Classmethod Data Analytics Newsletter (AWS Data Analytics Edition) – May 2026 Issue
This page has been translated by machine translation. View original
This is Ishikawa from the Consulting Department of the Cloud Business Division. I'm sharing AWS data analytics-related update information for April 2026. This month's highlights were concentrated on April 28th, with announcements for Amazon Quick (formerly Quick Suite) that dramatically expanded its reach as an AI assistant, including a native desktop app, Free/Plus pricing plans, custom app creation using natural language, and 13 new connectors including Google Workspace. On the data infrastructure side, Amazon Redshift added support for UPDATE/DELETE/MERGE on Apache Iceberg tables, marking significant progress in both lakehouse write operations and legacy app integration. The acceleration of Iceberg, serverless, and AI agent integration is the defining characteristic of this month. There are other updates to introduce as well!
Amazon Redshift / Redshift Serverless
New Features & Updates
2026/04/13 - Amazon Redshift introduces key performance optimization for Top-K queries
Redshift has optimized the processing of Top-K queries that include ORDER BY and LIMIT. It intelligently skips irrelevant data blocks to return results faster. Available at no additional cost in all AWS regions starting from patch release P199.
2026/04/23 - Amazon Redshift supports UPDATE, DELETE, MERGE for Apache Iceberg tables
Row-level UPDATE/DELETE/MERGE operations on Apache Iceberg tables from Redshift are now supported. You can execute complex transformations in Redshift against Iceberg tables on Amazon S3 or S3 Tables and write results back, with immediate queryability from other engines such as Amazon EMR and Amazon Athena. Upserts and data lifecycle management can be performed while maintaining transactional consistency.
API Changes
2026/04/09 - Redshift Data API - 1 updated methods
Named SQL parameters are now supported in the BatchExecuteStatement API. The ability to handle parameterized values in batch queries improves SQL injection protection and query reusability.
Amazon Redshift Serverless
New Features & Updates
2026/04/27 - Amazon Redshift Serverless AI-driven scaling is now the default for new workgroups
AI-driven scaling/optimization is now enabled by default for new workgroups. The Base RPU range has also been expanded from the previous 32–512 to 8–512 RPU, making automatic optimization available for even smaller workloads.
AWS Glue
New Features & Updates
2026/04/21 - AWS Glue now supports OAuth 2.0 for Snowflake connectivity
Glue's native Snowflake connectivity now supports OAuth 2.0 authentication/authorization. Reading from and writing to Snowflake is now possible without sharing user credentials, and the use of secure temporary tokens eliminates the need to manage credentials.
API Changes
2026/04/27 - AWS Glue - 4 updated methods
AdditionalAuditContext has been added to GetPartition, GetPartitions, GetTableVersion, and GetTableVersions.
Amazon Quick
New Features & Updates
2026/04/07 - Amazon Quick Enables Sparklines for Inline Trend Visualization in Tables
Sparklines, which compactly render trend lines within each row, are now supported in table visuals in QuickSight (Amazon Quick). Simply configure a metric with a date dimension to visualize per-row trends within cells. Available in all regions where QuickSight is supported.
2026/04/10 - Amazon Quick now supports document-level access controls for ACL support for S3
Quick now supports document-level ACLs for S3 knowledge bases. Quick interprets per-user/group permission information stored in S3 object metadata and includes only authorized information in responses.
2026/04/13 - Amazon Quick now supports document-level access controls for Google Drive knowledge bases
Quick now supports document-level ACLs for Google Drive knowledge bases. Permissions from the original files in Google Drive are directly reflected in Quick's responses, allowing Quick to be used while maintaining the organization's permission boundaries.
2026/04/16 - Amazon Quick now supports multi-account sign-in within the same browser
Quick now supports simultaneous sign-in to up to 5 Amazon Quick accounts from the same browser. The Quick account name is now included in the URL, allowing dashboards, spaces, flows, and more to be opened with the correct account. You can sign in to another account from the menu in the upper right of Quick.
2026/04/17 - Amazon Quick Introduces Sheet Tooltips for Rich, Contextual Data Exploration
Sheet tooltips have been added to QuickSight, enabling rich contextual display when hovering over data points. You can create dedicated tooltip sheets with free-form layouts of visuals, text boxes, and images; when hovering, the filters from the original visual are inherited and data-point-specific filters are additionally applied.
2026/04/21 - Amazon Quick Automate announces shared file storage for automations
Built-in shared file storage has been added to Quick Automate, allowing you to manage files needed for automations via drag and drop. There is no longer a need to prepare a separate external storage service.
2026/04/21 - Amazon Quick Automate now provides APIs to trigger and monitor automation jobs
StartAutomationJob and DescribeAutomationJob APIs have been added to Quick Automate, enabling programmatic execution and status checking of automation jobs from external applications and services.
2026/04/23 - Amazon Quick now supports permission verification for ACL-enabled knowledge bases
A mechanism has been added that allows administrators to verify whether a specific user has access to a specific document in ACL-enabled knowledge bases. This makes troubleshooting access control easier.
2026/04/24 - Amazon Quick now integrates with Visier's Vee agent for workforce intelligence
Amazon Quick now integrates with Visier's Vee AI assistant, enabling HR and finance leaders to access workforce intelligence based on employee data directly within their workspace.
2026/04/28 - Amazon Quick now available as a desktop application for macOS and Windows (Preview)
A native desktop application (preview) for Quick on macOS and Windows has been released. It can directly read and write local files, supports OS-level notifications and native desktop operations, providing a better user experience than the browser version.
2026/04/28 - Build custom applications using natural language in Amazon Quick (Preview)
A preview feature has been announced that allows building custom web applications from natural language prompts in Quick. You can connect to live data sources and build and deploy workflows including AI capabilities without coding, making it easier for business users in sales, finance, and other departments to build their own analytics apps in-house.
2026/04/28 - Amazon Quick now supports document and visual creation in chat
You can now generate and download documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and visuals in Word, PDF, PowerPoint, and Excel formats through natural language instructions in Quick's chat. The entire process from analysis to report creation can now be completed within Quick.
2026/04/28 - Amazon Quick expands integrations to include Google Workspace, Zoom, Airtable, and more
13 new action connectors have been added to Amazon Quick, including Google Workspace (Gmail, Google Sheets, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Drive), Zoom, and Airtable. Managed authentication is supported, enabling account integration in just a few clicks without manually managing credentials.
2026/04/28 - Start using Amazon Quick for free in minutes with Free and Plus pricing plans
Free and Plus pricing plans for Amazon Quick are now available. No AWS account is required; you can sign up using a personal email or existing credentials from Google, Apple, and others, and start using the AI assistant within minutes.
API Changes
2026/04/17 - Amazon QuickSight - 22 updated methods
Dashboard customization summary, S3 Tables data source type, Athena cross-account connector, custom sort for controls, and the general availability release of AI-powered analysis generation are reflected.
Amazon SageMaker Unified Studio
New Features & Updates
2026/04/06 - Amazon SageMaker Unified Studio adds notebook import/export and developer acceleration features
Notebooks in SageMaker Unified Studio now support import/export, making migration from JupyterLab and other notebook platforms easier. Developer acceleration features have also been added for data engineers and data scientists, including cell reordering, keyboard shortcuts, cell renaming, and multi-line SQL support.
2026/04/07 - Amazon SageMaker adds serverless workflows to Identity Center domains
Serverless Workflows are now supported in SageMaker Unified Studio for Identity Center domains. Data processing tasks can be orchestrated without provisioning or managing Apache Airflow infrastructure.
2026/04/21 - Amazon SageMaker now supports multi-region replication from IAM Identity Center
SageMaker Unified Studio domains can now be deployed in a different region from the IdC instance. Multi-region replication from IdC is supported.
2026/04/22 - Amazon SageMaker Unified Studio now supports multiple code spaces within projects for IAM domains
Data workers can now create and manage multiple code spaces (individually configurable development environments) within a project in IAM domains. Previously, each project was limited to one JupyterLab space and one code editor space.
2026/04/23 - Amazon SageMaker supports notebooks and data agent for IdC domains
Serverless notebooks with a built-in data agent are now supported for IAM Identity Center (IdC) domains.
API Changes
2026/04/09 - Amazon SageMaker Service - 9 updated methods
Support for the g7e instance type has been added for SageMaker HyperPod.
2026/04/10 - Amazon SageMaker Service - 1 new 4 updated methods
The StartClusterHealthCheck API has been added to run on-demand DHC for HyperPod EKS clusters. In addition, CreateCluster, UpdateCluster, DescribeCluster, and BatchAddClusterNodes have been updated to support flexible instance group operations on HyperPod clusters.
2026/04/17 - Amazon SageMaker Service - 4 updated methods
NetworkInterface specification for EFA-enabled instances and a simplified creation API that makes lifecycle scripts (LCS) optional for Slurm-orchestrated clusters are now supported.
2026/04/21 - Amazon SageMaker Service - 14 new 10 updated methods
APIs supporting generative AI inference recommendation functionality in SageMaker AI have been added. A series of operations have been added that return optimizations, benchmarks, and verified metrics for models and workload inputs.
Amazon DataZone
API Changes
2026/04/07 - Amazon DataZone - 4 updated methods
Configurations and registerS3AccessGrantLocation have been exposed as attributes available in CloudFormation. S3 Access Grant registration settings can now be configured as Infrastructure as Code.
2026/04/16 - Amazon DataZone - 22 updated methods
SDK support has been added for SageMaker Unified Studio (SMUS) IAM domains. DataZone APIs can now be used in IAM-based SMUS environments.
2026/04/23 - Amazon DataZone - 4 updated methods
The LakehouseProperties attribute has been added to the Connections API, enabling handling of SageMaker Lakehouse-related connection information.
AWS Clean Rooms
API Changes
2026/04/17 - AWS Clean Rooms Service - 3 updated methods
Spark properties can now be configured for Clean Rooms PySpark workloads.
Amazon EMR
New Features & Updates
2026/04/03 - Apache Spark troubleshooting and upgrade agents now available as Kiro powers
Troubleshooting and upgrade agents for Apache Spark on EMR are now available as Kiro powers. They analyze logs, metrics, and configurations of failed Spark jobs to identify root causes and present specific code fix suggestions for PySpark applications. Both EMR on EC2 and EMR Serverless are supported.
2026/04/29 - Amazon EMR 7.13 now available with Python 3.11
EMR 7.13 has been released. The default Python for Apache Spark is now 3.11, and it includes patch upgrades to Apache HBase 2.6.3, Apache Hadoop 3.4.2, Apache Phoenix 5.3.0, and AWS SDK v2.41.11. Available in all AWS regions where EMR is available.
API Changes
2026/04/22 - EMR Serverless - 6 new 3 updated methods
Spark Connect sessions are now supported starting from EMR Serverless release label emr-7.13.0, enabling interactive Spark connections in a Serverless environment.
Amazon MSK
New Features & Updates
2026/04/20 - MSK Replicator now supports replication from external Apache Kafka clusters to MSK Express Brokers
MSK Replicator now supports data replication from external Apache Kafka clusters (on-premises, self-managed EC2, other clouds) to MSK Express Brokers. This supports migration to MSK Express Brokers, disaster recovery failover targets, and data distribution in hybrid/multi-cloud environments, eliminating the need to operate a proprietary replication infrastructure.
2026/04/21 - Amazon MSK Serverless expands to 13 new AWS regions
MSK Serverless has been expanded to 13 additional regions, primarily in Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East. MSK Serverless is a cluster type that lets you run Apache Kafka without worrying about managing or scaling cluster capacity.
API Changes
2026/04/20 - Managed Streaming for Kafka - 4 updated methods
Support has been added for data migration from external Apache Kafka clusters to MSK Express Brokers. SASL/SCRAM + TLS encryption authentication, enhanced consumer offset synchronization, and customer log forwarding for troubleshooting have been added.
Amazon OpenSearch Serverless
New Features & Updates
2026/04/09 - Amazon OpenSearch Serverless now supports Zstandard (zstd) codec for index compression
OpenSearch Serverless now supports the Zstandard codec for index storage. It can reduce index size by up to 32% compared to the default LZ4 codec, giving users finer control over the trade-off between storage costs and query performance.
2026/04/13 - Amazon OpenSearch Serverless now supports Derived Source for storage optimization
Derived Source is now supported, which skips storing source fields and dynamically derives them as needed. This can reduce the storage capacity required for OpenSearch Service collections.
API Changes
Amazon OpenSearch Service
New Features & Updates
2026/04/08 - Amazon OpenSearch Service now supports Graviton4 based i8ge instances
OpenSearch Service now supports AWS Graviton4-based i8ge instances. The i8ge is the latest generation storage-optimized instance, offering up to 60% improved compute performance compared to the previous generation Graviton2-based Im4gn, and is suited for storage-intensive workloads.
2026/04/09 - Amazon OpenSearch Service supports Managed Prometheus and agent tracing
Functionality has been added to the Observability workspace in the OpenSearch UI that integrates metrics, logs, traces, and AI agent tracing. Native integration with Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus and comprehensive tracing that visualizes AI agent execution are now available.
2026/04/22 - Amazon OpenSearch Service now supports rollback for service software updates
Service software updates can now be rolled back within 15 days of application using the new RollbackServiceSoftwareUpdate API, AWS CLI, or console. This enables more careful rollouts in managing OpenSearch Service domain updates.
API Changes
2026/04/22 - Amazon OpenSearch Service - 1 new 7 updated methods
Support for the RollbackServiceSoftwareUpdate API has been added.
2026/04/23 - Amazon OpenSearch Service - 10 updated methods
OpenSearch UI applications now support cross-region domain associations, allowing you to connect from OpenSearch Dashboards in one region to OpenSearch domains in other regions within the same partition and centralize visualizations.
2026/04/27 - Amazon OpenSearch Service - 7 updated methods
OpenSearch Service now supports JWKS URL configuration for JWT authentication.
Finally
April 2026 was a month marked by a large-scale expansion of Amazon Quick (formerly QuickSight) into the consumer space. The direction of broadening the user base to business users who do not have AWS accounts is clearly laid out, with the desktop app, Free/Plus pricing plans, SaaS connectors for Google Workspace and Zoom, custom app creation using natural language, and document generation.
On the data infrastructure side, Amazon Redshift's DML support for Apache Iceberg and AWS Glue 5.1's integration of Iceberg format v3 / Lake Formation write permissions have made the transition from "read-centric" to "write and update" phases in the lakehouse a realistic possibility. OpenSearch Service/Serverless also received a set of updates to improve storage efficiency and AI observability, including AI agent tracing, Derived Source, and Zstandard compression.
If there are any updates that catch your interest, please give them a try.
