AWS re:Invent 2014

WordPress is an open-source blogging tool and content management system (CMS) that can power anything from personal blogs to high traffic websites. This session covers best practices for deploying scalable Wordpress-powered websites on AWS. Starting from one-click single-instance installations from the AWS Marketplace, we move on to Wordpress implementation details that help you make the most of AWS elasticity. We provide a blueprint architecture for high availability (Elastic Load Balancing, Auto Scaling, Amazon RDS multi-AZ). You learn how to use Amazon S3 to create a stateless web tier, how to improve performance with Amazon ElastiCache and Amazon CloudFront, how to manage your application lifecycle with AWS Elastic Beanstalk, and more.

Moving your website to AWS can provide you numerous advantages around the ability to grow, increasing physical security, and lowering the costs of running your website. In this session we'll focus on how you can move your existing website to AWS so you can take advantage of these benefits. You'll be hearing the about how BuzzFeed migrated to AWS when Hurricane Sandy impacted their operations. Director of Buzzfeed's Tech Ops, Eugene Ventimiglia, will walk through the timeline of the migration and describe how BuzzFeed was able to continue serving millions of users during hurricane Sandy. We'll discuss how to set up your site in AWS, strategies for managing the transition through deployment tools, load balancing trial deployments, and DNS cutover, as well as configuration settings necessary to ensure that your site will run well.

This session highlights the critical role of real-time visibility in Autodesk's adoption of AWS. Autodesk shares how they use Splunk software to gain insight into applications and services deployed in AWS, achieve centralized visibility across on-premises and cloud systems, and monitor critical security-related user activity in their AWS account.

Autodesk shares how these insights provide the required level of confidence and assurance to migrate significant enterprise workloads to AWS. In this session, Splunk also presents their cloud solutions enabling real-time visibility and monitoring in AWS. This session explains how to accelerate your AWS adoption by delivering centralized and real-time visibility and how to get started with Splunk in AWS at no cost.

Sponsored by Splunk.

On-demand bandwidth, when you need it.

Megaport's fully automated wide area networking platform gives customers the ability to dynamically provision, modify, and tear down circuits on demand via the web, mobile apps, and API. Provisioning happens in real time and customers only pay for the bandwidth they use.

AWS Direct Connect offers customers a dedicated and private way to connect to AWS. The Megaport platform is connected to AWS Direct Connect gateways around the world giving customers the ability to dynamically create AWS Direct Connect circuits to AWS when their business demands it and turn them off again when not required. This presentation discusses how customers are using Megaport to solve business problems and control costs in ways that were not available to them before. We also demonstrate how a customer can set up virtual connections to AWS and any AWS Direct Connect partner in the AWS partner ecosystem in a matter of minutes from a Megaport connected data center.

Sponsored by Megaport.

Given the distributed nature of today's workforce, many IT organizations must support branch offices and remote sites. These multiple sites create islands of infrastructure that are necessary to meet local performance and reliability needs, but are costly to manage and increase the risks associated with distributed data. Consolidation is key to reducing costs and eliminating risks, but how do customers leverage the power of AWS as part of this consolidation? Riverbed SteelFusion is a converged infrastructure solution, encompassing server, projected storage, networking, and WAN optimization. When combined with AWS Storage Gateway, SteelFusion allows customers to connect their on-premises infrastructure to AWS. Session attendees will learn how to leverage WAN Optimization and Projected Storage technologies as part of their IT strategy to consolidate and provide disaster recovery for branch offices and remote sites.

Sponsored by Riverbed.

In this session, Druva's technical founder shares how the company has used AWS to bring scalable and efficient data backup and archival services to market at scale.

Druva has built a scalable storage-as-a-service platform in the cloud, designed to collect, preserve, and help enterprises easily discover information masquerading as ''just some data.'' Druva leveraged Amazon S3 for a large pool of distributed storage for warm copies of data, Amazon Glacier for long-term preservation, and a metadata layer on top of Amazon DynamoDB for high transaction and fast data deduplication. The system is uniquely designed like a file system, so developers can write an application with the same basic assumptions. Druva used the design principles of metadata and data separation and deployed the concept of ''microthreads'' to counter latency challenges. The result is a completely distributed cloud-oriented architecture that is geodistributed, highly available, and able to scale to manage massive volumes of data across multiple customers and geographies. Even if your attention is not particularly on backup solutions, it will be instructive to learn how Druva is taking advantage of these AWS services at massive scale.

This session is targeted at developers and at technical and product leaders interested in ways to use AWS in enterprise environments.

Sponsored by Druva.

AWS and VMware is not an either/or decision. Many enterprises are looking to leverage AWS in addition to their existing VMware virtualized environments. They want to choose the right venue for each application and move applications between VMware and AWS as their business needs dictate.

In this session, you hear how RightScale helps customers successfully implement and manage hybrid environments that span AWS and VMware vSphere.

This session covers:- 5 common use cases for hybrid environments - Why VMware isn't the same as a cloud, and what to do about it- Architectural considerations for hybrid environments- Is portability a possibility or a pipe dream?- A demo of a single-pane-of-glass to manage hybrid environmentsSponsored by RightScale.

In this session, Infosys (an AWS Premier Consulting Partner) discusses how some of their large enterprise customers are leveraging AWS for business-critical workloads. Specific case studies include how a large wealth management firm addressed industry regulations for moving data to the cloud, as well as how customers in the aircraft manufacturing industry and education are achieving operational efficiencies through the cloud.

This discussion also includes the following topics:

- Moving business-critical workloads like SAP and CRM to the cloud

- Understanding and implementing governance across the entire IT ecosystem

- Adapting system architecture and IT practices for efficiency in the cloud

Sponsored by Infosys.

IT must innovate at the speed of market change and many enterprises are realizing that DevOps and cloud computing are a means to this end. Cloud-based DevOps solutions that enforce fine-grain governance policies and automate software releases across the development tool chain can accelerate application time to market while also improving software quality. In this session, attendees learn the following:

- How cloud and DevOps together can significantly accelerate software release cycles, so you can speed business innovation and gain competitive advantage

- Best practices for leveraging CSC Agility Platform, AWS, and a hybrid IT strategy for DevOps

- How to eliminate software release bottlenecks via policy-based automation, orchestration, and governance of application deployment environments.

Sponsored by CSC.

Join Cloudnexa (an AWS Premier Consulting Partner), the Texas Department of Health and Human Services, and Lockheed Martin in a panel discussion to examine cloud readiness for government organizations. Areas of focus include governance, security, and application and team readiness, including the transformation that is required within the IT department itself to transition from a facilities-based to cloud-based support model. Also covered in the discussion are best practices for acquiring and delivering cloud solutions inside a government entity, from contracts to department-level engagement models and satisfying compliance concerns such as HIPAA, and how energy savings performance contracts (ESPCs) are allowing government agencies to achieve data center consolidation objectives.

Sponsored by Cloudnexa.