AWS re: Invent 2024 brought together over 58,000 attendees in Las Vegas to explore the latest advancements shaping cloud computing. With keynotes, technical sessions, and an expansive expo, the event underscored the evolving challenges and opportunities facing today’s IT leaders.
This year, AWS’s announcements focused on making innovation more accessible, from advancements in AI to improved security capabilities and infrastructure optimization. Here’s a closer look at the key takeaways and how they can translate into meaningful strategies for your IT environment.
AWS re: Invent keynote highlights
The 5-day event included keynote presentations from Matt Garman, CEO of AWS; Swami Sivasubramanian, AWS Vice President of Data and AI; Ruba Borno, Vice President of Global Specialists and Partners of AWS, and Dr. Werner Vogels, Vice President and CTO of AWS. Below are summary highlights from each keynote and some of the event’s key topics and takeaways.
Matt Garman, CEO of AWS
Matt Garman set the tone for re: Invent 2024 with an exciting overview of AWS’s vision for the future of cloud computing. He highlighted cost and performance as central themes during his opening keynote. Announcements like Graviton 4 processors and Trn2 instances demonstrated AWS’s focus on delivering greater efficiency without compromising capability.
Graviton 4 offers enhanced energy efficiency and cost savings for general-purpose workloads, making it an attractive option for organizations aiming to optimize their cloud spend. Meanwhile, Trn2 instances, designed for AI model training, deliver faster processing speeds and higher memory capacity, making them ideal for resource-intensive applications.
However, transitioning workloads to newer infrastructure requires careful evaluation. For example, a retail organization moving its recommendation engine to Trn2 might face challenges modeling potential gains without internal benchmarking tools. Teams must assess workload characteristics—such as compute intensity, memory requirements, and application performance metrics—before committing to an upgrade.
Takeaway: Graviton 4 and Trn2 instances offer significant performance and cost benefits, but teams must carefully evaluate workload compatibility and benchmarking data before migrating.
Read our article: How Hybrid Cloud is Fueling the Rise of AI.
Dr. Swami Sivasubramanian, AWS VP of AI and Data
During his keynote, Dr. Swami Sivasubramanian, AWS Vice President of Data and AI, discussed the transformative power of AI and data. He introduced new advancements in AWS’s data and AI offerings, emphasizing that cloud-powered AI is no longer a distant future but an accessible and impactful reality today. He detailed how Amazon Bedrock and Gen AI tools enable businesses to build customized AI solutions easily.
He introduced Amazon Nova—a suite of foundational models designed for customization. These models offer businesses the ability to address industry-specific challenges, such as optimizing retail supply chains or improving diagnostic accuracy in healthcare. By eliminating the need to build AI systems from scratch, Nova makes these capabilities more accessible to organizations of all sizes.
However, implementing AI solutions like Nova is rarely straightforward. Engineering teams often encounter obstacles such as fragmented data systems, inconsistent data quality, or regulatory constraints that slow deployment. For example, a healthcare provider might face challenges integrating AI-driven diagnostics into legacy electronic health record (EHR) systems while ensuring compliance with privacy regulations like HIPAA.
Takeaway: Use Amazon Nova to accelerate AI adoption but prioritize aligning data pipelines and compliance workflows to maximize its potential.
Dr. Ruba Borno, VP of Global Specialists and Partners
In her keynote, Dr. Ruba Borno, AWS Vice President of Global Specialists and Partners, emphasized the importance of security and compliance in today’s cloud-first world. Announcements like the AI Security Specialization and Amazon Security Lake integrations highlight AWS’s commitment to addressing the challenges of protecting critical workloads in increasingly complex environments.
These tools cater to growing demands for centralized threat detection and compliance management. For example, Security Lake’s ability to aggregate and normalize data from multiple sources provides a powerful framework for organizations that struggle with fragmented security visibility. Yet, implementing such tools requires thoughtful design, particularly in hybrid or multi-cloud environments where policies and configurations often vary.
Other announcements in her keynote included a preview of Partner Connections, a unified co-sell experience that simplifies deal structures across multiple partners on a single customer project, as well as enhancements to the Migration Acceleration Program (MAP), including the removal of earnings caps on modernization deals.
Takeaway: Security tools like Amazon Security Lake simplify centralized monitoring, but successful adoption hinges on unified baselines and continuous compliance monitoring.
Dr. Werner Vogels, Vice President and CTO of AWS
Dr. Vogels, known for his technical insight, highlighted the scalability and innovation that AWS enables for companies in every sector. He emphasized AWS’s continued evolution in helping businesses create resilient and secure architectures, especially as AI and machine learning models become central to operational strategies.
Vogels also explored how AWS’s new Graviton 4 processors and Trn2 instances are redefining performance and efficiency, making AI and machine learning workloads not only faster but more cost-effective. His keynote also reinforced AWS’s role in driving sustainable computing practices, positioning AWS as a key player in the shift to more energy-efficient, cloud-native solutions.
Hot topics – security, AI, and VMware migration
Security was a leading topic of this year’s event, underscored by nearly each of the keynote presenters. As businesses move critical workloads to the cloud, particularly in regulated industries like healthcare and finance, security and model safety are of utmost importance.
For organizations looking to scale up their AI capabilities, AWS introduced Trn2 instances—its latest servers optimized for AI model training. These servers provide 4x faster processing speeds, higher memory bandwidth, and increased memory capacity compared to previous generations. This makes them ideal for training large, complex models more efficiently. For industries such as healthcare, where advanced machine learning models are becoming essential for tasks like personalized medicine and patient care optimization, the new Trn2 instances will drive significant performance improvements in AI and data science workloads.
VMware was a consistent topic across services with several sessions mentioning tools to help business leaders with VMware to AWS migrations. AWS introduced features in Amazon Q Developer to simplify VMware-to-AWS migrations. By automating key processes and offering integration-ready solutions, AWS makes it easier for businesses to adopt hybrid cloud strategies without disrupting existing operations. Amazon is releasing an impressive suite of services around migration support for current VMware customers looking to move into the public cloud.
Insights from the Expo: IBM i on AWS and More
The expo floor at AWS re: Invent is always a dynamic space where ideas meet implementation. This year, the Lightedge team engaged with attendees grappling with complex infrastructure challenges, particularly those operating legacy workloads on IBM Power Systems.
A central theme in our conversations was how organizations running IBM i or AIX can modernize these workloads without losing the stability and reliability they depend on. For many, these systems are the backbone of mission-critical operations, making an abrupt migration to the cloud impractical. Instead, the integration of IBM Power Systems with AWS offers a hybrid approach that bridges on-premises systems with AWS’s scalable cloud capabilities.
One of the key use cases we discussed was the seamless extension of IBM i workloads into AWS for disaster recovery and scalability. By keeping critical workloads on familiar IBM Power Systems hardware while leveraging AWS, organizations can modernize incrementally and reduce risks. This hybrid model allows businesses to maintain high availability and compliance while introducing flexibility for innovation.
“Some of the announcements around VMware migration and the Elastic VMware were interesting to us as a partner that focuses more on migration work and MAP funding. We’re excited to see how we can leverage those tools better in the future,” said Aileen Curtin, Sr. Manager of Cloud Managed Services.
Takeaway: Modernizing IBM i workloads with AWS enables incremental transformation, balancing operational stability with scalability and innovation.
Charting the Path Forward with Lightedge
AWS re: Invent 2024 showcased the immense potential of cloud innovation, but the real challenge lies in turning those announcements into actionable strategies. For organizations running complex infrastructures, the path forward is rarely one-size-fits-all. It requires thoughtful planning, precise execution, and expertise to navigate the nuances of legacy systems, compliance, and emerging technologies like AI.
Whether you’re exploring how to extend IBM i workloads into AWS, adopt the latest security tools, or optimize costs with Graviton 4 processors, Lightedge brings the experience and insights needed to make these goals a reality.
Tell us about your AWS goals and let’s start a conversation about what’s next for your IT strategy. Connect with one of our AWS experts to explore how tailored solutions can help you modernize, secure, and optimize your infrastructure for the future.
