Why am I going to AWS re:Invent?

Hybrid Cloud momentum

I’m really excited about the upcoming AWS re:invent 2017 conference in Las Vegas. With five VMworld’s on my belt, and being part of the VMware community for some time now, I feel pretty at ease at a VMworld conference. Each consecutive year I attend VMworld, I have access to more and more invite-only sessions, round tables, exclusive parties, meet and greets with VMware executives and so on. This year, VMworld was kind of special to me. I have been preaching hybrid cloud ever since my employer (ITQ) asked me to build and head up a new hybrid cloud practice within the company. ITQ is a dedicated VMware consultancy firm and I admit saying VMware’s cloud strategy has been kind of flakey in the past. So, hybrid cloud was a pretty tough topic to build a practice on.

VMware’s renewed cloud strategy

Thankfully, VMware pivoted just in time and their renewed cloud strategy is resonating extremely well with the market. A major part of that renewed strategy is of course the huge VMware and AWS partnership. This years VMworld showcased how VMware is executing on their cloud strategy. The entire conference was all about hybrid cloud and digital transformation. The VMware Cloud on AWS service went GA, my Twitter timeline shows a lot of AWS content as opposed to a year ago, I see hardcore VMware guys getting AWS certifications, and so on. The momentum is here and what better opportunity to learn more about VMware Cloud on AWS and AWS native services than attending AWS re:invent 2017 in Las Vegas. ITQ founders Francisco Perez (CEO) and Paul Geerlings (CTO) will join me at re:Invent so I guess I’m in good company!

About AWS re:Invent

AWS re:invent venue

AWS re:invent is HUGE. The campus is spread out over six venues and over 30.000 attendees are expected:

AWS re:Invent content

The agenda is pretty daunting. There are over a 1,000 sessions to choose from divided in several tracks. The content overview webinar from last month was recorded and is available at YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIngAvWk0gY&t=101s. It was very informative and contains lots of pratical tips. Highly recommended!

I guess I will be walking (or taking the shuttle bus) quite a bit between Aria, MGM and Venetian because the tracks I’m interested in are all spread across these sites.

AWS Community(?)

I’m pretty curious about the AWS community. I expect to see quite a lot of familiar faces from the VMware community but it would be nice to get in touch with some of the AWS Community Heroes.

AWS Certification

As I wrote earlier on my blog, I am aiming to pursue the AWS Solution Architect certification. Re:invent offers half day exam readiness bootcamps which I will surely try to attend:

• BCP09 – AWS Certification Exam Readiness: Solutions Architect – Associate
  The AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate exam validates technical expertise in designing and deploying scalable, highly available, and fault-tolerant systems on AWS. Join this half-day, intermediate-level bootcamp to learn how to prepare for the exam by exploring the exam’s topic areas and how they map to architecting on AWS and to specific areas to study. The bootcamp reviews sample exam questions in each topic area and teaches you how to interpret the concepts being tested so that you can more easily eliminate incorrect responses. Attendees also receive a voucher for a free online practice exam.
• BCP07 – AWS Certification Exam Readiness: Solutions Architect – Professional
  The AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional exam validates advanced technical skills and experience in designing distributed applications and systems on the AWS platform. Join this full-day, advanced-level bootcamp to learn how to prepare for the exam by exploring the exam’s topic areas and how they map to architecting on AWS and to specific areas to study. The bootcamp reviews sample exam questions in each topic area and teaches you how to interpret the concepts being tested so that you can more easily eliminate incorrect responses. The hands-on labs help you explore advanced use cases that span multiple content domains. Attendees also receive a voucher for a free online practice exam.

If the jetlag isn’t too bad I might even take a shot at the Associate exam.

VMware Cloud on AWS sessions

I guess I got most of the gist of it at VMworld this year but all the VMware Cloud on AWS sessions are surely on my shortlist:

ENT205 – Transform Your Business with VMware Cloud on AWS, an Integrated Hybrid Approach
ENT207 – VMware Cloud on AWS: A World of Unique Integrations Between VMware and AWS
ENT303 – VMware Cloud on AWS Technical Deep Dive
GPSTEC321 – GPS: VMware on AWS Cloud Technical Deep Dive and Native AWS Services Integration

Sessions of interest

I’ve just completed my first run through the content catalog. I will be finetuning in the coming weeks but for now I’ve selected about 40 sessions of interest:

• ENT205 – Transform Your Business with VMware Cloud on AWS, an Integrated Hybrid Approach
• ENT207 – VMware Cloud on AWS: A World of Unique Integrations Between VMware and AWS
• ENT303 – VMware Cloud on AWS Technical Deep Dive
• GPSTEC321 – GPS: VMware on AWS Cloud Technical Deep Dive and Native AWS Services Integration
• BCP07 – AWS Certification Exam Readiness: Solutions Architect – Professional
• BCP10 – AWS Certification Exam Readiness: Solutions Architect – Associate
• ARC206 – Disney’s Magic: A Cloud Transformation Strategy in Play
• CMP211 – Getting Started with Serverless Architectures
• CMP310 – Deep Dive on Amazon Elastic Block Store
• CON201 – Containers on AWS – State of the Union
• CON202 – Getting Started with Docker and Amazon ECS
• CON206 – Docker on AWS
• CON302 – Building a CICD Pipeline for Containers on AWS
• CON404 – Deep Dive into Container Scheduling with Amazon ECS
• DAT202 – Getting Started with Amazon Aurora
• DEM25 – Software-Defined, Globally Consistent Replication for Hybrid Environments
• DEM38 – Accelerate Migration to AWS with Puppet
• DEM47 – Why We Chose AWS over a Data Center
• DEM54 – Know before You Go: Planning a Successful Application Migration to AWS
• DEV301 – Dev Tested, Ops Approved: 10 Guardrails from Atlassian for Better, Faster DevOps
• DEV306 – Embrace DevOps and learn how to Automate Operations
• ENT315 – Landing Zones: Creating a Foundation for Your AWS Migrations
• ENT316 – Keeping Pace With The Cloud: Managing and Optimizing as You Scale
• ENT332 – Getting Started with Serverless Computing Using AWS Lambda
• ENT401 – Successfully Migrating Business-Critical Applications to AWS
• NET201 – Creating Your Virtual Data Center: VPC Fundamentals and Connectivity Options
• NET301 – Extending Data Centers to the Cloud: Connectivity Options and Considerations for Hybrid Environments
• NET304 – Deep Dive into the New Network Load Balancer
• NET306 – Planning Advanced AWS Networking Architectures
• NET403 – Deep Dive: AWS Direct Connect and VPNs
• NET402 – Elastic Load Balancing Deep Dive and Best Practices
• SRV302 – Building CI/CD Pipelines for Serverless Applications
• SRV305 – The State of Serverless Computing
• SRV330 – Serverless DevOps to the Rescue
• STG201 – Storage State of the Union
• STG302 – Best Practices for Amazon S3
• STG303 – Deep Dive on Amazon Glacier
• STG304 – Deep Dive on Data Archiving in Amazon S3 & Amazon Glacier
• TG305 – Deep Dive on Backup to the AWS Cloud
• STG306 – Deep Dive on Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS)
• STG307 – Deep Dive on Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS)
• WIN204 – Simplifying Microsoft Architectures with AWS Services
• WIN306 – Design, Deploy, and Optimize Microsoft SQL Server on AWS
• WIN313 – Ensuring Your Windows Workloads are Well Architected
• WIN403 – AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory Deep Dive

I have been labbing my way around the AWS Free Tier so I tried to find a balance between learning more about stuff I already kind of now and learning new stuff all together. The problem is … there are so many new and exciting areas for me to explore. I guess I’m going to need to focus on two, maybe three areas of interest.

re:Invent Parties

I stumbled across an awesome unofficial list of AWS re:Invent Conference and Vendor Parties at http://reinventparties.com/ (via @re:Invent Parties). The site also contains a nice table with guides to re:Invent. I’m going to go over them soon.

See you there!

That’s it for now. I can’t wait for the event to kick-off next month. just let me know if you are attending re:Invent and want to meet up for a cup of coffee … or a cold beer 😉