AWS re:Invent 2017 Key Announcements

AWS re:Invent 2017 Key Announcements

AWS re:Invent 2017 conference

Every year, the AWS re:Invent conference is the place enterprise IT professionals flock to learn the latest and greatest capabilities coming out of Amazon Web Services. This year was certainly no exception. In this post, we’ll look at few of the most noteworthy announcements from the event.

New serverless capabilities

This year, it seemed like everyone at the event was pining for the ability to do more by managing up the stack and not getting bogged down in the details of server management. AWS did not disappoint: AWS Fargate gives users the ability to run serverless containers, while Amazon Aurora Serverless helps organizations support highly variable workloads, paying only for the database resources they actually use.

Bringing AI/machine learning to the masses

AI and machine learning are technologies that look set to take the world by storm. AWS clearly wants to be the company driving them into the mainstream. With Amazon SageMaker, a platform to help make machine learning capabilities available to developers and data scientists everywhere, and DeepLens, a $250 camera with AI capabilities built right in, AWS looks set to bring AI and ML to a whole host of businesses that might never have considered them before now.

The Internet of Things

With the number of connected devices in the world growing exponentially, the biggest challenge most companies face is not deploying new devices, but instead making sure those devices are properly managed and secured after they’re deployed. AWS announced two new services to help with this: AWS IoT Device Management, which helps with onboarding, monitoring and managing devices, and AWS IoT Device Defender, which provides real-time monitoring and alerts to help mitigate security threats quickly.

Amazon GuardDuty

With cybersecurity threats growing more widespread and sophisticated all the time, there’s a seemingly insatiable desire for solutions that can restore peace of mind by making IT security simple. At re:Invent, AWS announced just such a solution, with Amazon GuardDuty. The solution pulls threat data from multiple data streams in real time, and then presents that data to analysts, along with recommendations for remediation. You can also use the solution to build AWS Lambda functions that can be deployed automatically to remediate certain issues.

AR, VR and 3D applications

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are two more examples of technologies that look set to explode over the next couple of years, and AWS is already working to make it easy for businesses everywhere to take advantage of the opportunities they present. With Amazon Sumerian, developers can create and deliver AR, VR and 3D applications for the most popular hardware platforms, without the need for gaming or graphics experience.

Alexa for Business

Alexa isn't just for the home anymore. With Amazon's Alexa for Business, Alexa looks to be a valuable member of any team, acting as an intelligent assistant. Here at Cima, we will be hiring Alexa to be a member of our Managed IT Services team. Cima's integrations will include having Alexa report help desk tickets, integrate with our client's conference room setup, provide knowledge base answers, and much, much more! We will be rolling out our first Alexa offerings at the start of 2018 so stay tuned!

Final thoughts

In this short post, we're barely able to scratch the surface of the announcements made at re:Invent 2017, and we'll likely be unpacking the announcements and what they mean for some time to come. At Cima Solutions Group, we look forward to the opportunity to help you take advantage of everything that AWS and the cloud has to offer. Contact us and let's chat about how some of the AWS re:Invent announcements can benefit your business.


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