AWS Re:Invent 2023 - Top talks

Late November/early December sees thousands of builders (if you insist on using the AWS term) descend on Las Vegas, Nevada to attend AWS Re:Invent. There are a huge (over 2,000) amount of sessions to take in but there were a few particularly interesting ones I attended that I wanted to cover in this blog.

ARC324 - Demystifying a multi-account strategy

This talk was a chalk-talk (which unfortunately means there isn’t a YouTube link I can share) that did a great job of covering the tools provided by AWS that can be leveraged to form a coherent multi-account strategy. The audience played its part in asking a lot of thought-provoking questions and it was interesting to see where my own employer’s AWS organisation performs quite well against best practise (as well as where it can improve).

OPN305 - The pragmatic serverless Python developer

I’ve been using Powertools for AWS Lambda both professionally and personally for a little while now so when I saw there was a talk from the Chief Architect for Powertools I made sure I could attend. The talk itself wasn’t solely about Powertools but it was a good, almost philosophical talk which made me think about my own serverless code.

PRO304 - NFL Next Gen Stats: Using AIML to transform fan engagement

I’m an NFL fan who’s always been impressed with the Next Gen Stats featured on NFL broadcasts. This was a fascinating talk with speakers from both the AWS and the NFL about how this data is collected and interpreted.

ARC306 - Reducing your area of impact and surviving difficult days

This was a good architectural talk that explored how cell-based architecture and sharding can be used to reduce the impact of failures on wider applications/infrastructure.

TRV202 - How AI is reshaping the travel experience from planning to landing

As a general rule when attending aWS Re:Invent I stick to 300 and 400 level talks but when I had a gap in my calendar I went along to this talk. I was pleasantly surprised with the technical content given it was a 200 level talk and thought the section from Manchester Airport was particularly interesting.

NET326 - Amazon VPC Lattice architecture patterns and best practices

This talk from the Principal PM of EC2 Networking was a great overview of architectural patterns used with the relatively new VPC Lattice service. If you are considering using VPC Lattice this talk is a must-watch.