--- title: "London Gets an AZ, You Get an Outage" id: "15446" type: "newsletter" slug: "london-gets-an-az-you-get-an-outage" published_at: "2026-08-24T13:30:00+00:00" modified_at: "2026-08-24T13:30:00+00:00" url: "https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/london-gets-an-az-you-get-an-outage/" markdown_url: "https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/london-gets-an-az-you-get-an-outage.md" excerpt: "If you're in SF tomorrow (Tuesday) night, I'm going to be hanging out with Philip Kiely of BaseTen. Come grab a drink with us; hit the signup so we know you're coming." --- About the Author Corey is the Chief Cloud Economist at Duckbill, where he specializes in helping companies improve their AWS bills by making them smaller and less horrifying. He also hosts the "Screaming in the Cloud" and "AWS Morning Brief" podcasts; and curates "Last Week in AWS," a weekly newsletter summarizing the latest in AWS news, blogs, and tools, sprinkled with snark and thoughtful analysis in roughly equal measure. Sign up for the Newsletter Stay up to date on the latest AWS news, opinions, and tools, all lovingly sprinkled with a bit of snark. "*" indicates required fields ## [Good Morning](https://x.com/QuinnyPig/status/2090928340236652896) ! If you’re in SF tomorrow (Tuesday) night, I’m going to be hanging out with Philip Kiely of BaseTen. Come grab a drink with us; hit the [signup](https://luma.com/gexguvs5) so we know you’re coming. ## Things I Found on the Internet Holy crap, it’s a community article (in this case [AWS Backups for Everyone](https://rosesecurity.dev/2026/08/21/aws-backups-for-everyone.html) ) that covers a salient point and isn’t crawling with AI-sign. It’s like spotting a unicorn! I found the revelation that [hundreds of leaked AWS keys give full control over corporate accounts](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hundreds-of-leaked-aws-keys-give-full-control-over-corporate-accounts/) is annoying enough that I took to the Register to point out [just how craptastic](https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/08/22/aws-security-makes-an-inscrutable-choice-corey-quinn/5291446) AWS’s Quarantine Policy really is. Longtime friend of the newsletter Forrest Brazeal [announced](https://x.com/forrestbrazeal/status/2090434022417518770?s=12) that Universal Pictures, along with producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, are developing his book *Paradox Inc* for film. This really couldn’t happen to a nicer person. Looking forward to seeing what comes out of this… The folks at AWS [launched a fourth AZ by surprise](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49363466) in the London region. This broke a bunch of customer provisioning scripts as well as EC2’s in that region for a bit. Maybe preannounce that next time? [Stwipe](https://stwipe.com) has announced the acquisition of [OpenWouter](https://openwouter.com/) , which is a big deal for both of those companies. ## What AWS Has For Us This Time [AWS CloudShell now includes a built-in visual file editor](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2026/08/aws-cloudshell-visual-file-editor/) Great, now do S3 please. Small object editing from the console, I’ve been asking for it for nearly a decade at this point. Please? [AWS Cost Anomaly Detection supports third-party models on Amazon Bedrock](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2026/08/aws-cost-anomaly-detection-bedrock-3P/) This is horrifying to learn, specifically because “Cost Anomaly Detection does not monitor third-party products and services available through AWS Marketplace.” That’s a caveat you only learn when you’re freaking out about what the HELL asteroid just obliterated your bill. [AWS announces a new Availability Zone in the Europe (London) Region](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2026/08/aws-iam-increased-quota/) “Surprise, here’s a 4th AZ where you were expecting 3” breaks a lot of customer automation. “Sure, Corey, but only crappy automation” you might reasonably riposte, which is why AWS themselves [took an outage](https://x.com/AWSSupport/status/2090152851318174007) from this very thing. You warn customers first! What’s next, you’re gonna rename us-east-1 to us-east-1.2 and boast while the entire internet implodes around you? [AWS Billing and Cost Management Introduces Managed Dashboards for Instant Cloud Financial Visibility](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws-cloud-financial-management/aws-billing-and-cost-management-dashboards-introduces-managed-dashboards-for-instant-cloud-financial-visibility/) AWS takes a bold step past the old world of “configure it yourself, preferably in QuickSight.” I haven’t dug into it yet, as I confess last week kept me absurdly busy. More to come on that. [In the works: AWS Builder Lofts in Berlin, Hyderabad, and São Paulo](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/in-the-works-aws-builder-lofts-in-berlin-hyderabad-and-sao-paulo/) There have been ~6 “Builder Lofts” here in San Francisco. They’ve also been called “GenAI Lofts,” the one here is currently a “Builder Center” and somehow despite it being a block away from my office I rarely if ever get notifications about events happening there. Unlike a data center, it seems you won’t notice one of these in your neighborhood. [Amazon Linux default SSM parameter will now track the latest kernel](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/amazon-linux-default-ssm-parameter-will-now-track-the-latest-kernel/) I hate this. Why on earth would you store a public parameter in something rate limited and complicated like Parameter Store instead of following the righteous path: keeping the latest kernel in a DNS TXT record? [Introducing public preview runtimes on AWS Lambda, starting with Node.js 26 and Python 3.15](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/introducing-public-preview-runtimes-on-aws-lambda-starting-with-node-js-26-and-python-3-15/) This is huge, because the Lambda team unwittingly admits it’s possible for them to update a rolling release “preview” Lambda runtime without sending us 40,000 emails about a deprecation first. [AWS and Amazon WorkSpaces recognized as a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Desktop as a Service](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/desktop-and-application-streaming/aws-and-amazon-workspaces-recognized-as-a-leader-in-the-2026-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-desktop-as-a-service/) Credit where due, Gartner got this one right. More like this please, less of the insane AI quadrants that’ve been plopping out of them lately. [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore payments is now generally available: Enabling agents to transact safely and autonomously at scale](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/machine-learning/amazon-bedrock-agentcore-payments-is-now-generally-available-enabling-agents-to-transact-safely-and-autonomously-at-scale/) This is a stablecoin crypto thing. Their Bazaar offers “30,000 API providers,” yet I cannot find 3 that aren’t sketchy. Almost like “a legitimate API provider is likely not going to be okay with having to accept the marketplace’s generic terms of service, since agents cannot consent to custom ones.” This feels like a solution desperately in search of a problem; the stated pain it solves strikes me as one that many folks would like to be true, but I have yet to hear from a single customer for whom it is. If I’m wrong here, then AWS is utterly failing to tell a story. If I’m right, then this offering darkens Bedrock’s brand every time it comes up. [AWS Network Firewall now supports rule hit count](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-network-firewall-now-supports-rule-hit-count/) “I have no idea how many times this firewall rule has blocked something” is a common problem. Should you remove it? Christ no; that shit might be important! You could bring things crashing down instantly if it’s being hit all the time! Finally, there’s a solution to this. [Updates to your AWS Sign-In experience](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/updates-to-your-aws-sign-in-experience/) Good part here: pre-announcing a change to the login page so it doesn’t look like a phishing attack. Bad part: they’re supporting sign-in with Apple, GitHub, and Google, but where are Epic Games, Steam, Twitch, Lego, Etsy, Patreon, DeviantArt, Duolingo, Spotify, or NextDoor federated options? We’re waiting… August has been a productive month for the AWS security bulletin RSS feed, which remains the security notification channel of record in 2026, apparently. The run opened with a [resource-exhaustion bug in an OpenSearch Dashboards route](https://aws.amazon.com/security/security-bulletins/rss/2026-082-aws/) most operators didn’t know existed, then moved on to [a pair of CVEs in ion-java](https://aws.amazon.com/security/security-bulletins/rss/2026-083-aws/) , a serialization library that turns up in your dependency tree like an uninvited cousin because some SDK dragged it in on your behalf. Memory-amplification denial of service is the only AWS feature that scales your consumption without a pricing page. Next came [the Athena ClickHouse federated connector](https://aws.amazon.com/security/security-bulletins/rss/2026-084-aws/) , where the federation covers your queries and stops well short of your patching, leaving you to redeploy Lambda stacks in regions you’d forgotten you had. The closer is [prototype pollution escalating to server-side RCE](https://aws.amazon.com/security/security-bulletins/rss/2026-085-aws/) in the TSVB plugin, which hits self-managed and AWS Managed domains alike, requires only the read-level analyst account you hand out to contractors, and gets remediated whenever somebody happens to notice a console notifications panel. … and that’s what happened ***Last Week in AWS.*** ## You might also like [More Newsletter Issues](https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/) Issue No.488 ### [Claude Fable 5.1 and Other Bedtime Stories](https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/claude-fable-5-1-and-other-bedtime-stories/) [Read More about Claude Fable 5.1 and Other Bedtime Stories](https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/claude-fable-5-1-and-other-bedtime-stories/) Issue No.487 ### [Happy 20th Birthday EC2, You Beautiful Disaster](https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/happy-20th-birthday-ec2-you-beautiful-disaster/) [Read More about Happy 20th Birthday EC2, You Beautiful Disaster](https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/happy-20th-birthday-ec2-you-beautiful-disaster/) Issue No.485 ### [The Week AWS Explained Its Own Error Messages](https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/the-week-aws-explained-its-own-error-messages/) [Read More about The Week AWS Explained Its Own Error Messages](https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/the-week-aws-explained-its-own-error-messages/) Issue No.484 ### [DynamoDB Does Vectors Now, Because Of Course It Does](https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/dynamodb-does-vectors-now-because-of-course-it-does/) [Read More about DynamoDB Does Vectors Now, Because Of Course It Does](https://www.lastweekinaws.com/newsletter/dynamodb-does-vectors-now-because-of-course-it-does/)