn best practices, and network with industry peers and experts. Upcoming Summits include Paris (April 1), London (April 22), Bengaluru (April 23–24), Singapore (May 6), Tel Aviv (May 6), and Stockholm (May 7).
- AWS Community Days — Community-led conferences where content is planned, sourced, and delivered by community leaders, featuring technical discussions, workshops, and hands-on labs. Upcoming events include San Francisco (April 10) and Romania (April 23–24).
- AWSome Women Summit LATAM — Taking place on March 28 in Mexico City, this event celebrates and empowers women in cloud technology across Latin America. A fantastic initiative for the LATAM tech community.
Join the AWS Builder Center to connect with builders, share solutions, and access content that supports your development. Browse the AWS Events and Webinars for upcoming AWS-led in-person and virtual events and developer-focused events.
That’s all for this week. Check back next Monday for another Weekly Roundup!
This post is part of our Weekly Roundup series. Check back each week for a quick roundup of interesting news and announcements from AWS!