re:Cap of re:Invent – – Top 5 Releases for 2019!

As we shut the door on 2018, it’s time to capitalize on the firehose of announcements from AWS re:Invent—a week filled with energy, learning, and game-changing updates for anyone invested in cloud security, cloud architecture, and the future of tech innovation.

There were giant expo halls, endless breakout sessions, and a tidal wave of updates. AWS continues to innovate at breakneck speed—and if your organization is building in the cloud, these updates should be on your radar.

Here are our top 5 product releases from re:Invent 2018, plus a round of honorable mentions you shouldn’t miss.

Top 5 AWS re:Invent Announcements

1. AWS Transit Gateway
Designed to simplify complex networking for enterprises with multiple VPCs and VPNs, AWS Transit Gateway enables a single, central connection hub. It’s a big win for scalable, cloud-first network architecture. Just remember: ease doesn’t replace the need for deep understanding.

2. AWS Well-Architected Tool
An essential (and free!) service to benchmark your workloads against the AWS Well-Architected Framework. If you’re serious about cloud cost optimization, security, and performance, this tool is your new best friend.

3. Amazon Forecast
A managed service that uses machine learning to deliver highly accurate forecasts. Amazon Forecast empowers sales, operations, and finance teams to make smarter decisions using historical time-series data.

4. AWS Outposts
Bringing AWS services to your data center, Outposts is the bridge between cloud and on-prem. For businesses with tight compliance or latency requirements, this is your hybrid answer.

5. Amazon RDS on VMware
Now you can run RDS databases in your data center using VMware, bringing public cloud simplicity to your hybrid cloud environments. A strong play for those needing flexibility and on-prem database continuity.

Honorable Mentions by Category

Compute

• A1 Instances – Cost-efficient Arm-based instances for scale-out workloads.

• AWS Ground Station – Satellite communications made easy, offering fully managed infrastructure for space data.

Database

• Amazon Timestream – Ideal for IoT and operational apps that require fast, scalable time-series data processing.

• Amazon QLDB – A tamper-proof, cryptographically verifiable ledger database. Great for finance and healthcare innovators.

• Amazon DynamoDB On-Demand – Pay-per-request pricing. No more WCU/RCU guesstimates—just scale effortlessly.

Machine Learning

• Amazon Textract – Extract text and data from scanned documents, ideal for legal, insurance, and medical use cases.

• AWS DeepRacer – More than a toy—it’s an accessible intro to reinforcement learning with real-world applications.

Management & Governance

• AWS License Manager – Finally, a centralized way to track and manage software licenses across hybrid environments.

Storage

• AWS Transfer for SFTP – Migrate SFTP workloads directly to Amazon S3. Thousands of jump servers were retired the day this launched.

Networking & Content Delivery

• AWS App Mesh – Gain visibility into your container-based microservices with seamless CloudWatch integration.

Why re:Invent Matters

AWS re:Invent isn’t just about product announcements—it’s about setting the tone for the future of cloud innovation, DevOps modernization, and secure cloud operations. The announcements show how AWS continues to remove the heavy lifting so you can focus on innovation.

If you missed it, check out the full AWS re:Invent site for session decks and on-demand videos.

Discover how cloud innovation fuels better outcomes for life sciences

PTP helps biotech and clinical research organizations adopt secure, scalable AWS infrastructure with speed and confidence.