In Season 4, Episode 45, Karl and Jon are joined by AWS Hero Johannes Koch for a recap of the big AWS re:Invent 2023 announcements, including Lambda Managed Instances, Database Savings Plans, new EKS capabilities for workload orchestration and cloud resource management, and AWS AI Frontier Agents (Kiro, Security, DevOps) — and despite the looming threat of AI agents coming for their jobs, the guys decide to keep calm and carry on coding!

08:40 - Lambda Managed Instances

This new feature allows users to run Lambda functions on EC2 instances they manage. It aims to provide more control over the underlying infrastructure while maintaining Lambda's serverless model. There was debate about whether it truly eliminates cold starts and its potential use cases.

16:25 - Database Savings Plans

AWS introduced savings plans for database services like RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB, and others. This allows customers to commit to usage for a 1-year term in exchange for discounted rates. While generally seen as positive, there were discussions about its limitations and potential impact on database choices.

23:56 - New EKS Capabilities

Amazon announced new features for EKS, including managed Argo CD and capabilities for deploying AWS infrastructure from Kubernetes. This was seen as part of AWS's strategy to expand EKS's control plane capabilities and take on more management responsibilities for customers.

33:28 - AWS AI Frontier Agents

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-devops-agent-helps-you-accelerate-incident-response-and-improve-system-reliability-preview/

Three new AI agents were introduced - for Kiro (code development), Security, and DevOps. These agents aim to automate various tasks and provide intelligent assistance in their respective domains. The speakers discussed the potential benefits and concerns around these new AI tools.