My Experience at AWS re:Invent 2022

They say that Las Vegas can pull you in and spit you out in a matter of hours. That might be true if you’re there for the high-risk investments you can find on every street. When it comes to re:Invent, the strip turns into a melting pot of energy and creativity. I was one of the lucky few from Nordcloud to attend this big event.

After years of Covid and its virtual sessions and summits (which, let’s not kid ourselves, people mostly attended in sweatpants), it was time again to dust off my suit and see in person what AWS and its partners and customers have to offer. 

For those of you who have never been to Las Vegas, if you fly in from up north (as I did) you will see nothing but desert for 1.5 hours before you land. In the middle of this dessert, all of a sudden the “shiniest city on Earth” appears. And shiny it is. The shine starts at the airport and peaks as you check in at the hotel (it doesn't really matter which hotel you choose). So the question is: how does a tech conference fit into a city full of sins and why? Well to quote one of the famous leadership principles: “Think Big!”

This year's re:Invent focused on several things, but frequent headlines included sustainability and data. This isn’t surprising given that every year the amount of data consumed and created is steadily increasing. In combination with global climate changes, these topics were major parts of Adam Selipsky’s keynote presentation. 

AWS’s CEO made some big announcements, too: They would be carbon neutral by 2025 and water positive by 2030. He even “challenged all of our partners to do it even better than us” during the partner keynote. Selipsky’s commitment to climate is partly reflected in the announcements of their new services. 

It was an extraordinary experience, but my personal highlight was the partner keynote by Ruba Borno. Representing a service integrator myself, I am always keen on screening competition and their customer solutions. Little did I know that IBM had received the Partner of the Year award in LATAM which came along with a great success story about Brazil's financial institution inter. 

This years’ re:Invent had a lot of interesting talks and breakout sessions that focused mainly on the main theme of the conference. You got a similar feeling and energy as in previous re:Invents, but it looked like COVID had also impacted the conference and its spirit. It will probably take one or two years to see the full numbers and spirit of pre-covid events again. 

To wrap things up, AWS re:Play hosted a huge party on the Las Vegas event ground which was filled with music acts, free food, free booze and a playground for geeks. Despite the cold (re:play was mainly outside and the temperatures were around 0C/32F) it was an awesome wrap up for a conference that had some room for improvement.