Cynerge Experience at AWS re:Invent Conference

A futuristic and power-driven atmosphere of achieving the impossible awaited Team Cynerge at the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas. With palpable excitement, techs greatest minds streamed in and out of conference rooms to the beat of DJs, engaging and connecting over virtual reality, renewable tech, sustainability trends, and open bars. The concert-like euphoria was contagious as we explored the newest solutions AWS has to offer and the implications for our clients; from fully serverless options, kubernetes and container orchestration, and deep glacier data warehousing.

With over 1,500 breakout sessions to choose from featuring keynote speakers, two-hour workshops, self-paced labs, and technical bootcamps on varying topics from cloud architecture, continuous deployment, large-scale migrations, and machine learning; our team spent the week gaining in-demand skills and furthering their expertise in their individual areas of accomplishment.

CTO Mike Laney attended a session of particular note in which he used the Sentinel 2 satellite and the resulting imagery along with AWS sage maker to translate the images into usable geospatial data. Using AWS Sage Maker, AWS Lambdas, serverless integration, Docker containers, and AWS Amplify, attendees were able to build a deforestation tracking dashboard hostable in the cloud in under two hours.

Infrastructure Engineers Jack, Luther, and Suresh challenged themselves in a hands-on workshop in which they competed against other participants in the AWS Migration and Modernization GameDay event. The goal being to migrate a legacy application into a new AWS landing zone using the AWS Application Migration Service to move the application to a new ec2 instance. Team Cynerge used the AWS Database Migration Service to migrate data to a new AWS Relational Database Service (RDS) MySQL instance, then modernized the application by using containers running on Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS). Further points were achieved by optimizing the workload to follow the 5 AWS Well-Architected Pillars.

Luther setup and configured Karpenter to run on a Kubernetes cluster in one of his sessions. The software uses a combination of On-Demand and Spot instances with frequent resource monitoring to scale cluster Nodes both horizontally and vertically. Ensuring that running applications can easily scale to meet unexpected customer demand without needed constant tweaking of the scaling logic. When demand is low, Karpenter utilizes “bin packing” to fill underutilized nodes with running containers and deprovision the extra instances, greatly saving cost over the lifecycle of the application.

Against the backdrop of some stunning architectural marvels, including the Canals in the Venetian and the rollercoaster weaving through the New York, New York Hotel, there was never a lack of things to do in the neon capital of the world. The blinging and singing of the slot machines were alluring to vacationers, though, having a more intimate relationship with code and computers, most of the developers almost exclusively passed them by, focusing instead on the sights, shows, and incredible dining options instead.

The Main Expo featured exhibits on virtual reality, retro gaming, and AWS builder labs, as others used the floor to network, build ties with global companies, and claim their free swag! Wrapping up the conference, was a gigantic celebration called re:Play, in which attendees jived to flashing lights and live music, visited the open bar, and sampled delights by Wolfgang Puck Catering. A giant inflatable slide was set up, along with favorites like dodgeball and button mash, Riot Games brought their own entertainment for guests, including inflatable axes.

Defying all of my expectations of what a tech conference could be, I was delighted at the fun and focus on the hands-on engagement and real-world implications, scenarios, and applications presented to attendees. Far more than just a focus on tech, this was a mind blowing exhibition of the blazing speed and advancement of technology paving way for an inspiring and sustainable future; AWS’s re:Invent was totally worth the hype.