AWS re:Invent 2021 Roundup: A G2 Perspective

After almost a year filled with virtual-only events, Amazon Web Services (AWS) hosted the learning conference, AWS re:Invent 2021, from November 29 to December 3, 2021. Several announcements impacting cloud, computing, networking, database, and machine learning were made.

Here’s a quick look at some of the most exciting announcements made during the event, along with what G2’s market research analysts have to say about it.

Analytics

Amazon Redshift Serverless

Amazon Redshift allowed users to analyze structured and semi-structured data across operational databases, data warehouses, and data lakes using SQL. The newly introduced Amazon Redshift Serverless enables users to run analytics at any scale without having to worry about managing data warehouse infrastructure.

Amazon Redshift Serverless automatically allocates the right compute resources to run analytics without the need to set up or manage clusters. It is useful when it’s difficult to predict computing needs.

AWS Data Exchange for APIs

AWS Data Exchange makes it easier to find, subscribe to, and utilize third-party data in the cloud. The recently announced capability, AWS Data Exchange for APIs, makes it easier to find, subscribe to, and use third-party APIs. This capability can significantly simplify the lives of IT administrators and developers who have to secure access to multiple third-party APIs.

IoT

AWS IoT FleetWise

The newly announced AWS IoT FleetWise makes it easier and cost efficient for automakers to collect, transform, and move vehicle data to the cloud in real time. Once the data is stored in the cloud, it can be used to analyze vehicle fleet health, train machine learning models, and diagnose vehicle issues.

Nathan Calabrese, research analyst at G2, supply chain, logistics, finance and accounting, says:

"Fleet management software is so important for any service industry that utilizes vehicles in the field. Customers are more demanding than ever, and it's crucial that service organizations have the proper software platforms to manage and analyze their vehicles and drivers' performance to maintain operations. This software helps to identify automobile problems before they become a fleet-wide issue, as well as reduce costs by creating more efficient driving routes and providing cost management and analysis.”

AWS IoT TwinMaker

AWS IoT TwinMaker is a new service that makes creating and using digital twin software easier and faster. Companies can create digital twins of processes and facilities by connecting data from different sources, including equipment sensors, business applications, and video feeds.

AWS IoT ExpressLink

AWS IoT ExpressLink, the latest addition to the AWS IoT product portfolio, makes it easier and quicker to connect IoT devices to the cloud. It helps companies connect devices to the cloud and access more than 200 IoT AWS services.

AWS IoT RoboRunner

The public preview of AWS IoT RoboRunner was launched during the event. It’s a robotics service that empowers enterprises to create and deploy applications that help fleets of robots work together seamlessly. It also makes it possible to connect robots and work management systems.

Containerization

Karpenter

Karpenter, an open-source, high-performance, and flexible Kubernetes cluster autoscaler built with AWS, was announced as ready for production during the event. It can improve applications’ availability and cluster efficiency.

Preethica Furtado, senior market research analyst at G2, cloud computing and data management, says: 

“Containerization is growing at a rapid pace. For developers, they understand that no matter where their software is deployed, it will always have an environment to run it with the help of containers. With the introduction of Karpenter, developers can now focus on being able to access the right-sized resources to ensure speed, agility, and performance of application deployment.”

Pull through cache repositories support

The newly announced pull through cache repositories support offers better performance, availability, and security of Amazon Elastic Container Registry for container images sourced from public registries.

Machine learning

Amazon SageMaker Canvas

Amazon announced the general availability of Amazon SageMaker Canvas, a no-code machine learning capability that will allow business analysts to build machine learning (ML) models and generate accurate predictions without requiring ML expertise or writing code.

SageMaker Canvas uses the same technology as Amazon SageMaker. It supports several types of problems, including multi-class classification, binary classification, time series forecasting, and numerical regression. Businesses can use this capability for fraud detection, inventory optimization, and churn reduction without writing a single line of code.

Matthew Miller, senior market research analyst at G2, AI, analytics, and automation, says:

“This is in line with trends G2 sees in the AI space. As more and more companies look to deploy AI, they are bound to come across the hurdles of time and resources, as not all businesses can afford robust data science talent. With no-code capabilities, businesses will be able to bring the power of machine learning to their software and services quicker and for less money than using a full-scale data science team.”

Amazon SageMaker Inference Recommender

A brand-new Amazon SageMaker Studio capability called Amazon SageMaker Inference Recommender was announced. It automates load testing and optimizes model performance across ML instances. This capability can decrease the time it takes to get ML models from development to production and make their operation more cost effective.

Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth Plus

A new service in the Amazon SageMaker suite called Ground Truth Plus was announced, which will make it easier to label datasets. This service uses an expert workforce to quickly deliver high-quality training datasets and reduce costs by up to 40%.

Amazon SageMaker Studio Lab

With the motive to make machine learning more accessible, AWS announced the public preview of Amazon SageMaker Studio Lab, a free service that lets users learn and experiment with machine learning without requiring an AWS account or cloud configuration knowledge.

Users can quickly create machine learning, scientific computing, and data analytics projects with notebooks in their browsers. The best part is that it doesn’t require any billing or credit card information during signup, reducing the entry barrier of machine learning.

SageMaker Training Compiler

A new Amazon SageMaker capability called SageMaker Training Compiler was announced. It can accelerate the training of deep learning models by up to 50%.

App development

AWS Amplify Studio

The newly announced AWS Amplify Studio is a visual development environment that offers new features to accelerate user interface (UI) development with minimal coding. Developers can use it to create UI components, set up a backend, and connect the two together.

Secrets Detector

Amazon is introducing a new machine learning-powered feature called Secrets Detector in CodeGuru that helps developers detect secrets in configuration files or source code. This new functionality comes with CodeGuru at no additional cost, and developers can secure the secrets using AWS Secrets Manager.

Adam Crivello, research analyst at G2, development software, says:

“The introduction of more tools like Secrets Detector speaks to a broader security push in software development. Specifically, companies are looking for more solutions that will make development safe and secure by design rather than relying solely on cybersecurity checks. Software tools that help automate security best practices without cutting corners are essential in activating this shift.”

Amazon CloudWatch Evidently

An Amazon CloudWatch capability called Amazon CloudWatch Evidently was announced. It makes feature management and the introduction of experiments in the application code easier for developers.

AWS Backup support for VMware

The new capability, AWS Backup support for VMware, enables companies to automate and centralize data protection of virtual machines running on VMware Cloud on AWS and VMware on-premises.

Cloud Security

New Amazon Inspector

Since 2015, Amazon Inspector has helped organizations of all sizes automate security assessment and management. The new Amazon Inspector autodetects and performs continual assessments of Amazon Elastic Container Registry-based container workloads, even when the underlying resources change.

Amazon VPC Network Access Analyzer

The newly announced Amazon VPC Network Access Analyzer helps identify network configurations that lead to unintentional network access. It can analyze AWS networks of any size and complexity and point out ways to improve security posture.

IT infrastructure

AWS Cloud WAN

AWS Cloud WAN is a managed wide area networking (WAN) service that makes it easier to create, monitor, and manage a global network that connects resources across on-premises and cloud environments.

Aaron Walker, research principal at G2, cybersecurity, says:

“Cloud-based wide area networks are quickly becoming an industry standard for networking when it comes to complex computing environments. AWS Cloud WAN provides a missing link for securely connecting cloud assets and networks. It also beefs up security with micro-segmentation, centralized policy control, and in-depth monitoring features that are ideal for the global enterprise.” 

DynamoDB Standard-IA

The recently announced Amazon DynamoDB Standard-Infrequent Access (DynamoDB Standard-IA) table class can reduce storage costs by 60% when compared to existing DynamoDB Standard tables without compromising performance, scaling, or durability.

Amazon RDS Custom for SQL Server

The general availability of Amazon RDS Custom for SQL Server was announced during the event. It supports applications with dependencies on specific configurations and third-party apps that require customizations in e-commerce, corporate, and content management systems.

Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval

The recently announced Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval storage class offers the lowest cost storage for rarely accessed long-lived data. It’s secure and durable and has retrieval options ranging from minutes to hours.

Offline tape migration

With the offline tape migration capability, companies can migrate up to 80 TB of data on each AWS Snowball Edge device. Tapes can be stored in Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive or Amazon S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval storage classes and accessed from cloud-based and on-premises backup and recovery utilities.

The AWS News Blog provides more information on the top announcements of AWS re:Invent 2021.