Last week was a whirlwind for the Persistent team at re:Invent. Over an extraordinary four days, we listened to AWS leaders and technologists as they outlined their vision of the future, and we heard entrepreneurs and cloud customers recount their real-world successes. The team interacted with almost 2,000 visitors to our booth, and before the week wrapped up, I was invited to speak with TheCube host, John Walls.

As always, there has already been an abundance of ink spilled over re:Invent – from real-time product announcements to obligatory recaps. All of this is important, of course, and for me, something familiar, having spent nearly seven years at AWS before joining Persistent Systems five months ago. However, as the team debriefed after catching up with old friends and familiar faces, we identified a few interesting macro themes that underscored this year’s event.

In his Monday night opening keynote, Peter Desantis, SVP of AWS Utility Computing reminded us that “Great performance is the result of innovation from the ground up and investing over time.” The technical depth of Peter’s keynote is a perfect reminder of the focus AWS has on solving deep engineering problems behind the scenes so that we can build and scale faster, and that AWS refuses to compromise in the tug-of-war between low-cost, high-performance, and security. In his keynote, Adam Selipsky, CEO of AWS, on the other hand, theatrically illustrated how AWS brings agility and flexibility to organizations and how these two attributes are needed for survival. He then introduced new products and services aimed at redefining how we access, use, and manage the ever-increasing volumes of data that fuel innovation in every industry.

My favorite keynote speaker was Werner Vogels, CTO and VP of AWS. It kicks off with him in the Matrix realizing that life in a synchronous world sucks. In true Werner style, he emerged onto the stage in a cool Lambda t-shirt and spoke about the benefits of building loosely coupled, asynchronous systems and how event-driven architecture facilitates global scale. He then explained how the cloud is helping customers to develop immersive experiences by leveraging 3D and how simulation is enabling customers to experiment and innovate in new ways.

Each year at re:Invent, we reimagine the way we think about cloud, discovering new ways it can help us transform our lives and enable greater innovation for humanity. Using this lens, I’d like to share a few of our top learnings from AWS re:Invent 2022.

  1. Data is the lifeblood of innovation: This year, there was a noticeable focus on making it easier for companies to unlock the full potential of their data. A favorite product launch was Amazon DataZone, a data management service that helps discover, catalog, share, and govern data across an organization. In his keynote, Adam said that DataZone enables you to “set data free throughout the organization safely by making it easy for data engineers, data scientists, product managers, analysts and other business users to discover, use and collaborate around that data to drive insights for your businesses.”
  2. The emergence of purpose-driven solutions and services: In this area, we loved Amazon Omics, a purpose-built service for storing, querying, and analyzing genomic and other “omics” data to build the next generation of healthcare solutions that can help organizations across the world improve patient care and treatment.
  3. The future is about partnerships: At this year’s re:Invent we saw that customers across various industries are redesigning their business functions using purpose-built solutions with the mindset of transformation and innovation through services. AWS will be leaning on its Partner ecosystem to optimize the delivery and management of AWS services.

And that’s where Persistent fits in. Persistent Systems is an AWS Advanced Partner, specializing in building customized solutions in cooperation with an extensive partner ecosystem. We have successfully delivered solutions on the AWS cloud across industries, including Software and Hi-Tech, Banking, Financial Services and Insurance, Healthcare and Life Sciences, Telecom and Media, and Industrial and Manufacturing, to name a few. Some of our areas of proven expertise include Modernization and Migration services, Enterprise Integration and Data Analytics, and Software Product Engineering and Intelligent Automation.

As an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner since 2012, Persistent combines domain knowledge and technology expertise with a high-touch, business-first approach to help you accelerate your cloud transformation.

Together with AWS, Persistent continues to deliver innovative cloud services – enabling fast, flexible, and scalable access to the AWS cloud, tailored to customers’ unique needs.

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