Highlights of AWS re:Invent 2022 Day 1 – A Sneak Peek!

2022 marked the 11th year of AWS re:Invent – the most vibrant event in cloud computing. Over the last 10 years, the conclave brought together all the bigwigs of the global cloud community to meet, rethink, and get inspired. And this year seems no different. 

Our CEO, Bhavesh Goswami, is in Las Vegas, attending this magnificent tech conference. And we will be unrolling all the exclusive updates through his eyes. 

Let’s see how events unfolded on the first day of AWS re:Invent 2022! 

The Peer Talk Lounge 

This was something that the previous AWS events didn’t have on their roll. Considering the thousands of AWS enthusiasts that gather at re:Invent every year, the organizers introduced a new networking program – The PeerTalk Lounges. 

What is special about this PeerTalk platform? 

Well, the in-person attendees can access the platform through the main AWS events mobile app and view the other attendees. From there, they can chat with one another or request in-person meetings. A whole bunch of experts including Jeff Brar and other community leaders with diverse expertise across technical and non-technical domains were active on the platform

The Certification Lounge 

This was another important feature of the AWS re:Invent 2022. The program was set in place to celebrate and recognize the certification achievements of AWS community members. It allows the attendees to 

• Highlight their AWS Cloud skills by earning an industry-recognized credential before the event, and 
• Enjoy special recognition as part of the AWS-certified community during the event. 

The certification also offered some special benefits to the attendees, including: 

• Complimentary AWS Certified gifts 
• Exclusive access to the AWS Certification Appreciation Reception 

Leadership Sessions 

Day 1 of AWS re:Invent 2022 witnessed around 6 leadership sessions led by prominent names in the cloud space. 

Unlocking business value and operational benefits with IoT solutions

This was the first leadership session of AWS re:Invent and was hosted by Yasser Alsaied Vice President, of IoT. In this one-hour-long presentation, Yasser Alsaied highlighted the innovations in robotics and IoT helping organizations transform business operations securely and reliably. 

He also announced some special launch features of AWS IoT Connectivity namely: 

• IoT TwinMaker Knowledge Graph 
• AWS IoT Fleetwise 
• AWS IoT Core Devices Location 
• Availability for protocol MQTTv5 

Industrial Manufacturing and Supply Chain

The speakers for this session were Grant Bodley, General Manager, Industrials & Manufacturing, and Kathy Varma, Head of Industrials Strategy, BD, Solutions & GTM. The focal point of the discussion was how cloud-based data strategy and purpose-built cloud services together can help you unlock growth, by building more intelligent, connected, and sustainable operations, products, and services. 

Innovation and reinvention across the energy value chain

Hosted by Howard Gefen, General Manager, Energy & Utilities; this session focused on the advances in energy production, remote monitoring, and innovation across a wide variety of renewable energies. Gefen also emphasized the fact that the entire energy value chain is now more interconnected than ever. And to make an impact, it is essential that the entire ecosystem works together.  

The power of responsibility in AI/ML

Here Alieen Smith, Head of Content Strategy, Diversity Marketing at AWS, and Diya Wynn, Senior Practice Manager, AI/ML Ethics at AWS came together to explore a strategy for the practice of responsible AI. Alieen Smith also announced the launch of two courses: 

• AWS AI & ML Scholarship Programs 
• Machine Learning University (MLU) course on Responsible AI 

Transform with AWS Cloud Operations: From vision to reality

Next was the session on AWS Cloud Transformation by Nandini Ramani, Vice President, AWS Monitoring & Observability, and Kurt Kufeld, Vice President, AWS Platform. The speakers shared the latest innovations across AWS Cloud Operations, including cloud governance, compliance, and observability services. They announced the launch of some new features in AWS Cloud Operations. These included: 

• Comprehensive Controls Management in AWS Control Tower 
• AWS Config now supports proactive compliance 
• Simplified security & compliance investigations with AWS CloudTrail Lake 
• Integrated application experience 
• AWS Resource Explorer 
• Amazon CloudWatch Internet Monitor 
• Cross-Account observability in Amazon CloudWatch 
• Data protection of logs in Amazon CloudWatch 
• VPC support and Prometheus alerting in Amazon-managed Grafana

Kubernetes virtually anywhere, for everyone

This session on Kubernetes was taken over by Barry Cooks, Vice President, Kubernetes. The session revolved around how AWS customers are using Amazon EKS to run their most demanding applications in the cloud, on-premises, and at the edge and how that is shaping the Amazon EKS roadmap and our community involvement.  

He also announced the launch of AWS Batch for EKS and AWS Karpenter 

Finally, we had the keynote session Monday Night Live with Peter DeSantis. To read about the updates from this session you can read our blog What’s New at AWS? Live From re:Invent 2022 – Day 1 – CloudThat Resources