AWS re: Invent 2019: Why Outposts, Local Zones and Wavelength change the game for companies

Mark Bowker of ESG responds to keynotes from AWS re: Invent 2019 and emphasizes how Amazon’s interests in on-premises and edge solutions affect corporate computers.

AWS re: Invent 2019: Why Outposts, Local Zones and Wavelength change the game for companies
Mark Bowker of ESG responds to keynotes from AWS re: Invent 2019 and emphasizes how Amazon’s interests in on-premises and edge solutions affect corporate computers.

At AWS re: Invent 2019 in Tech Vegas, James Sanders of TechRepublic spoke with Mark Bowker, senior analyst at ESG, about Outposts, Local Zones and Wavelength. The following is an edited transcript of the interview.

Mark Bowker: With all the announcements coming out, the ones that strike me the most are Outposts, Local Zones and Wavelength. This all has to do with the possibility, if a user cannot get the capabilities in an AWS region, they can bring AWS Services in the data center more locally for an application or a user or take advantage of the 5G network over time as it finds. I think that only the ability to tackle the remaining workloads or new scenarios, with things like 5G, are by far the things that strike me the most.

Participants here had a year to think about outposts and how to apply them to their environment. I think you’ve seen a lot of questions, a lot of curiosity, a lot of interest in outposts, and I think it’s a matter of waiting to see how users are going to deliver outposts – prime. Are they going to take over that investment in hardware so that they can get the benefits of that lower latency connection with on-prem? The advantage of compliance and privacy must be met on location.

SEE: IT guide for the evolution and impact of 5G technology (TechRepublic download)

It is a bit of: “Let’s wait and see how they will design.” I did not necessarily see people standing in line waiting for outposts that prevented them from taking over AWS Services in the past year. It is about how they will design or view new applications that they have not moved or transferred to AWS Services and the potential impact that Buitenposten will have.

I think Outposts is a threat to all on-prem providers, because every AWS service may threaten an on-prem solution. While I move services, while I move applications, since I even migrate things like Windows to a cloud service, it certainly threatens on-site infrastructure. I think that what is not really, fully understood is that existing on-prem infrastructure plays a role. It is really meant to support an application with multiple layers; a specific workload is performed in a data center.

AWS Services are different, so that the infrastructure also looks different. I think there will be a potential threat there, but I think the bigger threat is just general AWS cloud services in general.

Local zones are interesting. If I have a high latency for a region, is there a way to get potential AWS capacity closer to an application or user? That’s really what Local Zones is. They announced it in LA, specifically for media and entertainment. While making video recordings, I may be able to render on the edge before finally sending anything to the region.

I think such industries are becoming interesting. Media and entertainment can be interesting; production can be interesting. I honestly think it only offers more opportunities for these builders to say, “I can take advantage of local zones to have a lower latency to do potential edge-computing, edge-analysis, before I finally do things completely bring to the region. ”

When I look at Wavelength, Wavelength is ultimately about inspiring builders to take advantage of the 5G network and look at the potential opportunities. When I look at “How do I build applications for low latency, high bandwidth, directly to an end user in some of these first 5G implementations?” That is where I think that Wavelength ultimately seeks to inspire.

The collaboration between AWS and Verizon proves that they want people to build on their platform. Let’s take AWS in the vicinity of the 5G network to actually build that kind of next generation applications for that new network. No matter what happens with standards and the evolution of 5G, it goes faster. There will be a lower latency. More bandwidth is becoming available. AWS and Verizon are preparing for that opportunity.

The other that I would emphasize from re: Invent is the organizational focus. There is a lot of focus on the cloud and all technologies, but we have seen time and again that without organizational alignment, without a real drive and message from the top – really at executive level – these technologies take longer to adopt and will even be forced be sideways. I think that everyone at an event like re: Invent should really look at it from a: ‘We need a hero within the organization at management level who can really help stimulate these services and the new innovations that AWS is bringing to market. ”

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