“Get busy building or you’re dying! We invented cloud, and we’re going to define what hybrid looks like. Amazon is marching to the edge.” That’s how John Furrier summarizing the vibe during Amazon Web Services Inc. Chief Executive Andy Jassy’s keynote.

As day one of AWS re:Invent wrapped up, theCUBE’s analysts discussed how Jassy is planning to shape the information technology world.

“I think the overarching message was: ‘This is AWS everywhere.’ It’s going to go after 100% of IT eventually,” said Dion Hinchcliffe (pictured), vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research Inc.

Hinchcliffe joined John Furrier and Dave Vellante, hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during AWS re:Invent. They discussed Amazon’s continued dominance of the cloud market and how the company is leveraging its partner ecosystem to gain momentum in hybrid and edge computing. (* Disclosure below.)

AWS makes a play for hybrid dominance by closing the cloud skills gap

“If you were watching this keynote, your head exploded because you got so many announcements,” Furrier said. “What’s going on if you’re looking at this as a chief executive officer?”

CIOs concerned about the lack of cloud skills within their workforce should pay attention to the announcements around VMware Cloud on AWS, according to Hinchcliffe. “It says, ‘Let’s take your VMware skills which you’ve honed and cultivated and built a talent base inside your organization to run virtual machines and make that work for AWS,’” he said, describing how the solution links on-premises and the cloud.

“The CIO’s ears are going to perk up and say, ‘Wait, I can use native-born skills I already have to go out to the cloud?’” Hinchcliffe added.

The spending data shows that adoption of the VMware Cloud on AWS is gaining momentum, according to Vellante. This marks a positive uptick for AWS’ hybrid cloud goals. “If Jassy wants to go after this next tier of spend on-premises and edge, he’s got to win the global IT posture game,” said Furrier. “He’s got to win hybrid. He’s got to get there faster.”

DevOps Guru was another significant announcement that bridges the cloud skills gap, according to Hinchcliffe. The tool gives operational insights by automatically detecting issues and recommending fixes that staff can act on right away.

“If it turns out to be everything they say it is, it could be a real panacea for unlocking the maturity curve that these operators have to climb,” Hinchcliffe said.

AWS stakes its claim for edge dominance

AWS seems to be aiming at cloud competitor Microsoft Azure with the announcement of an open-source Babelfish database translation tool, according to Dion. By allowing users to run Microsoft SQL Server workloads directly on Amazon Aurora, the company is saying, “Just come over to AWS,” Hinchcliffe said. “That is what I call the escape pod that gives organizations an easy way that doesn’t require them to redesign and rearchitect their applications.”

The main takeaway from day one of re:Invent is that Jassy is “laying down the gauntlet,” with AWS bringing its cloud model to the edge and defining what hybrid looks like, according to Vellante. “It’s a very powerful message,” he said.

Hinchcliffe agreed: “He laid out a very clear path that Amazon’s marching to the edge. Edge is the next big frontier in the cloud, and it isn’t well defined.”

And just as with the early days of cloud: “If they don’t get out there and be the definitive leader in that space, then they’re going to be the follower,” Hinchcliffe said.

Here’s the complete video analysis, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of AWS re:Invent. (* Disclosure: Amazon Web Services sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither AWS nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE