AWS re:Invent summary: Queues, queues …. queues everywhere

On Monday, November 27nd, AWS re:Invent 2017 kicked of in Las Vegas. If I had to summarize the day in a single word, it would have to be “queue“.  Twitter exploded yesterday with people complaining about the enormous queues at re:Invent. It was pretty crazy. There were queues for every session, queues for the shuttle service between venues, queues to get into the Partner Welcome Reception … queues everywhere.

I knew re:Invent was going to be a BIG event but it seems AWS bit off more than it can chew. People were getting really frustrated with all the queues. Don’t forget: the tickets, flights and the stay in Las vegas is not cheap so people are forking out a hefty sum of money to get to the biggest IT event of the year. They do not want to stand in a queue for an hour just to get turned down. I even heard a couple of people getting turned down while they actually had a reserved seat. Apparently, AWS overbooks reserved seats. That’s pretty harsh if you ask me. Twitter was exploding and people were clearly getting very annoyed:

My firs AWS re:Invent session

The first session I was actually admitted to was “ENT210: How to get from zero to hundreds o AWS-Certified Engineers” by Jonathan Allen. This was a very informative session on how he created a large scale certified AWS engineering team at Capital One using a twelve step approach. It covered everything from team sizes to mitigating resistance within the organization:

Yes, a very good session. If you want to know more about his approach, take a look at his blogpost at Medium.com.

Bring the VMware Cloud on AWS goodness

My second session of the day was technical deepdive on how to integrate VMware Cloud on AWS with native AWS services by Wen Yu and Ben Meadowcroft. The room was packed with over 500 people. This was a great session about the different use cases with VMware Cloud on AWS. There will be a new DR add-on to the service soon relying on vSphere Replication and Site Recovery Manager. These trusted VMware technologies allow customers to create a very cost effective and efficient DR solution. Ben explained they are also exploring stretched vSAN clusters across AWS Availability Zones to create a more resilient solution.

(no) Partner Welcome Reception

The first day ended with a partner welcome reception in MGM’s Hakasan night club. When we walked into the MGM casino … there was an insane queue.

We decided to skip the reception and go for a steak at New York New York’s Gallaghers Steakhouse 😉

All in all, it was a pretty good day and I’m looking forward to the keynote session on Tuesday!