Hero guide: Storage
If you’re going to do anything with data in the cloud, it’s good to understand cloud storage and adjacent tooling. This guide highlights some of the must-attend sessions at re:Invent 2024 for professionals interested in learning more about storage.
Dave Stauffacher
AWS Community Hero
For most of my career, I’ve focused on data storage and data protection. AWS re:Invent is the best place to get updates on all things AWS storage and to network with creative and intelligent colleagues.
This guide highlights the sessions that I’m most excited to attend this year. I’ve focused on content that’s only available at the conference, and I’ve skipped highlighting sessions that I can stream online after the event.
The conference can be very overwhelming, especially the first time you attend. I hope this guide helps you streamline your storage session selection process. If you’re a re:Invent alum, I hope this guide highlights sessions you’ll find valuable.
Keynote
*Walk-up only: No reserved seating required
KEY002 | CEO Keynote with Matt Garman
Join AWS CEO Matt Garman to hear how AWS is innovating across every aspect of the world’s leading cloud. He explores how we are reinventing foundational building blocks as well as developing brand new experiences, all to empower customers and partners with what they need to build a better future.
Builders' session
STG317 | Use your own proprietary data to build customized generative AI apps
Learn to use Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) with your own proprietary data and business context stored in Amazon S3 and Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP. With RAG, organizations can deliver more relevant, context-specific, and accurate responses to customers. Gain hands-on experience using AWS serverless services with FSx for ONTAP and Amazon Bedrock to enable automatic scaling, event-driven compute, and API interfaces for generative AI applications on AWS. Come learn about the benefits of enabling Amazon Bedrock for generative AI applications among thousands of large enterprise customers that rely on Amazon S3 for object storage and ONTAP file systems for their corporate data. You must bring your laptop to participate.
STG408-R | Streamlining identity-driven data access at scale with Amazon S3 [REPEAT]
In this builders’ session, explore how Amazon S3 Access Grants enables mapping identities from directories like Microsoft Entra ID and Okta to datasets stored in Amazon S3. Learn how to efficiently manage data permissions at scale, automatically granting the appropriate Amazon S3 access to end users based on their corporate identities. Learn about the key concepts of Amazon S3, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), and AWS IAM Identity Center with trusted identity propagation, and discover how to implement these features to simplify data access control and enhance your organization’s productivity. You must bring your laptop to participate.
STG314-R | Protect AWS resources with AWS Backup [REPEAT]
This builders’ session shows you how to use AWS Backup to help protect your data in AWS and report on data protection compliance. Learn how to deploy backup plans and vaults, assign resources, create on-demand backups, perform cross-Region backup and restore, create immutable backups with AWS Backup Vault Lock, and demonstrate compliance with AWS Backup Audit Manager. You must bring your laptop to participate.
DOP302-R | Creating secure code with Amazon Q Developer [REPEAT]
In this builders’ session, gain hands-on experience using Amazon Q Developer to create secure code. Discover how Amazon Q Developer can detect and explain security vulnerabilities, suggesting remediations that help fix your code instantaneously. Additionally, learn how to use Amazon Q Developer to automate code reviews and unit test generation across your entire code base to help keep your code secure. You must bring your laptop to participate.
Chalk talk
IMP301-R | Your mission and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day [REPEAT]
Even with the best planning, hardware and software can fail, prized employees can leave, and the unexpected can disrupt operations. A disaster is often the time when it’s critical for mission-based workloads (such as credit union banking or fundraising solutions) to be available. How do you deliver on your mission when the unexpected happens? In this chalk talk, learn about ways to minimize workload impacts, including architectural practices, monitoring patterns, and gray failure detection, and discover how to build a culture of continuous resilience. Gain the knowledge necessary to deliver on your mission even when faced with a disaster.
STG307-R | Best practices for operating at scale with Amazon EBS & EBS snapshots [REPEAT]
Many enterprises are running their mission-critical production workloads in multiple AWS Regions using Amazon EBS for block storage and EBS snapshots for data protection. With block storage, operating at scale can mean different things, including delivering high IOPS or I/O bandwidth to applications, managing and monitoring millions of volumes, or protecting petabytes of data with stringent RPO and RTO requirements. In this chalk talk, learn best practices for scaling and managing your EBS environment with cloud-native tools and techniques to help keep costs down while meeting your business needs.
STG306-R | Advanced security patterns on Amazon S3 [REPEAT]
Amazon S3 security settings and access controls are suitable for virtually any workload. In this chalk talk, equip yourself with proven patterns for managing access at scale. Learn how to optimize policy usage, scale beyond AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policy limits, and secure your data lake perimeter.
STG303-R | How to optimize AWS storage for generative AI and ML workloads [REPEAT]
Scaling deep learning programs into production often comes with its challenges, and you can’t have high-quality data modeling if your storage isn’t optimized for performance scalability. Getting this wrong can lead to unexpected cost and performance issues. In this interactive chalk talk, get answers to your questions related to selecting and optimizing storage for AI and ML workloads so you can build better, innovate faster, and deploy at scale.
Code talk
API310 | Build a meeting summarization solution with generative AI & serverless
In this code talk, see live coding of a serverless application for producing meeting summaries with generative AI. Learn how to orchestrate transcription using Amazon Transcribe and summarization with Amazon Bedrock, orchestrated with AWS Step Functions. Discover how to simplify and scale your application using event-driven techniques with Amazon EventBridge. Leave with practical skills for developing serverless generative AI solutions that streamline meeting insights through automated transcription and summarization powered by AI/ML services.
Workshop
STG402 | Build ransomware data recovery and response with AWS Backup
Ransomware and malware continue to disrupt business applications. This expert-level workshop applies AWS Backup locking mechanisms, logically air-gapped vaults, and restore testing to help strengthen cyber recovery posture. Explore configuring air-gapped, immutable vaults and automating recovery point testing to meet objectives. See how you can combine these features to build a comprehensive, recovery-focused data protection strategy that can help withstand evolving cyber threats. Through hands-on exercises, gain practical experience designing, deploying, and maintaining a resilient backup and recovery solution using AWS Backup. You must bring your laptop to participate.
Closing comments
With such a full catalog, planning your time at re:Invent is critical. I hope you find value in my session recommendations. I’m always open to talking about cloud and storage, so if you’re planning to attend re:invent and would like to connect in-person, feel free to reach out on my socials. Safe travels, and I look forward to seeing you in Las Vegas!