AWS re:Invent 2024 Day 1 Recap

If you’re into AWS or just a cloud enthusiast, you know that AWS re:Invent 2024 is the place to be! My team and I are in Las Vegas, catching up with old friends, meeting new faces, and soaking in all the exciting updates from AWS.

This year’s re:Invent is definitely living up to the hype.

In case you missed our list of must-attend events and activities, here’s a quick catch-up! We’ve rounded up some tips, highlights, and a few cool spots you won’t want to miss between sessions.

Highlights from Day 1

Lots of focus on generative AI and how companies are improving customer experiences.

Announcements:

• Big news from AWS!

They’re rolling out new data center components designed to supercharge AI innovation and improve energy efficiency. These upgrades will be available worldwide, covering both new and existing data centers. It’s all part of their mission to build a faster, more secure, and sustainable cloud for everyone.

• Peter DeSantis revealed the AWS #Trainium2 UltraServer during today’s keynote. Picture this: 2 racks, 4 servers, and 64 Trainium accelerators all connected by ultra-fast NeuronLink. It’s built for mind-blowing performance!

I also had the chance to attend a few talks:

Build an AI gateway for Amazon Bedrock with AWS AppSync

Building an AI gateway for Amazon Bedrock was the focus of a session led by Brice, Cal, and Salman. They explored the tricky parts of integrating generative AI into applications—like juggling permissions, securing credentials, and managing identities when working with AI backends.

They showed how to create tailored queries and deploy APIs that are ready for production. It was a goldmine of ideas for developers looking to make their AI workflows more secure and efficient.

Building production-grade resilient architectures with Amazon EKS

Carlos and Niall took us through the ins and outs of managing resilient architectures at scale with Amazon EKS. They discussed the challenges platform teams face when handling thousands of clusters and shared great tips on upgrading at scale without sacrificing security, performance, or cost.

They also introduced handy open-source tools like ACK, Argo CD, and Backstage, which make it easier to manage and track Amazon EKS clusters across your AWS organization.

Definitely a must-watch for any developer focused on building reliable systems.

Supercharge your DevOps practices with generative AI 

Christopher, Julie, and Chris took us through how generative AI can transform DevOps practices. With live demos, they showed how tools like Amazon Q and Amazon Bedrock can streamline workflows, automate tasks, and improve collaboration. 

It was a session packed with practical strategies, leaving with actionable insights to enhance their team’s DevOps game.

Best practices for generative AI observability

Denis and Greg walked us through the challenges of keeping tabs on generative AI, especially as it becomes more widely adopted. They showed how Amazon CloudWatch can help you monitor key metrics, logs, and traces for AI workloads, giving you full visibility into their lifecycle.

On a similar note, we at Last9 have built a data warehouse designed to handle telemetry data (logs, traces, metrics, and events) at a massive scale. If you haven’t checked it out yet, feel free to give it a try for free!

Unleashing the power of Amazon ECS for platform teams

Michael, Jennifer, and Olly delivered a great session on how Amazon ECS is changing the game for container orchestration. 

They shared use cases and best practices for building scalable and secure platforms for containerized applications. If you’re looking to simplify your container workflows, this session was packed with insights!

We’ve got stickers and t-shirts that are just as fun as you are! Come find us and snag yours!

The day was packed with exciting talks, and since I’m with the Last9 team, I had the chance to meet a lot of developers and observability enthusiasts. 

It was interesting to hear about the challenges they’re facing and chat about how they’re tackling them. It’s always a great feeling to learn more about what’s top of mind for folks in the space. 

Looking forward to what the rest of the week brings!