AWS Weekly Roundup: Amazon ECS, Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon Cognito and more (December 15, 2025)

Can you believe it? We’re nearly at the end of 2025. And what a year it’s been! From re:Invent recap events, to AWS Summits, AWS Innovate, AWS re:Inforce, Community Days, and DevDays and, recently, adding that cherry on the cake, re:Invent 2025, we have lived through a year filled with exciting moments and technology advancements which continue to shape our new modern world.

Speaking of re:Invent, if you haven’t caught up yet on all the new releases and announcements (and there were plenty of exciting launches across every area), be sure to check out our curated post highlighting the top announcements from AWS re:Invent 2025. We’ve organized all the key releases into easy-to-navigate categories and included links so you can dive deeper into anything that sparks your interest.

While the year may be wrapping up, our teams are still busy working on things that you have either asked for as customers or that we pro-actively create to make your lives easier. Last week had quite a few interesting releases as usual, so let’s look at a few that I think could be useful for many of you out there.

Last week’s launches

Amazon WorkSpaces Secure Browser introduces Web Content Filtering – Organizations can now control web access through category-based filtering across 25+ predefined categories, granular URL policies, and integrated compliance logging. The feature works alongside existing Chrome policies and integrates with Session Logger for enhanced monitoring and is available at no additional cost in 10 AWS Regions with pay-as-you-go pricing.

Amazon Aurora DSQL now supports cluster creation in seconds – Developers can now instantly provision Aurora DSQL databases with setup time reduced from minutes to seconds, enabling rapid prototyping through the integrated AWS console query editor or AI-powered development via the Aurora DSQL Model Context Protocol server. Available at no additional cost in all AWS Regions where Aurora DSQL is offered, with AWS Free Tier access available.

Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL now supports integration with Kiro powers – Developers can now accelerate Aurora PostgreSQL application development using AI-assisted coding through Kiro powers, a repository of pre-packaged Model Context Protocol servers. The Aurora PostgreSQL integration provides direct database connectivity for queries, schema management, and cluster operations, dynamically loading relevant context as developers work. Available for one-click installation in Kiro IDE across all AWS Regions.

Amazon ECS now supports custom container stop signals on AWS Fargate – Fargate tasks now honor the stop signal configured in container images, enabling graceful shutdowns for containers that rely on signals like SIGQUIT or SIGINT instead of the default SIGTERM. The ECS container agent reads the STOPSIGNAL instruction from OCI-compliant images and sends the appropriate signal during task termination. Available at no additional cost across all AWS Regions.

Amazon CloudWatch SDK supports optimized JSON, CBOR protocols – CloudWatch SDK now defaults to JSON and CBOR protocols, delivering lower latency, reduced payload sizes, and decreased client-side CPU and memory usage compared to the traditional AWS Query protocol. Available at no additional cost across all AWS Regions and SDK language variants.

Amazon Cognito identity pools now support private connectivity with AWS PrivateLink – Organizations can now securely exchange federated identities for temporary AWS credentials through private VPC connections, eliminating the need to route authentication traffic over the public internet. Available in all AWS Regions where Cognito identity pools are supported, except AWS China (Beijing) and AWS GovCloud (US) Regions.

AWS Application Migration Service supports IPv6 – Organizations can now migrate applications using IPv6 addressing through dual-stack service endpoints that support both IPv4 and IPv6 communications. During replication, testing, and cutover phases, you can use IPv4, IPv6, or dual-stack configurations to launch servers in your target environment. Available at no additional cost in all AWS Regions that support MGN and EC2 dual-stack endpoints.

And that’s it for the AWS News Blog Weekly Roundup…not just for this week, but for 2025! We’ll be taking a break and returning in January to continue bringing you the latest AWS releases and updates.

As we close out 2025, it’s remarkable to look back at just how much has changed since the beginning of year. From groundbreaking AI capabilities to transformative infrastructure innovations, AWS has delivered an incredible year of releases that have reshaped what’s possible in the cloud. Throughout it all, the AWS News Blog has been right here with you every week with our Weekly Roundup series, helping you stay informed and ready to take advantage of each new opportunity as it arrived. We’re grateful you’ve joined us on this journey, and we can’t wait to continue bringing you the latest AWS innovations when we return in January 2026.

Until then, happy building, and here’s to an even more exciting year ahead!