I have been following the progress of AWS BuilderCards for several years. Players of all skill levels use the cards to learn about AWS in a fun and engaging way, competing (in a friendly fashion) to combine their cards to form architectures, gaining knowledge and scoring points as they play: To date, more than 15,000 sets of BuilderCards have been printed and put to use over the course of three re:Invents, fifteen AWS Summits, and multiple community events. For example, here is a group of AWS enthusiasts having a good time in Tokyo during JAWS Days 2024: Feedback from players has been incredibly positive, with a 4.8 star customer satisfaction score (CSAT) across more than 1500 replies. Second Edition Now…
Tag: Jeff Barr
AWS named as a Leader in the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
The 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for DaaS (Desktop as a Service) positions AWS as a Leader for the first time. Last year we were recognized as a Challenger. We believe this is a result of our commitment to meet a wide range of customer needs by delivering a diverse portfolio of virtual desktop services with license portability (including Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise), our geographic strategy, and operational capabilities focused on cost optimization and automation. Also, our focus on easy-to-use interfaces for managing each aspect of our virtual desktop services means that our customers rarely need to make use of third-party tools. You can access the complete 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Desktop as a Service (DaaS) to learn more.…
Now available: Graviton4-powered memory-optimized Amazon EC2 X8g instances
Graviton-4-powered, memory-optimized X8g instances are now available in ten virtual sizes and two bare metal sizes, with up to 3 TiB of DDR5 memory and up to 192 vCPUs. The X8g instances are our most energy efficient to date, with the best price performance and scale-up capability of any comparable EC2 Graviton instance to date. With a 16 to 1 ratio of memory to vCPU, these instances are designed for Electronic Design Automation, in-memory databases & caches, relational databases, real-time analytics, and memory-constrained microservices. The instances fully encrypt all high-speed physical hardware interfaces and also include additional AWS Nitro System and Graviton4 security features. Over 50K AWS customers already make use of the existing roster of over 150 Graviton-powered instances.…
AWS and Multicloud: Existing capabilities & continued enhancements
When I speak to large-scale AWS customers about their challenges and concerns, the conversation often turns to the topic of multicloud. Whether by intent or by accident, these customers sometimes choose to make use of services from more than one cloud provider, sometimes in conjunction with applications or services that are still hosted on-premises. In some cases they made early, bottom-up choices at the team and division level, choosing cloud offerings from multiple vendors in the absence of a top-down mandate. In others, they acquired or merged with another organization and discovered a similar multi-vendor situation. Regardless of the path, these customers tell me that they want to simplify and centralize their oversight and management of this diverse portfolio of…