Top Takeaways from Adam Selipsky’s AWS re:Invent Keynote
From sustainability to data and more, the AWS CEO covered a lot of ground on Tuesday.
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The 2022 AWS re:Invent marks Adam Selipsky’s second as CEO of the world’s largest cloud computing provider. It’s also the first in-person re:Invent since 2019, and the 11th overall. Selipsky said more than 300,000 people around the world are registered to virtually attend this week’s sessions, while more than 50,000 are attending in Las Vegas. Re:Invent this year features more than 2,300 sessions.
Calling sustainability “the issue of our generation,” Selipsky announced AWS’ commitment to 100% renewable energy by 2025. He said AWS has already made it 85% of the way there, due in part to the company’s new water-use approach that consumes one-quarter of a liter of water per kilowatt hour. AWS will “return more water to our communities than we use,” Selipsky said. Those efforts will help AWS tackle climate change — “a problem for all of us,” Selipsky said.
A recession lies on the horizon and within the tech sector, a canary in the coal mine for the overall economy, layoffs continue. While Selipsky did not bring up Amazon’s job losses, or AWS’ slowing revenue growth, he did home in on customers’ fears. People are tempted, in times of uncertainty, to cut back and slow down, he said. But, “that’s when it’s time to lean in.”
“The cloud is more cost-effective and many customers are saving 30% or more,” he said. “If you’re looking to tighten your belt, the cloud is the place to do it.”
That’s because, he said, cloud supports agility with fewer resources. That’s critical during a recession because innovation is still critical, Selipsky said, as is “learning to navigate new environments.”
Data, and the insights organizations can glean from it, remains a big deal at AWS. As Selipsky noted, over the next five years, the world will more than double the amount of data produced since the dawn of the digital age. Data, Selipsky said, “is the cornerstone of almost every organization’s digital transformation.”
But, he added, “working with data is tricky.”
To that end, Selipsky talked up AWS’ many database technologies and capabilities, and announced serverless AWS OpenSearch, to much applause. Organizations no longer have to pay for idle servers.
AWS also unveiled a fully managed integration between Aurora and Redshift, “eliminating all of the work of building and managing custom data pipelines” between the two services. There’s also now Redshift integration with Apache Spark.
“These are two steps forward for our zero-ETL vision.”
Go here for all of AWS’ data announcements on Nov. 29.
Security stands out as one of the most critical areas of importance for organizations. To that end, AWS released a preview of its new data lake, Amazon Security Lake.
The platform will allow security teams to work at petabyte scale, building a data lake “with just a few clicks,” Selipsky said. The solution automatically collects and aggregates security data for AWS partner solutions including Cisco, CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks. It also lets teams add their own data sources, such as from internal applications or infrastructure logs.
“We realize security is a team sport,” Selipsky said.
More organizations are understaffed than ever, due to the pandemic-led Great Resignation. To help lighten that load, AWS released updates to Amazon Connect, its contact center platform. Amazon Connect now contains forecasting and capacity planning, so contact centers don’t have too many or too few people to handle customer inquiries. There also are new agent performance management capabilities with real-time analytics, and step-by-step guidance for agents themselves.
AWS also is focused on ongoing supply chain hiccups. As such, the cloud provider announced the preview of AWS Supply Chain. Selipsky described it as a cloud application “with actionable insights to mitigate supply chain risks and lower costs.” Supply Chain connects with platforms including SAP to pull supply chain data. It then creates a data lake that requires no manual mapping. From there, it displays information such as inventory in a real-time map. It also comes with collaboration capabilities such as chat.
AWS delivers Supply Chain on a pay-as-you-go basis, with no upfront licenses.
“This is just the beginning,” Selipsky said. “We’re going to continue to innovate and work to resolve your hardest supply chain problems.”
Finally, AWS shared its efforts on the health care front as well. On Nov. 29, it made Amazon Omics generally available. That platform analyzes genome data to predict disease predisposition or drug efficacy, for example. It’s regulatory-compliant and HIPAA eligible, Selipsky said. Overall, Amazon Omics will “help target diseases with even more modernized therapy,” Selipsky said.
Finally, AWS shared its efforts on the health care front as well. On Nov. 29, it made Amazon Omics generally available. That platform analyzes genome data to predict disease predisposition or drug efficacy, for example. It’s regulatory-compliant and HIPAA eligible, Selipsky said. Overall, Amazon Omics will “help target diseases with even more modernized therapy,” Selipsky said.
AWS RE:INVENT — Calling sustainability “the issue of our generation,” Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky (pictured above) took the stage on Tuesday to deliver his second AWS re:Invent keynote speech.
The topics of water, and energy production and consumption, took up a significant portion of Selipsky’s focus. His comments came as the cloud computing sector has raised eyebrows for the excessive use of natural resources required to deliver services.
Selipsky’s Nov. 29 AWS re:Invent keynote also featured an unmissable emphasis on data. As organizations stand to produce more data than ever over the next five years, AWS unveiled integrations and other capabilities to make extraction and analysis easier.
Of course, the Selipsky-led two-hour AWS re:Invent address to partners and end users included presentations from customers. Energy company Engie, for example, shared how it’s producing green power with the help of AWS. And Siemens talked up its many cloud-reliant efforts as it works in health care, manufacturing and other large industries. Lyell reviewed how it’s using AWS to improve cancer treatments.
See our slideshow above for the main takeaways from Selipsky’s AWS re:Invent keynote.
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