AWS re:Invent re:cap

October 12, 2015 by Justin Nemmers

rePlay

What a week. Some tech conferences I like, and others I love. Falling solidly in my "love" category, the Amazon team pulled off another great event with re:Invent 2015. Of course, the AWS product folks didn’t disappoint, either. (And neither did surprise re:Play party guest Zedd.)

We welcomed many hundreds of visitors to our booth during the three days. Over 200 shirts, many more Ansibulls, and every single sticker, luggage tag, and business card were gobbled up by excited Ansible users and Tower customers.

Perhaps the most entertaining part was to learn what people had to say:

“We heart Ansible.”
“Ansible is the only predictable thing about our environment.”
“DevOps? More like AnsibleOps.”
“You guys changed our lives.”
“I keep getting told I need to look at Ansible.”
“Thank you… just thank you.” (My personal favorite)
 

Certainly all bold statements for an IT orchestration tool. Even Network World joined in on the fun by
naming Ansible one of the hottest products at re:Invent, thanks in part to our new IAM modules that simplify the setup and maintenance of IAM users, groups, keys, and policies.

The sentiments got me thinking. Seemingly, AWS is increasingly putting traditional software vendors squarely in its sights. Whether you’re using a particular vendor’s database, or another’s business analytics, the AWS product team continues to churn out new offerings that seek to further alter the entire enterprise software landscape. It would seem as though Mark Andreesen’s eponymous 2011 quote “Software is eating the world” needs to be amended:

Software may be eating the world, but AWS is eating software.

Given the self-selected audience at re:Invent, it’s not surprising that nearly every conversation I had related to how IT shops wanted to find ways to hasten their migration from traditional old-guard technology. But beyond brownfield migrations, few organizations were asking how to automate the deployment of the traditional stalwarts into AWS. Rather, they were interested in the disruptive and paradigm-shifting capabilities AWS brings to the table.

Ansible is already incredibly capable and well-connected into the AWS ecosystem, offering modules for nearly 20 different AWS capabilities with 50 modules. With the AWS product team’s new announcements this week, you can expect even more functionality from Ansible.

Thanks for stopping by to say hello and share your stories about what you’re automating with Ansible.
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Justin Nemmers

Justin is the former GM, Ansible, Red Hat. He has spent a career helping organizations transform their IT environments by adopting new and making better use of existing technologies. Over his career, he has held both technical, sales, marketing and product leadership roles at a number of organizations, including Red Hat, where he ran a large services team. He resides in Raleigh, NC with his wife and children and tweets from @justnems.


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