After more than three years working with AWS, there is no doubt that the cloud is having an increasing impact on the technology industry. Being a versatile and scalable option, it makes companies bet on this model to boost their digital transformation.
In this context, I had the opportunity to attend for the first time the AWS Summit in Madrid, the event organised by Amazon Web Services to present its innovations and defend why it continues to be the most used cloud provider worldwide.
The interest aroused by AWS can be checked from the moment of arrival at the venue, where there was a queue that at times crossed the entire site hosting the event, and also resulted in a great activity both in the exhibitors’ area and in the talks throughout the day. According to official figures, the AWS Summit Madrid brought together more than 7,000 attendees.
First impressions at the AWS Cloud Event
It was my first time at an event of this type, so let me explain my experience:
You enter the main pavilion where the exhibitors are both AWS, as well as sponsors of the event. In these spaces you get information about the sponsoring companies and their experts. You can chat with them about the opportunities offered by AWS, as well as some live demonstrations of certain products or services they offer. For example, in Keepler we had in our booth the demo of advanced Chatbot with GenAI and in the AI / ML corner of AWS the demo of Intelligent Document Processing.
In the remote work model that we have at Keepler, the truth is that it is appreciated to have the opportunity to meet with colleagues face to face and have informal conversations about our projects.
In my case, I took the opportunity to meet with ex colleagues and we were talking about services such as AWS Proton and the new functionality of AWS EventBridge Scheduler, with examples of use and benefits of both services. I also got to meet in person people that because of the pandemic and telecommuting, I only knew through a screen.
Image of track 4 before the start of the talk – Photo by Sergio Fernández
AWS Summit Tech Talks
Obviously, AWS is full of opportunities to update you on the technical side of things. You can find talks by AWS experts, which were developed in an annex called “technical tracks”. Each track was categorized according to the topic of the talk, such as ML/AI, Data, DevOps, among others.
I attended some technical talks that I will tell you about below:
- Optimizing DevOps strategies thanks to Amazon CodeCatalyst: A talk about Amazon CodeCatalyst, AWS’s way for development teams to work together in a shared code repository, perform code reviews, automate tests and deployments, and monitor application performance in real time. It also provides integration with external tools such as JIRA or GitHub, apart from other AWS proprietary services such as Codebuild, CodePipeline or CodeDeploy. They also talked about AWS CodeWhisperer, AWS’s bet for machine learning-driven code generation, which is compatible with various programming languages and IDEs.
- Identifying the ideal database for your project or application: Talk where aspects to take into account when choosing the database model to implement in the project were given, making sure not to fail in the choice. As a highlight, I was very surprised by a model that I did not know called “AWS Timestream”, a fully scalable and serverless time series database, which promises the analysis of billions of data 1000 times faster using SQL. Its use is suitable for IoT, DevOps or even web traffic due to its ability to store real-time data.
There are also certain points of the Summit that are intended for a fun time of leisure, such as the AWS DeepRacer booth, where through ML a car must learn to complete a circuit, or the AWS GameDay: League of Legends (LoL) booth, where challenges set in the famous video game are proposed, which must be solved by applying knowledge in AWS. We also found the F1 Ferrari Simulator where we can get into a replica of the F1 car and race on well-known circuits.
F1 Ferrari Simulator at AWS Summit Madrid 2023 – Photo by Sergio Fernández
In my opinion, not only the technical aspects are the highlights of the AWS Summit. It is also very positive to be able to put faces to colleagues (and former colleagues, why not say it) in the industry, as well as project managers in which you have participated, with whom you have only had a relationship through a screen. Being able to have a chat outside a “call” in an environment away from the pressure of daily work is very beneficial to generate a good bond and promote the human factor.
It is highly recommended to attend this event. Not only will it help you to learn what’s new at AWS, but it will also help you meet people in the industry to exchange experiences and suggestions with the leading public cloud provider, all in an environment that has little to do with the day-to-day work environment.
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