Title

AWS re:Invent 2022 - Modernize apps with purpose-built databases, featuring Liberty Mutual (DAT217)

Summary

• Dave Gardner, a Database Specialist Solution Architect at AWS, along with Deb and Ryan from Liberty Mutual, discussed modernizing applications using AWS's purpose-built databases.
• They covered the seven key attributes for modern applications: innovation, agility, performance, scalability, high availability, easy to manage, and cost-effectiveness.
• Liberty Mutual shared their database evolution journey, moving from monolithic applications to microservices and from physical servers to AWS cloud services, including RDS and serverless offerings like DynamoDB.
• The talk highlighted database modernization playbooks and typical journeys with AWS purpose-built databases.
• Modern data architecture was discussed, emphasizing the shift from three-tier web architecture to microservices and decoupled architectures.
• Liberty Mutual's journey included challenges like lengthy database lifecycle management and successes like creating an internal marketplace for cloud database offerings.
• AWS's managed database services like RDS, Aurora, ElastiCache, MemoryDB, DynamoDB, DocumentDB, Keyspaces, Neptune, Timestream, and QLDB were discussed in detail.
• The session concluded with the importance of unifying operational and transactional databases into a data lake for analytics and machine learning.

Insights

• Liberty Mutual's transformation reflects a common trend among enterprises: moving away from traditional, monolithic architectures to cloud-based, microservices architectures to gain agility and innovation.
• AWS's purpose-built databases offer a wide range of options tailored to specific use cases, such as high-performance transactions, caching, document storage, graph databases, time series data, and ledger databases.
• Managed services like RDS and Aurora can significantly reduce the operational burden on companies, allowing them to focus on innovation and strategic initiatives rather than database management.
• Serverless options like DynamoDB and Aurora Serverless provide scalability and cost-efficiency, particularly for unpredictable workloads that require rapid scaling.
• Database modernization is not a one-size-fits-all process but a journey that involves evaluating existing applications, choosing the right tools, and incrementally adopting new technologies.
• Data unification into a data lake is a critical step for leveraging machine learning and analytics, indicating the growing importance of data-driven decision-making in modern applications.
• Tagging and governance are essential for managing resources in the cloud, as highlighted by Ryan from Liberty Mutual, to avoid sprawl and maintain control over the infrastructure.
• The session underscores the partnership between AWS and its customers, with AWS providing guidance, tools, and services to facilitate the modernization journey.