What the AWS?

In case you haven’t noticed, there are A LOT of managed services and tools available to you through AWS. If this seems daunting, confusing or makes you feel overly-excited like a kid in a candy store, there’s a community of experts and enthusiasts who can help.

AWS Heroes are a community of seasoned technology builders outside AWS who have contributed incredible efforts to their field, helped others learn and grow in communities and tested and provided critical feedback to AWS on its services.

This blog features short interviews with AWS Heroes Vinicius Caridá, Partha Balasubramanian, Liz Fong-Jones and Ben Kehoe discussing how they navigate the many service options in AWS. Whether you are a founder, developer or just getting started, these conversations give insights into how experts think about services for cost-optimization, differing use cases and how they weigh requirements. Each Hero in this series has a different expertise, helping to “mash up” the thinking and approach topics from multiple perspectives. Vinicius is an expert in machine learning and artificial intelligence, Partha in security, Liz in observability and reliability and Ben in serverless solutions.

In this video, Ben Kehoe explains how he uses AWS documentation and content, like the AWS Blog, to get the information he needs on services he’s using.

Next, Liz and Ben, and Vinicius and Partha ask each other, “Which AWS service would you rescue from a burning building?” The conversations go in unexpected places and we learn a bit more about managed services and the variables that inform which ones to use.

Vinicius and Partha have a great discussion on balancing functional vs. non-functional requirements in business needs solved with technology. This is particularly helpful for architects and business counterparts working across functions to find the best solution.

Choosing services to achieve organizational goals brings up considerations like cost and governance. This conversation between Liz and Ben is particularly insightful as they both have experience thinking 360-degrees for an entire enterprise.

As Ben points out, AWS offers a multitude of services so customers have something useful for each of their needs. It's a big benefit that you don't have to pigeonhole your use case into a service architecture that is "close enough". And this is why AWS doubles down on fostering community - because community helps others looking to build understand the nuances and what is possible from having been through it.

To connect with an AWS Hero in your area or in a particular field of expertise, visit the program page here. AWS User Groups are an easy way to start connecting with and learning from community. Find a meetup near you. You can also follow #AWSCommunity and #AWSHeroes on LinkedIn and X, and network with Heroes through social media.