On April 11, 2024, one of the most anticipated conferences in the world of cloud technologies took place in Poland – AWS Community Day 2024. This year’s event attracted not only experienced AWS specialists, but also those who are just starting their adventure with the cloud. The conference not only offered the latest insights into AWS development, but also served as an excellent platform for exchanging experiences, networking with like-minded individuals, and drawing inspiration from a wide array of lecture topics, spanning from fundamental to advanced issues.
Sessions
During AWS Community Day, sessions were presented at various levels of advancement, which allowed participants to choose topics appropriate to their needs. We also had the opportunity to participate in one of 4 paths. There were 4 different talks taking place at the same time and it was often difficult to choose just one.
For example, I chose Irine Kokilashvili who presented “How to 101: Decommission 5+ year old legacy apps“. Irine talked about the challenges she encountered when some of these applications stopped being developed or were abandoned and the original developers and administrators of the infrastructure were no longer part of the project. Additionally, the lack of documentation from the client made understanding the purpose of the infrastructure and applications extremely difficult, if not impossible.
The next session, led by Krzysztof Kąkol, was titled “Amazon Bedrock in action” and was addressed to people at the basic level (100). I consider this a great plus. Thanks to this, participants who are just starting with AI, like me, had the opportunity to explore the capabilities of Amazon Bedrock, an AWS service designed to use Generative AI.
Daniel Aniszkiewicz and Wojtek Gawroński in their presentation “Build verifiable and effective application authorization in 30 minutes“, focused on building verifiable and effective application authorization in just 30 minutes. Authorization is one of the fundamental elements of building applications and services, and ensuring that access to application resources is correctly and reliably granted or denied is crucial. During the presentation, participants learned how to add these capabilities to a web application using Cedar and Amazon Verified Permissions, including ABAC and RBAC examples.
The “Billing Horror” presentation led by Anna Aitchison touched on issues related to the costs of using AWS services. Presenting numerous examples of historical ‘nightmare bills’, Anna asked questions about why such situations occurred, what can be learned from them, and how one can prevent one’s own ‘AWS nightmare history’. This exceptionally practical presentation was intended to make participants aware of how important it is to consciously manage costs in the cloud and how to avoid unpleasant surprises related to invoicing.
During the AWS Community Day 2024 conference, there was also a presentation at a more advanced level (300) led by Tomasz Dudek and Kacper Włodarczyk “Generative AI and Retrieval Augmented Generation – hello world and what’s next?“. This presentation focused on analyzing a popular approach called Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) and discussed common challenges that arise when implementing this approach, along with possible solutions. The presentation discussed methods such as reranking, small-to-big-retrieval and rephrasing queries, which allow to effectively improve the quality of generated responses. Additionally, it was presented how the promptfoo or ragas frameworks can help assess the quality of results in a systematic and effective way.
Some talks focused on specific technical topics, such as “Build verifiable and effective application authorization in 30 minutes” by Daniel Aniszkiewicz and Wojtek Gawroński, while others, such as “Maximizing Business Impact through AWS Well-Architected Review” by Wojciech Holysz, focused on on cost optimization and the business impact of AWS solutions.
Unfortunately, not all sessions were marked correctly. In my opinion, the speakers unnecessarily overstated the level of their session. For example, I attended a session that should have been at an intermediate level, but it only talked about the basics of serverless in general terms. However, from what I heard, these were only a few cases. I know that sometimes it is difficult to estimate the level because something may seem simple to one person and difficult to another.
AWS Community
Of course, the AWS Community stand could not be missing at the conference. Anyone could go there and talk. You could meet me there at the very beginning of the conference from 9:30 to 10:00, but not only then, because I was also there during the breaks. It was a great surprise for me that many people recognized me as the person running the YouTube channel. It was very surprising for me. Very nice, of course, but surprising. And instead of talking about AWS, I talked more often about personal branding. People have asked me about my blog and YouTube channel, how to get started and so on. Of course, I was happy to answer questions and give advice, but I always said that I did it this way and it’s ok for me, but I don’t know if it will work for you too. I only relied on my experience, because of course I don’t know everything and I’m still learning.
There was also a map of Poland with NFC tokens on the table. If you held your phone close to one of them, you received a link redirecting you to the AWS Community in that region. A very cool idea and from what I noticed, people often used this option.
Of course, you could get cool stickers in many places. My collection has also grown significantly this year. 😉
Networking
It is worth noting that the conference was an opportunity not only to acquire knowledge, but also to establish professional contacts and exchange experiences. The atmosphere of openness and willingness to share knowledge meant that participants could fully benefit from this unique event. People were happy to share their knowledge. You could learn something not only during the lectures, but also during the break by simply talking to people. And as I mentioned earlier, you could always approach the AWS community booth and ask questions about AWS, but not only that. Everyone was happy to share their experience.
At the conference you could also meet the organizers or people working at AWS and talk to them on various topics.
Swags
Conference participants also received a bag full of gifts, such as a T-shirt, socks, a neck buff, USB adapters, a screen cleaner, etc. In addition, by visiting the stands of various companies, they could win additional items such as power banks, cups, bottles, etc.
I also participated in the AWS knowledge competition, took first place and won a nice mug. At the end, there was also a prize draw, in which you could win sets of Lego blocks, Airpods, PS5 consoles and many other prizes. In the video on my channel you will see in more detail what swag I brought from the conference.
Good advices
I was so lucky that I could arrive at the conference one day earlier, spend the night in a hotel and go to the conference well-rested in the morning. I have already attended many conferences and this solution works best for me. Thanks to this, I have the strength and energy to listen to others and answer their questions. In my case, the company I work for covered the costs of travel and accommodation. I believe that it is always worth asking the company about this possibility.
The conference was free, but you had to remember to register early, because later tickets were no longer available. That’s why it’s worth registering early.
It is also a good idea to arrive early for the opening and not mid-day, in case there are not enough welcome packages, etc.
In my opinion, it is good to familiarize yourself with the agenda well and choose interesting sessions you want to participate in. Even before going to the conference, I knew what I wanted to listen to. Of course, sometimes I had 2 sessions on my list at the same time that I wanted to visit. That’s why sometimes on the day of the conference I decided which session to choose, but as I mentioned earlier, I made the first selection at home, so I didn’t have to choose from 4 sessions, but only 2. 😉
Usually, conferences have coffee and lunch breaks where you can eat something, so you probably don’t have to worry about it. This year you could also drink juice, tea, bottled water or make coffee from an espresso machine. One company also had a barista who made very good coffee.
If you are looking for a job or just checking the competition 😉 you have the opportunity to see the offers of several companies in one place. You will find out what conditions they offer and who they are currently looking for. From what I saw, most companies still offered the option of completely remote work. I was a bit surprised that there were very few offers for juniors, but probably every company was looking for someone at senior level. Even if you have a nice job, no one is forcing you to change it, but it is worth knowing what other companies offer.
Summary
To sum up, participating in AWS Community Day Poland 2024 was an inspiring experience for me. I suspect other participants feel the same way, regardless of their level of advancement in cloud technology. The conference not only provided a lot of knowledge about AWS, but also enabled building a community and establishing valuable professional contacts. You could meet really cool people and talk in person.
Finally, I wanted to thank you for your time and for reading the article to the end and apologize for the photos taken vertically.