Amazon Web Services – offer reliable, scalable, and inexpensive cloud computing services. It’s free to join; you only need to pay for what you use. At EXPRE, we are into all things related to cloud, and we jump at every opportunity to learn.
Earlier this week, we visited Amazon’s AWS Summit in ExCeL London, and here is a quick summary.
From the outset, it was clear that AWS managed to create a great ecosystem of thriving businesses. As later stated in the keynote, they succeed by helping their users succeed, which seems like an excellent strategy for the future.
During the event, there was a lot of talk on security, big data, AI and Chat Bots. Here are a few key points that resonated the most during the day.
1# Cloud First
It’s exciting to see that organisations such as BP or Ocado, are adopting cloud first approach. As featured in the keynote, as a result of using cloud first, we are seeing their IT spend slashed by around half. Amazon’s AWS cloud services are showing very promising growth with $14B revenue. Beneficial for both user and host, revenue is up by 43% YoY, which only validates the theory.
2# Serverless Computing
Work smarter, not harder. There’s a lot of talk around not worrying about the infrastructure. Just simply uploading your code and paying for what you use. Definitely the approach we have adopted at EXPRE. Serverless is one of the key methods of delivering digital projects for our clients.
3# Machine Learning
Apache MXNet is Amazon’s deep learning framework of choice. Definitely worth having a look, being open-source. The goal here is to simplify or minimise the need for having data scientist specialists on hand. Easy insight from big data on all interaction would be beneficial for any business.
4# Ocado Robots
One slide from the keynote really took the audience attention for a good minute… A short video of the Ocado warehouse, operating a grid of robots and optimising every move to produce best results. An algorithm controlled the robots, trays and incoming goods, using machine learning to adapt to the changing environment in real time.
5# Startups born on the cloud
Quite rightly pointed out by Werner Vogels – VP & CTO at Amazon.com. Some of the world’s fastest growing start-ups were born out of the AWS Cloud.
6# Internet of Things on the AWS
AWS IoT enables secure, bi-directional communication between Internet-connected things. Sensors, smart appliances and embedded devices, can now seamlessly “talk” to AWS Cloud.
7# Lambda
Let’s you run code within in Node.js, Java, C# or Python, without provisioning or managing servers. You can attach actions and run code in response to events within various AWS services and beyond. This is a great extension that brings a lot of AWS functionality closer. Not to mention that it’s another major tool for your serverless infrastructure.
8# New databases: Aurora and DynamoDB
Aurora – yet another step to ease the IT burden. A fully-managed, MySQL-compatible, relational database engine. Combines speed and availability of commercial databases with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness. Use it if you need a MySQL database that is easy to set up and scales for you. Just add fuel, that is the budget.
DynamoDB – a fast and flexible NoSQL database service. Designed for applications that need consistent, single-digit millisecond latency at any scale. It is very effective if you are looking to take your performance from milliseconds to microseconds. Amazon DynamoDB Accelerator is an in-memory cache which can be added with just a few clicks.
9# Security Built In
One welcome consequence of using AWS is their commitment to ongoing security efforts. Many of the services implement best practices, without you lifting your finger. Protecting you with resource SME’s simply couldn’t afford.
10# AI, Chat Bots, Intent Oriented Approach and Voice
Amazon’s impressive AI Suite lets you build smart real-time experiences for your users. Being chat or voice driven interactions. You can design and create an intent oriented interactive search and concierge experience
11# Innovation
Amazon has really picked up its innovation pace, with a vision of keeping innovation at the forefront of their efforts, as well as listening to its users as a key to this process. In the words of Jeff Bezos, if they stop to innovate, they only have 10-15 years left in the market. This happens to many great companies.
12# True Cost
On the one hand, you have all these great APIs to make everything you’ve ever wanted happen fast, as well as scale it to infinity and beyond. Is this the most cost-effective solution around? With continuous growth, is there real enough emphasis on driving costs down? Also given the platform’s popularity and its barrage of tightly integrated services…. Vendor lock-in springs to mind.
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