In a rapidly evolving cloud landscape, keeping up with AWS announcements is essential for tech professionals and businesses. This blog dives into the “what” and “why” of AWS announcements, showcasing the overwhelming growth in updates. It will also guide you through the most efficient strategies to ensure you’re well-equipped for success with AWS’s ever-expanding suite of services. Keep reading for practical insights that will empower you to leverage the full potential of Amazon Web Services.
The 'What'
AWS announcements refer to any announcements from AWS about new services, features, updates, and service retirements.
To put this in perspective, in 2006, when Amazon Web Services was officially launched to the public, there were only 13 announcements. Back then, it was easy to keep track and stay informed.
However, as AWS expanded its services and global data centres, the total number of announcements has skyrocketed. In 2017, for example, there were over 1000 announcements. During 2022, AWS made 2102 announcements and the number has already reached 1853 for the year 2023 as of October 10, 2023. This count will only increase in the future and it has become an impossible task to keep up with all the updates.
Apart from the announcements, there are other communications from AWS like blogs, newsletters, posts on social media platforms like Twitter or LinkedIn and videos from their conferences re:Invent and re:Inforce. Interestingly, the list doesn’t stop there. There are independent blog writers, blogs and case studies from different companies (like the one that you are reading now), and whitepapers from educational and research institutions, etc. The list doesn’t stop here either.
Since we are only human and one cannot keep up to date with all these updates, I would like to get into a bit more detail in this blog post about why it is important to read some of these articles and what’s the best way to do it.
The 'Why'
Using an axe is the traditional way to cut down a tree. Axes work with all tree sizes. However, it could take you all day to cut down an enormous tree with an axe so it’s not recommended. Why? You can do the same job effectively using a chainsaw, a much more efficient and effective heavy-duty cutting tool.
For any task, it’s important to use the right tool for the job. Of course, to do that, you need to know what’s in your toolbox and what each tool can and can’t do. If you are not aware, then surely you will miss out on opportunities and be a less effective builder.
As of today, AWS has 126,000 engineers (as per LinkedIn) tasked with creating and changing your toolbox. And knowing what’s in your toolbox will help you for the following reasons.
- New features/services updates help,
- To solve any existing requirements that otherwise would have required a massive effort to solve
- To solve any new requirements that come up in the future
- To have educated discussions with customers and make informed decisions
- To know the limitations of the new features
- Existing features/service enhancements help,
- To fix the gaps in the existing solution due to the unavailability of the feature
- To solve any new requirements that come up in the future
- To have educated discussions with customers to make informed decisions
- Service retirement updates help,
- To identify the impacts and update the existing solution
- To have educated discussions with customers to make informed decisions
- AWS blog posts and video blogs help,
- To dive deep into the capabilities, and limitations of AWS services
- To understand the “how to use”
- And to deploy an out-of-the-box packaged solution to meet customer needs
- 3rd party blog post, case studies help,
- To understand how others have solved a similar requirement
- To understand how others have solved the same requirement differently
- To get a starting point/reference architecture while designing or building a new solution
- To understand how service has been leveraged differently
- To view the success stories of other customers and companies
- And finally, white papers from educational and research institutes help,
- To understand or deep dive into how and why a service was even created
- To understand or deep dive into how and why a service was even created
AWS and its community are not slowing down on the service updates. So I’ve provided the following tips to help you keep up to date with much less time and effort, helping you be a more effective builder.
The 'How'
With the rapid pace of AWS innovation, it’s hard to keep up without making “keeping up” a near full-time job or more. It’s equivalent to comparing yourself, a single individual, to a community of 126,000 engineers.. Since we are only human, this many-to-one relationship means few things:
- You cannot keep up with everything
- You should not overwhelm yourself by trying to keep up with everything
- Identify the practices or list of services in which you want to excel to filter the announcements
- Choose selected platforms and trusted sources for your updates
- And finally, make the right use of technologies (apps and AI tools)
Below is the collection of all mediums in which I, and few of my colleagues, consume AWS updates.
- Real-time
- AWS RSS feeds [How to subscribe to RSS feeds]
- What’s new with AWS (the source of RSS feeds)
- Daily
- AWS RSS Feeds
- LinkedIn feeds (Eg: Posts from JeffBarr, etc.)
- Organisations internal Tech channels (Like Slack Group or Teams Channel)
- AI Tools
- AWS Podcasts
- Weekly
- AWS RSS Feeds
- AWS Blog
- AWS Video [AWS, AWS Events, AWS Developers]
- Week in Review by AWS
- LinkedIn feeds
- Last week in AWS (3rd party subscription)
- Cloud PageBoard (3rd party subscription)
- Monthly
- AWS User Group (community events that summarise last month’s AWS announcements)
- Yearly
- AWS re:Invent
- AWS re:Inforce
- AWS Summits
- AWS Innovate
- AWSome day
- AWS Ambassador Summit
My preferences are RSS feeds for real-time or daily, and AWS User Group for monthly recap. While AWS blogs and AWS videos are a bit more of a commitment, they offer an opportunity for a deeper exploration into AWS services. Lastly, conferences allow you to know about exciting announcements and immerse yourself in the latest updates. I recommend you choose one or a combination of a few from the list above.
In summary:
- AWS RSS feeds are short and easy to digest.The feeds provide detailed information about a variety of topics that may interest you.
- AWS blogs provide new perspectives about a feature or service, as well as new ways to solve a problem when it’s combined with other services.
- AWS videos provide more in-depth information about what’s under the hood by the members of the service who built the service.
The 'Result'
In conclusion, for one to excel in their area of expertise, they should set expectations on themselves to keep up to date with the constantly releasing new features and services, price reductions, and updates. This results in the ability to:
- Help solve a customer requirement with an up-to-date solution.
- Re-build something faster, cheaper and more securely than before.
- Have an educated pre-sales or architectural conversation with technically sound customers.
- At times, even solve problems that you didn’t know existed.
I hope this blog helps you understand the importance of AWS announcements and helps you stay up to date on the AWS services and capabilities that are important to you and your specific projects.
