AWS re:Invent
 

Anyone else from here heading to Vegas next week for the conference? Last number I heard was 47k attendees. I haven't been back to Vegas in several years, so really looking forward to it!

I attended last year but others in the company got the slots this year. I had a great, great time, both from learning a lot and just fun times. It's exhausting, but definitely go to as many events as you can and take it all in!

I'm not attending this year, but, depending on the direction my project takes, I may be attending next year.

I went three years ago, and it was a madhouse. That was with 10k attendees, but everything at the Venetian. Now there are 5 different venues up and down the Strip.

Met up last night with bhlloy! It was great getting to meet another FOFCer in person.

I also participated in a world record setting Wing Challenge last night that was part of the conference. We set the Guinness record for most number of participants. I ended up in 2nd place overall with 56 wings!

Yes I totally thought this thread was about the next season of American Horror Story

AWS?

Likewise - had no idea I was going to meet a conference celebrity but it was awesome to meet up.

AWS is Amazon Web Services - massive public cloud conference. Over 10k people across 5 Vegas hotels.

Ended up that the official attendance was 43k! And Jeff Bezos is marginally aware of my existence.

https://twitter.com/jeffbezos/status/936360685788733440

It is getting to be that time of year again. Are there any other FOFCers heading to AWS this year? As a reward for finishing 2nd in the chicken wing eating contest last year, Amazon is covering my costs for attending!

More importantly, have you been training to take the crown this year?

They are trying to once again break the record for most participants that they set last year. To help do so, they've moved the contest to the opening night event of the conference. The only thing my boss put on my performance plan for this year was "win the chicken wing eating contest" :D

Not going to make it this year, one of the downsides of moving to a company with over 500 AWS specialists...

Forgot to report back from the conference. We set another Guinness world record for number of participants in a chicken wing eating contest. There were 415 participants this year. And, just like last year, I finished in 2nd place. I got to speak with Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon Web Services, before and after the contest. I told him that I was finishing in 2nd place so often I was afraid they'd start calling me Microsoft Azure.

:lol:

I'm a Salesforce guy, but some of my co-workers went to this thing. I'll have to ask about the wing contest.

The conference is getting ginormous. 54,000 attendees this year. The closing party was played by Skrillex.

Quick AWS questions for those of you in the know...

My company is not currently using AWS. I am somewhat concerned that my skills are aging as we use a lot of proprietary platforms or older technologies. Is there any value in me obtaining an AWS certification, or will companies not really care about that since I haven't used it professionally?

If there is value, which one should I aim for?

Really depends on what kind of role you have I would say. The associate ones are probably obtainable and valuable without any practical experience, it's very hard (but not impossible) to get the professional level certs without the experience but then you're not going to be able to sit those without going through the associate level exam anyway, so it's a bit of a moot point.

I got the associate Solutions Architect with my only real AWS experience being in RDS (and some very high level intro CloudFormation and general VPC/Networking work) at the time, so that's definitely something you can do with 1-2 months of study. I'd highly recommend it as a gateway into the AWS world, unless you're more Operations or Developer focused in which case I'd look at those first.

As for whether companies would hire you with just a certification for an AWS focused role, I'm skeptical although there still aren't a ton of people out there with years of AWS experience or roles that are 100% AWS focused so I think a certification shows you are serious that is an area you are interested in and have taken steps to pursue and compliments your other experience. The AWS and public cloud route has been an incredible thing for my career and I really couldn't recommend trying to get in on it now enough. You certainly haven't missed the boat yet.

Any value in the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner cert? Description online:

This is the foundational exam that covers the core principles of the AWS cloud platform. It exam addresses the essential services, features, and use cases of AWS. You’ll need to answer questions about AWS’ security and compliance model, and you’ll also need to demonstrate a working knowledge of how billing, support, and pricing works. You can probably also expect questions about deploying resources and services in the AWS cloud.

Would probably need some more details about your current role and what you're looking for (feel free to PM me if you aren't comfortable posting) - it's pretty basic to be honest and most people I know working full time with AWS have skipped it, but of course every situation is different and if you are coming from a position where you just want to get an intro to AWS then it can definitely be worthwhile.

I'll be in Boston June 24th-27th for the inaugural AWS re:Inforce cloud security conference. Anyone else from the board going to be there?

It is coming up on that time of year again. The AWS re:invent conference is once again in Vegas, Dec. 1st-6th. Supposed to be in excess of 60k attendees this year. Going to see if I can finally break through and win the wing eating contest after 2 straight years of second place finishes.