re:Invent23 Werner’s Keynote
Picture this — I’m about to walk you through the events as if you had a VIP pass to the inner workings of my mind.
So, the day kicks off with a 6 am wakeup call, aiming to be fully functional by 6:30 am. I know, it sounds like a too much, right?
But here’s the deal — all this effort was dedicated to securing a front-row seat at the upcoming keynote. Last year I was in the behind and i just could see the screen. Lesson learned, my friend. This year was all about redemption. The first row was my Holy Grail.
If the conference room is full, we could only follow the keynote from a replay session in a simultanous way. I really didn’t want to follow the meeting from a replay session, it doesn’t worth it.
And honestly, who wants to be stuck in replay mode? It’s like watching a blockbuster movie on silent — not exactly my idea of a good time.
So, there I was, sacrificing precious sleep to ensure I had a front-row view. Why? Because catching the magic live and in person was non-negotiable — no replay session could ever compare!
At 6:30, with David, my colleague, we find ourselves at the front of the line, super excited to be the first ones. We were so caught up in the moment that we didn’t even take the time to grab a coffee or anything. The wait, in fact, wasn’t as long as we had anticipated. We took the opportunity to chat with one of the AWS hosts, who informed us that there were 5000 attendees in our specific conference room, and globally, there were 60K participants for the event this year.
Around 8:00 we make our grand entrance and take place at the 3rd row and in the middle of this huge room(not the first but ok 😆 ). It is the “American show” with a violon concert. Not so bad to kickstart the day😁. By the way it was genuinely nice. We had this tradition since 2017 before it wasn’t even on the agenda.
At 8h30 sharp the show begins! We have a short movie introduced by Werner Vogels. This year he stayed in the same Matrix vibe. He shares with us his key message via this short and funny movie via his predications!
I kept two things “It’s an exciting time to be a developer” and the Frugal Architect
He shared with us the fact that the cost is an important thing to have in mind when we design architectures. It is so aligned with all the preoccupations we have currently regarding environmental issue that it makes sense!
In this “guide,” we can discover the “laws” for constructing cost-aware, sustainable, and modern architectures. We should regard cost as a “nonfunctional requirement of development.” It’s reassuring because even in the early stages of a project, I consistently inquire with my teams about the cost of new projects — not just in terms of human resources but also the expenses associated with the services we’ll be utilizing. This allows us to estimate that a particular feature will cost us Xk, helping us maintain a focus on time-to-market and efficiency.
According to Werner, architects should closely track costs, exemplifying this with PBS (Public Broadcasting Service). They managed to save 80% in streaming costs through re-architecting. Next, Cat Swetel from Nubank in Brazil took the stage for the first presentation. She emphasized the pivotal role of costs in the successful launch of their 24/7, fee-free instant money transfer program, “Pix.” As Pix gained popularity, they encountered scaling issues, leaving them with two choices: adding more resources or cost-effectively re-architecting their entire stack. I don’t need to spell out which solution they chose. The result? Latency reduced by 92%.
Sustainability is also something we should keep at the top of our minds, according to him. We should be able to estimate our environmental impact.
Then he shared his predictions for 2024: AI & ML, obviously not a big surprise. Check out the upcoming article on AI for more details on that.
At the end, he concluded the presentation by expressing the current excitement surrounding AI and ML, highlighting the ability to accomplish tasks faster and more efficiently, stating, ‘It’s an exciting time to be a developer.’ Throughout the keynote, there were numerous pieces of advice on how to approach development, architecture, and design in IT, aiming to enhance the quality of products delivered to our clients.
