Extra tags: Digital TransformationEdge
The term "transformation" is frequently used these days, yet it can signify different things to different people and businesses. In the case of AWS, the pace of innovation is the reason why customers continue to select AWS due to how they manage to revolutionise customers' businesses, stated Santanu Dutt, Head of Technology, ASEAN, AWS at the AWS Summit Asean 2022.
And “Outposts” is one of the ways AWS has helped enterprises transform. AWS Outposts is a collection of fully managed solutions that offer AWS infrastructure and services to nearly any on-premises or edge location for a completely consistent hybrid experience.
“Nasdaq, the stock exchange in the U.S. has used [Outposts] to actually move some of the North American markets into the cloud. This year, they're on their way to moving their options markets into the cloud by leveraging Outposts on-prem,” said Santanu.
Based on the success of consumers using Outposts in various ways, AWS chose to introduce Outposts 1U and 2U, which could genuinely fit into things like shopping malls, retail stores, and restaurants.
"The next time you're in a restaurant, order a side of fries or something similar, just know that there's a technology behind it that's playing to give you the order. And the compute infrastructure and processing power are both hosted in the cloud, and potentially in that premise, on a one-year two-year Outposts server," he continued.
Cloud, at the Edge, Everywhere
Outposts and Local Zones, according to Santanu, are only two of many kinds of offerings that are pushing the cloud to the edge.
He also mentioned how the AWS Snowball family of devices, which has helped customers move petabytes of content to the cloud, and AWS Wavelength, which embeds AWS compute and storage inside 5G networks, will become the norm in the near future, with customers consuming the cloud at the edge, everywhere.
AWS IoT, one of the components of AWS cloud at the edge that has been the norm for many years due to multiple customers adopting it, is continuing to iterate, and AWS has opted to push it even further with AWS IoT TwinMaker.
"With the TwinMaker, this concept of a digital twin that originally came into being in the 1960s, when the Apollo 13 space shuttle was in space and had a severe oxygen capsule failure, there was a minor explosion there," says Santanu. “And it was at this point that scientists and engineers on Earth developed an exact digital replica of the physical oxygen module and the space shuttle in order to figure out how to return those astronauts back to planet Earth safely. That ended up being the premise for the astronauts to return safely, and that's where the console digital twin got its start."
With IoT TwinMaker, you can actually create digital twins, in real-life, of smart factories, devices and even smart homes. The difference between the IoT TwinMaker digital twin and other devices on the market like 3D modelling or CAD is the real-time streaming of data points from those devices’ sensors into IoT TwinMaker.
“So, it's a real-time representation of the digital twin, not just a static offline representation!” he added.
Modern Apps Store a lot of Data
When people interact digitally, it means a lot of data is generated. Modern apps, according to Santanu, generate vast volumes of data, whether from customers via e-commerce, social media, internal business applications, or even otherwise, because it costs nothing to generate data today.
According to Santanu, IDC estimates that between 96 and 97 zettabytes of data will be created, copied, and replicated in 2022 alone.
"That's 96 zettabytes and more!" said Santanu. “It's difficult to comprehend the size of a single zettabyte, let alone 96 of them. To make a visual representation of 96 zettabytes of data, imagine one terabyte hard drives, which these 96 zettabytes might be divided into, and stack all of these one terabyte hard drives, one on top of the other. It would be [the size of] the Eiffel tower multiplied by 18 million Eiffel towers in total!"
With so much data being collected, an Accenture study found that 68% of organisations are still unable to realise value from it.
"They have the data," Santanu explained. They've generated the data, and they're presumably collecting it but they're not really in a position to extract data-driven insights from it. The reason for this is that being a data-driven organisation necessitates a well-thought-out plan. It won't happen overnight; you'll need executive sponsorship from the top down, from your CXOs to your developers."
He concluded that businesses require a flexible and scalable strategy, as well as "job zero," which AWS defines as being more vital than any number one priority.