Cloud is Getting Boring: That's a Good Thing

by Seth Noble |  Blog |  Nov 25, 2019

In years past, the weeks before re:Invent, Amazon Web Services' annual trade show, would be filled with breathless hype and frantic preparation.  We, our customers, and our partners would be hurriedly writing press releases and planning events.  This year feels different.

There is still a lot of noise.  After all, re:Invent is the cloud convention.  But the number of press releases, their tone, and even the number of people attending are all much more tempered.  There is a growing sense of getting down to work.  Where re:Invent used to be about evangelizing cloud computing and pushing an "all-in" approach, now it feels more like a technical seminar.  The word for an industry shifting from hype to business is maturity.

Cloud computing is still a long way from actually being mature.  AWS' continued dominance of Infrastructure-as-a-Service is proof of that alone.  But the signs of a shift from revolution to evolution are there.  For example, while I still occasionally find myself needing to explain the differences between object storage and file storage, it is as often met by chuckles of commiseration as cries of confusion.  I still see some would-be cloud customers jumping in without considering basic workflow questions like how the data will get into the cloud.  But for the most part, IT vendors and managers now understand how and when cloud works.  It has become a tool, to be used or not as appropriate.

For DEI, trade shows have always been more about talking to customers and solving problems than pushing hype.  The National Association of Broadcasters show is a great example.  Nobody out-hypes the entertainment industry, but television's biggest trade show always has an air of business getting done.  As the cloud industry matures, I expect re:Invent to follow the same path.  Let's get down to business and solve some problems.

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