CategoriesConference

Gratitude. A look back at re:Invent

Gratitude. That’s the simple yet powerful word that comes to mind when I look back on re:Invent 2023. This article is an expression of my gratitude to those who made not only re:Invent something more for me this year, but have jolted my career in a way I didn’t know was possible.

This year started with a blast to my system. My father, who was my best friend in life passed away after a long bout with cancer. I was there for his last month and spent time with him while he was with us. I can’t say I enjoyed the time, but we took the time together talking, sharing and trying in general to do whatever I could to make things easier for him. Growing up watching my father run his own Geology Consulting Practice gives me a unique perspective now as a father. His schedule allowed plenty of flexibility to attend my golf matches, soccer games and occasional theatre productions which left a lasting impression on me. Those 20 or so days of my life have reshaped my trajectory forever.

CategoriesServerless

API Gateway, Lambda, DynamoDB and Rust

It’s been a few weeks since I last wrote an article on using Rust with AWS. In the span of then and now, AWS officially released their Rust SDK for interacting with many of their services. If there was a barrier before this in my mind about using something in production that wasn’t generally available, that barrier is now gone. I also made a public commitment to building more examples in Rust in 2024 and while I’m a few weeks early, I just can’t contain my enthusiasm for learning this language that feels nothing like anything I’ve worked with before. Let’s take a look at building an API with API Gateway, Lambda, DynamoDB and Rust.

CategoriesConference

AWS re:Invent Day 4

Day 4 of AWS re:Invent 2023 has come to a close and it was just as epic as the other nights. The day itself was a little slower due to my Day 3 evening ending fairly late, but there’s still a good bit to share. If you are looking for a full recap, I’m going to do one soon to sort of close the loop on my 2023 AWS re:Invent experience.

Let’s dig into Day 4 of AWS re:Invent 2023.

CategoriesConference

AWS re:Invent Day 3

So this one is rough in the best of ways possible. It’s currently 2 AM Las Vegas time and I’ve been up since 7 AM the previous day. Back to what I said a few days ago, re:Invent is a marathon and not a sprint. At this point in the week, it feels like mile 18. I am tired but in the best of ways. The only thing I have to do is finish this race strong and to the best of my ability. Day 3 was better than day 2 and I’m excited to share with you how it went.

Let’s dig into Day 3 of AWS re:Invent 2023.

CategoriesData

Amazon Q meets Taylor Swift

Amid everything going on, I stayed up after Day 2 of re:Invent to get my hands on the new Amazon S Q Digital Assistant. For more on the release here is the announcement. While sitting in the Adam Selipsky Keynote yesterday, a use case instantly popped into my head. The below example has no CDK or SAM but is purely a simple walkthrough of the functionality. Let me tell you about a time that Amazon Q met Taylor Swift.