AWS re:Invent 2018: The Day 2 Buzz

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AWS re:Invent 2018: The Day 2 Buzz

November 28th, 2018 Julian Wood

8km run

Today started super early with the annual re:Invent Fun Run which this year had two options, 4km like last year and double for fun this year, 8km. Silly me, I opted for 8km. The run starts at The Mirage and heads down behind the casino’s along Frank Sinatra drive, 4km turn around at the Aria and 8km was past Mandalay Bay both ending back at the Mirage. There was a fun and lively warm up beforehand which was needed at 6am! I came 68 out of 664!

It was great fun, even though I planned to push myself, a few late nights somewhat dampened the record time!

vBreakfast with vExperts

Something which a few people are putting together is a gathering of VMware community people who are at re:Invent. Our worlds cross over and it makes sense to connect different communities together.

We had a vExpert #vBreakfast this morning which gave me all the excuse I needed after a run to do some carboloading with that American staple, pancakes!

Get Started with Deep Learning and Computer Vision Using AWS DeepLens – AIM316

Kashif Imran and Jyothi Nookula from AWS

I wanted to attend a workshop on something I don’t normally deal with. This workshop was all about deep learning so we’re into the work of AI! The idea was to learn how to build and deploy computer vision models using the AWS DeepLens deep learning-enabled video camera and build an end-to-end AI application using SageMaker.

I blogged about separately: AWS re:Invent 2018: Get Started with Deep Learning and Computer Vision Using AWS DeepLens – AIM316

Workshop: Alexa, Ask Jarvis to Create a Serverless App for Me – SRV315

Aleksandar Simovic – a software engineer from ScienceExchange
Slobodan Stojanovic – CTO of Cloud Horizon

Another busy workshop, this time for a peek into the future of creating serverless applications.

With hands thoroughly on the keyboard, we used the Serverless Application Repository along with Amazon Alexa, Lex and SageMaker to create our own version of Iron-Man’s “Jarvis”.

Read how it went: AWS re:Invent 2018: Workshop: Alexa, Ask Jarvis to Create a Serverless App for Me – SRV315

The Quad at Aria – Builders Fair + other fun and games

I then spent some time at The Aria hotel which hosts The Quad, a great part of re:Invent separate from the normal vendor show floor. The Quad contains a builders fair with a number of Maker Space style booths showing all sorts of things people are cooking up on the AWS Cloud as well as some other goodies including a mass team building lego machine!

Have a look at the fun that’s on show in my post: AWS re:Invent 2018: The Quad at Aria – Builders Fair + other fun and games

VMware and Community at AWS re:Invent

There is also a big VMware community booth which is running a number of presentations during the week which are being streamed. VMware is also very much trying to show its community aspect and AWS has taken a marked interest in.