Not much for telecoms in the latest AWS launch-fest

US public cloud giant Amazon Web Services is having its annual jamboree this week, which has produced the inevitable flood of announcements.

While some of them may well be of interest to telcos, as far as we can see none of them are specifically targeted at this sector. Considering the reckless abandon with which many operators are handing as much of their tech concerns as possible over to public cloud giants, they might have expected to be thrown a bone or two at AWS re:Invent 2022, but apparently not.

The closest seems to be the relatively minor launch of something called Amazon CloudWatch Internet Monitor (or is it CloudWorks?). Snuck out at the start of the week, this preview of a new AWS capability which allows organisations that run internet-facing applications to gain some insight into how an internet related (as opposed to internal) issue may be affecting the performance of said apps.

AWS hasn’t singled out a single, flagship announcement, but there seems to be a bit of buzz around Amazon Security Lake. Much as we’d love to believe this involves building moats around datacentres, it instead refers to a data lake. Tech companies are fond of geographical/meteorological metaphors and AWS defines a data lake as ‘a centralized repository that allows you to store all your structured and unstructured data at any scale.’

Sounds like one aspect of the cloud to us, but what do we know? This particular lake seems to ring-fence a bunch of data, whether its in the cloud or on-premise, and surround it with metaphorical barbed wire and snarling guard dogs. In other words, this is a great opportunity to make AWS responsible for your data security on top of the rest of your umbilical dependencies.

While you’re at it why not give another launch – Amazon DataZone – a go? This is some kind of data mining tool that also operates across AWS, on-premise and even third-party sources, which is reminiscent of the kind of thing HP presumably had in mind when it comically overpaid for Autonomy over a decade ago.

“Good governance is the foundation that makes data accessible to the entire organization, but we often hear from customers that it is difficult to strike the right balance between making data discoverable and maintaining control,” said Swami Sivasubramanian, VP of Databases, Analytics, and Machine Learning at AWS.

“With Amazon DataZone, customers can use a single service that balances strong governance controls with streamlined access to make it easy to find, organize, and collaborate with data. Amazon DataZone sets data free across the organization, so every employee can help drive new insights to maximize its value.”

There are far too many announcements emanating from AWS re:Invent 2022 to detail here – the running total is around 50 – but a predictable common thread is that handing over responsibility for as much tech-related stuff as possible to AWS frees companies up to focus on their core competencies. That remains a pretty compelling argument but, as ever, has to involve some loss of direct control.

The most recent press release from the event proudly announces “Wallbox Goes All-In on AWS”. Wallbox, we’re told, is ‘a leading provider of residential and public electric-vehicle charging devices and energy-management solutions.’ It has migrated its entire IT infrastructure to AWS, all the better to concentrate on the provision of the above.

“EV adoption plays a key role in helping us transition toward a world powered by renewable energy,” said Enric Asunción, CEO and co-founder of Wallbox. “AWS provides the underlying infrastructure we need to develop and globally deliver intelligent charging infrastructure and energy-management solutions, as well as the ability to open new pathways that harness the flow of energy through the grid.”

EVs are only as green as the method of generating the electricity that powers them, surely, but let’s not get bogged down by details. As we indicated at the start, while there has been little love specifically for telecoms at AWS re:Invent 2022, many of them will no doubt be further tempted to go all-in by all the shiny new services nonetheless.

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