UPDATED 11:00 EDT / MAY 13 2020

CLOUD

Watch live: AWS Summit Online goes global as cloud proves vital for COVID-19 business survival

The AWS Summit in San Francisco has gone virtual as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. To adjust to current stay-at-home and social-distancing recommendations, Amazon Web Services Inc. has evolved its annual event, now called AWS Summit Online, to allow technologists and the cloud computing community to connect, collaborate and learn through free online sessions.

The event, which begins at 9 a.m. PDT May 13, will feature keynote speakers Werner Vogels (pictured), chief technology officer of Amazon.com; Andy Jassy, chief executive officer of AWS; and Matt Garman, vice president of AWS worldwide sales and marketing. The event also offers breakout sessions with AWS subject matter experts and a fireside chat with Jassy and Garman. Sessions include two machine-learning tracks that focus on artificial intelligence, deep learning, and custom computer vision models, as well as analytics/database and computer/networking sessions.

TheCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, will be airing special virtual coverage alongside AWS Summit Online, including exclusive interviews with AWS executives and industry analysts about AWS’ competitive advantages in the enterprise security, AI, and machine-learning markets. TheCUBE will also delve into how AWS is supporting fluctuating demand in a COVID-19 world and how it’s better appealing to developers.

AWS fights JEDI contract, sets sights on expanding cloud market lead

AWS Summit Online not only comes in the midst of a global pandemic, but during an all-out war between Amazon and Microsoft over the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract awarded to Microsoft last fall by the U.S. Department of Defense. The cloud-computing contract, estimated to be worth $10 billion, was opposed in court by AWS on the grounds of “political interference,” claiming president Trump’s public attacks against Amazon and CEO Jeff Bezos influenced the DoD in Microsoft’s favor.

In early May, AWS filed a new JEDI protest, and in a blog post on May 8, AWS wrote that the “initial award was fatally flawed on all six of the technical evaluation factors (which we’ve detailed in our protest).”

Of course, Microsoft was not pleased with yet another legal counter and said as much in a recent war of words with AWS. This heated rivalry is in full swing without a clear end in sight, according to John Furrier, founder of SiliconANGLE Media and co-host of theCUBE. 

“This is an absolute bloodbath between AWS and Microsoft,” Furrier said. “We’re seeing it play out now virtually with Amazon AI large-scale cloud. This is another level, a DEFCON 1, basically.” 

While AWS continues to battle with Microsoft over JEDI, the company actually finds itself benefiting in the enterprise cloud market during a global pandemic. The cloud market is projected to grow from $233 billion in 2019 to $295 billion by 2021, according to the “COVID-19 Impact on Cloud Computing Market by Service Type” report by MarketsandMarkets Research Private Ltd.

“Major factors driving the growth of the market include enterprises’ need to support remote workforce to induce investment in IT infrastructure for hyperscalers, cloud service providers (CSPs), internet service providers (ISPs), and managed hosting providers; rise in demand for cloud-based business continuity tools and services; and suitability of public cloud environment best suited for the current unprecedented scenario,” the report said.

As the top player in the cloud sector, AWS owns almost half (at 47.8%) of the world’s public cloud infrastructure market. It’s followed by Microsoft (15.5%), Alibaba (7.7%), Google (4.0%), and IBM (1.8%). And in the hybrid cloud market, AWS Outposts is gaining momentum, according to the Flexera “2020 State of the Cloud Report,” where AWS Outpost was shown to increase its private cloud adoption by 11 percentage points (from 12% in 2019 to 23% in 2020).

“There is a bit of a tailwind behind cloud with COVID-19,” said Stu Miniman, principal research analyst at Wikibon and co-host of theCUBE. “Everybody needs to access their services where they are. AWS is meeting that need. It’s standing strong, meeting their customers and answering the call of cloud.”

During theCUBE’s coverage of AWS Summit Online, our analysts will also talk with industry experts about AWS’ Migration Acceleration Program for Windows, AWS AppFlow, Amazon Augmented Artificial Intelligence (or A2I), and its Kendra release — AWS’ cloud enterprise search product that uses natural language processing to allow users to ask a question and then search across connected repositories to find an answer.

How to watch theCUBE interviews

We offer you various ways to watch the live coverage of the AWS Summit Online, including theCUBE’s dedicated website and YouTube. You can also get all the coverage from this year’s events on SiliconANGLE.

Livestream of the AWS Summit Online event

The AWS Summit Online event is a livestream event, with additional interviews to be broadcast on theCUBE. You can register for free here to access the live coverage. You can also watch it on theCUBE’s dedicated page and YouTube channel.

TheCUBE Insights podcast

SiliconANGLE also has podcasts available of archived interview sessions, available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify, which you can enjoy while on the go.

AWS Summit Online event keynote speakers include:

  • Werner Vogels, chief technology officer of Amazon.com
  • Andy Jassy, chief executive officer of AWS
  • Matt Garman, vice president of AWS worldwide sales and marketing

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE AWS Summit Online event

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE at the AWS Summit Online event include Amazon executives Dave Brown, VP, Elastic Compute Cloud, Amazon; Swami Sivasubramanian, VP, Amazon AI; Matt Garman, VP of sales and marketing, AWS; and Herain Oberoi, director of product marketing, AWS. 

We also speak with Sanjay Poonen, COO, VMware; Corey Quinn, The Duckbill Group; Jimmy Chen, CEO, Propel; Dean Grey, founder and CEO, Skylab Apps; and Chris Foster, CIO, TC Energy.

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AWS Summit Online event. Neither AWS, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: Amazon Web Services

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