AWS re:Invent 2018 Recap

Plenty of AWS innovations were unveiled at re:Invent 2018! IoT, serverless, database, service monitoring, data analytics, blockchain, machine learning, storage… there was something for everyone! Machine learning was particularly in the spotlight this year — you can find a recap by Julien Simon (AWS AI and Machine Learning Evangelist) here.

Rather than compiling an inventory of new services (which AWS has already done very well), we asked the team members who flew out to Las Vegas. What are the most interesting services and features announced? As an attendee, what were the highlights of this re:Invent? Any downsides?

Sylvain

For his second consecutive year attending re:Invent, Sylvain was particularly interested in serverless updates.

StepFunction – service orchestration is made easier with the integration of numerous services (Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), AWS Fargate, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), AWS Batch, AWS Glue and SageMaker), facilitating workflow automation, security and monitoring. Learn more…
AWS Lambda with ALB – Application Load Balancers (ALB) can now be linked with Lambdas for HTTPS requests. A diagram for a better understanding

Pros:

♥ Andy Jassy's Keynote

♥ Meeting the community

♥ Goodies and Swag

♥ Accessible certifications

Cons:

⊗ A lot of information to absorb

⊗ Inconsistent session/workshop levels: it was hard to gauge the level and quality of the workshops and speakers.

⊗ Canadians got special swag that was unavailable to the French!

Mohammed

A first-time re:Invent experience for Mohamed, who particularly appreciated the alternatives offered by AWS for networking and a new time series database.

Transit Gateway – a central connectivity hub between AWS Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) and on-premise infrastructure. Simple and straightforward — no more workarounds involving SSH jump hosts or port forwarding with NGINX. Learn more…
Timestream – a managed time series database, an alternative to DynamoDB (with a specific pattern) and other open-source solutions such as InfluxDB.

Pros:

♥ Atmosphere (DeepRacer races, numerous activities & games)

♥ Re:Play (Skrillex)

♥ Impressive logistics

Cons:

⊗ An enormous amount of information to digest

⊗ Not enough level 400 sessions

⊗ Jet lag

Marouen

Updates bringing more flexibility to AWS service usage caught Marouen's attention.

DynamoDB On Demand – AWS's NoSQL database is now much more flexible: there is no longer a need to over-provision tables to handle activity spikes. Learn more…
Amazon FSx – no more need to mount an Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) on Linux and share it via SMB in order to use a managed and distributed file system on Windows

Pros:

♥ Chat talks allowing you to ask questions directly to AWS service Product Owners

♥ The Oracle jokes during the Keynotes

♥ Abundant food

Cons:

⊗ Las Vegas (the noise, the casinos…)

Germain

Germain appreciated AWS's commitment to improving hybrid cloud solutions.

Amazon Outpost – this service allows you to harmonize AWS services and features with those present on-premise and vice versa! Currently in preview — learn more and sign up…
VMware on AWS – VMware Cloud integration on AWS is strengthened with Outpost, as well as with the integration of the managed database service Amazon RDS into the VMware environment.

Pros:

♥ Keynotes: unmissable but technically dense

♥ Increasingly welcoming to non-technical profiles

♥ 360° view of AWS and peripheral offerings, particularly crucial for medium-term market planning

Cons:

⊗ Requires more preparation: earlier session targeting, arriving at the event sooner, etc.

Still looking for more information?

You can find the recorded sessions and all videos from re:Invent 2018. The slides are also available.