My Top 10 Sessions at re:Invent

I have to admit that when Amazon Web Services (AWS) asked me to post my list of “top 10” sessions being presented at re:Invent this year, it felt a little like someone asked me to pick my favorite colors out of a 16-bit color palette.? Admittedly, I’m probably exaggerating just a tad, but keep in mind there are over 2,000 technical sessions being presented at re:Invent!

After reviewing all, err, many of them, here are the sessions I recommend attending, streaming, or viewing later on YouTube.? Keep in mind that while there are some very compelling builder sessions, these are not typically streamed or posted after the event, so I am restricting my list to breakout sessions and chalk talks.

?? Security

I often see companies prioritizing innovation over security, so I'm constantly looking for ways to increase customer education on AWS security.? Here are two security-focused sessions that I recommend:

? SEC104 | Level 100 | Experience a simulated ransomware event

According to Statista, ransomware affected 71% of businesses worldwide in 2022.? Creating a response plan post compromise is a position no company wants to find themselves in, and this simulated event is based upon real life breach experiences.? If you haven't run tabletop incident response exercise, this should be an extra valuable session for you as you experience a simulated compromise and learn how best to prepare for what is often inevitable.? Use this session to better prepare yourself for what thousands of companies have already experienced.

? SEC215 | Level 200 | Hybrid & multicloud monitoring Monitoring with Amazon Security Lake

Amazon Security Lake, which became GA in May, is a repository of security logs formatted with the Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework (OCSF), a collaborative open-source security schema.? Log content is aggregated, normalized, and optimized from AWS and outside services. AWS services such as Athena, OpenSearch, and SageMaker are utilized to query and analyze the data within your security lake.? Use this session to learn more about this exciting new service and how it can help improve your security forensics and threat detection.

?? Serverless

To truly leverage the advantages of the cloud for application development, you should be embracing either Kubernetes, serverless computing, or a combination of both.? Here are my recommended serverless sessions:

? SVS205 | Level 200 | Getting started Building serverless event-driven applications

If you are new to serverless, this session will take you from concept to a full blown serverless application, leveraging the following AWS services: Amazon API Gateway, AWS Lambda, Amazon EventBridge, AWS Step Functions, Amazon DynamoDB, and AWS Application Composer.?? Attend or view this session to see why so many companies are finding use cases for serverless computing.

? API401 | Level 400 | Advanced serverless workflow patterns and business processes

If you are going to utilize serverless computing, you will need an orchestration layer.? AWS Step Functions let you orchestrate multiple AWS services into serverless workflows so that you can build and update applications quickly and efficiently.? Listen to this session to better understand architectural best practices and repeatable patterns.? Keep in mind this is a Level 400 session, so it's best if you have prior serverless experience.

?? Network

I'm currently studying for the AWS Networking Specialty certificate, so networking is on my mind.? Here is my choice for a networking session:

? NET307 | Level 300 | Ask the experts: Edge compute with Amazon CloudFront

You see a lot of mentions of edge computing in the media, but in my experience many companies are not yet leveraging AWS' abilities to put computing closer to their customers with Amazon CloudFront.? Edge computing use cases discussed during this session include authorization, A/B testing, and SEO-related HTTP redirections.? Use this session to help you identify how your company can benefit from edge computing.

?? AI

I believe (as does just about everyone else on the planet) that AI in all forms will greatly improve our ability to leverage technology to improve business outcomes.? With that in mind, here are the AI-focused sessions I find most compelling:

? SMB301 | Building customer experiences with data, AI, and serverless

Whether your customers are external or internal, you will gain valuable insight into how you can use data, AI, and serverless computing to provide a more human-centric experience for your customers.

? SVS316 | Level 300 |. Building generative AI applications with serverless and Amazon Bedrock

Generative AI is the topic du jour, so what more should I say?? Listen and begin to understand common design patterns and how generative AI can help you remain competitive in this new AI powered world.

? BOA316 | Level 300 | An immersive experience with Amazon Bedrock

Amazon Bedrock is a fully managed service that offers a choice of high-performing foundation?models (FMs) from leading AI companies.?? It provides a broad set of capabilities to build generative AI applications, and it is serverless, so you have no infrastructure to manage.? This Bedrock session provides coding demonstrations on how to build image and text generation applications and a dialogue-based conversational tool with Amazon's CodeWhisperer, an AI coding companion that speeds up the application development process. ?

?? Migration

? COM303 | Level 300 | Automating a 20 TB file server migration

If you are planning a large file server migration, or if you work for an AWS partner that performs file server migrations, you will find this session compelling!? Listen to how Direct Supply moved a 20-terabyte file system to Amazon FSx for Windows File Server with only 2 hours of downtime.?? Yes, the session says only 2 hours of downtime - incredible.? Learning the art of the possible is one thing, but learning from a customer success story is a step above.?? Should be very enlightening.

?? Observability

As the saying goes, you can't improve what you don't measure.? And why measure your AWS environment if you don't visualize and analyze the metrics so that you can respond proactively and add continual improvement?? Here is my pick from a monitoring and observability perspective:

? FSI319 | Level 300 | Stripe: Architecting for observability at massive scale

Here is another session focusing on a customer success story.? Listen to how Stripe used Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus and Managed Grafana to increase their visibility to operational performance, and to provide proactive incident response and continuous improvement.? Highly recommended.

?? Bonus Pick (Operations)

Yes, I said Top 10, but I rounded down.? I've managed IT Operations teams during my career, and this work is pretty undifferentiating.? As a result, I've seen many companies leverage managed services to free up their resources to focus on innovation.? However, if you want to keep your IT operational support teams internal to your company, you owe it to yourself to learn more about leveraging AIOps with native AWS services.

? COP330 | Chalk Talk | Level 300 | Accelerate your operations with AIOps

Amazon CloudWatch and Amazon DevOps Guru can add efficiency to your existing operational tasks and eliminate many human responses and interactions. ?Learn how to increase service quality, classify new incidents and insights, and predict incidents before they happen.

Wrapping Up

So there you have it – my 10+1 recommended sessions to attend, stream or view.? I hope you find value in some or all of these amazing sessions.

If you one of the many that find the AWS session catalog a bit disappointing from a UI and functional perspective, I encourage you to check out Raphael Maenke’s alternative session planner at https://reinvent-23.vercel.app/.? Even if you aren’t attending in person, it’s a great way to find the sessions you want to stream or view after the event ends.

Have other favorite sessions that you are attending or recommending to others?? Let us know in the comments!