AWS for VMware at re:Invent 2024 – Attendee Guide

AWS re:Invent is returning to Las Vegas from December 2nd to December 6th, 2024. Join us for five transformative days of learning opportunities and inspiring migration stories that will accelerate your cloud journey and drive innovation. From large keynotes by AWS leaders, innovation talks, interactive sessions, and fun activities such as live music and games at re:Play, there’s always something for attendees to learn, network, and be inspired by the latest cloud computing technologies and trends.

There are over 2000 sessions for attendees to choose from. If you have interest in learning how AWS can help in migrating your VMware-based workloads to the cloud, we will be hosting dozens of sessions to help you in your migration and transformation journey. This post is here to help you choose the sessions that best fits your needs. Even if you are not able to join in person, you can catch-up with many of the breakout sessions on-demand and even watch the keynote innovation talks live.

Meet us at the Expo

Meet the AWS for VMware team at the Expo! All kinds of exciting activities await at the Expo, where knowledge and fun intersect! Stop by the AWS Village and chat with our AWS experts. Our team will be at the dedicated AWS for VMware booth during the following times:

December 2nd | 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM (Welcome Reception)
December 3rd | 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM
December 4th | 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM
December 5th | 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM

See the highlights:

Amazon Elastic VMware Service: Start your modernization journey with AWS

Amazon Elastic VMware Service (Amazon EVS) is a simple path to migrate and run your VMware-based workloads to AWS while using existing skills and familiar software. Learn about key features, and see how your VMs can benefit from the simplicity, flexibility, security, and control offered by Amazon EVS. Join the team that built this solution to understand how you can leverage your existing VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) subscriptions, VMware investments, and preferred tools while tapping into cloud benefits. Learn how you can deploy your VCF environment on AWS and how Amazon EVS can help meet your specific needs.

Plan your week

In order to help you find sessions you can attend live, we have prepared an agenda organized by day and time. The type of session and level of content are included for each listing. Click on our content page for a full description of our session and level types.

Monday, December 2nd – Morning

HYB201 | AWS wherever you need it: From the cloud to the edge (Breakout session) | 200 Level | 10:00 AM | Venetian, Titian 2304

While most workloads can be migrated to the cloud, some remain on premises or at the edge due to low latency, local data processing, or digital sovereignty needs. In this session, learn how AWS services like AWS Outposts, AWS Local Zones, AWS Dedicated Local Zones, and AWS IoT support hybrid cloud and edge computing workloads such as multiplayer gaming, high-frequency trading, medical imaging, smart manufacturing, and generative AI applications with data residency requirements.

MAM233-S | Disrupt the status quo: How to stop waiting & start innovating on AWS (sponsored by RapidScale) (Breakout session) | 200 Level | 10:00 AM | MGM Grand, Chairmans 370

Maintaining the status quo stifles innovation. From an inability to develop compelling business cases for migrations, to modernizing revenue-critical applications, to defining a data and AI strategy, successful businesses and the people who drive them forward must overcome immobility to truly innovate. In this session, hear from business leaders as they discuss security, optimization, AI, and migration challenges. Learn how they overcame this inertia to unlock innovation on AWS—and how you can, too. This presentation is brought to you by RapidScale, an AWS Partner.

MAM102-R | An AWS guide for VMware administrators (Chalk Talk) | 100 Level | 10:30 AM | MGM Grand, Boulevard 169 (Option 1)

Are you a VMware administrator embarking on your first AWS migration journey? Join this chalk talk to gain a solid foundation and seamlessly bridge the knowledge between your familiar VMware environment and AWS. Familiarize yourself with the AWS Management Console, Amazon EC2, Amazon VPC, and other AWS services analogous to VMware environments. Explore migration tooling, including native AWS tools, Partner offerings, training, and incentive programs to help accelerate your migration. Learn about migration strategies and modernization paths for your VMware workloads on AWS. Bring your questions and we’ll get them answered.

MAM104 | AWS for VMware migrations: Successes, roadmaps, & strategies (Breakout session) | 100 Level | 11:30 AM | Caesars Forum, Summit 232. Content Hub: Turquoise Screen

Are you looking to migrate your VMware on-premises environment to AWS and seeking guidance on the right approach? This session brings together migration trailblazers who’ve been there. Hear firsthand how different global organizations accelerated their cloud journeys, from planning to execution. Speakers share the trusted tools, strategies, and lessons that streamlined their transitions, helping you get insights to guide your own migration. Plus, get a glimpse into their modernization roadmaps and innovation strategies. Whether you’re just starting or overcoming hurdles, you’ll gain actionable insights to drive your own cloud transformation.

HYB308 | Migrating your VMware workloads with on-premises dependencies (Breakout session) | 300 Level | 11:30 AM | MGM Grand, Grand 120

While most VMware workloads can be easily migrated to the cloud, some need to stay on premises due to application interdependencies, data residency requirements, or timeline constraints. Join this session to learn how AWS hybrid and edge services like AWS Outposts and AWS Local Zones allow you to migrate in place and modernize at your own pace. Dive deep on various migration pathways with Outposts and the migration tools and programs that you can use to simplify and accelerate transition to the cloud.

Monday, December 2nd – Afternoon

MAM302 | Virtual machine to AWS: Rapid migration & modernization (Workshop) | Level 300 | 12:00 PM | MGM Grand, Grand 117

Join this comprehensive builders’ session to be guided through the process of successfully migrating from virtual and physical environments to Amazon EC2. If you are looking to eliminate VMware costs and licensing and accelerate innovation while benefiting from the scale, security, and flexibility of AWS global infrastructure, this workshop provides you with the knowledge and tools to successfully transition to AWS. Expert presenters walk you through the migration process, covering key considerations, best practices, and common challenges on your path to modernization. You must bring your laptop to participate.

EUC204-R | Accelerate your data center exit with Amazon WorkSpaces Core (Chalk Talk) | Level 200 | 2:00 PM | MGM Grand, 307

Self-managing virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) on premises is expensive and limits IT agility. In addition, concern over potential VDI software price increases is causing organizations to accelerate plans to migrate to the cloud. This chalk talk explores considerations for migrating an on-premises VDI solution to the highly scalable and reliable AWS Cloud. Learn how to leverage Amazon WorkSpaces Core using your existing VDI software from Citrix, Omnissa, Workspot, and Leostream to reduce costs and improve your ability to quickly scale with changing business requirements. Also learn how to build a VDI migration execution plan that accelerates time to value.

HYB313-R | Extending Amazon EKS clusters from the cloud to the edge (Chalk Talk) | Level 300 | 3:00 PM | Caesars Forum, Academy 414

Dive deep into the strategies to minimize latency and enhance performance of distributed applications leveraging Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) across Regions, AWS Local Zones, and AWS Outposts. This chalk talk covers deploying an application based on a real-world scenario to an EKS cluster, demonstrating the seamless integration of Outposts and Local Zones, while maintaining a unified control plane. By exploring real-world use cases and best practices, gain practical insights into architecting resilient and scalable applications across distributed environments. This talk aligns to the AWS Well-Architected Framework, empowering you to optimize AWS deployments for consistency and security.

HYB303 | Step-by-step migration of on-premises VMware workloads to AWS Outposts (Workshop) | Level 300 | 3:30 PM | MGM Grand, Grand 111

For VMware workloads that need to stay on premises due to application interdependencies, data residency requirements, or accelerated migration timelines, you can rapidly rehost these workloads to AWS Outposts and modernize at your own pace. This workshop offers hands-on experience in migration of virtualized workloads to AWS Outposts. Learn about planning strategies, migration tools, and best practices, and hear expert insights on post-migration operations and pitfalls to avoid. You must bring your laptop to participate.

MAM214 | Gilead Sciences’ AWS migration: From VMware to cloud transformation (Breakout) | Level 200 | 4:30 PM | MGM Grand, Grand 122

Discover how Gilead Sciences accelerated their global digital transformation through collaboration with AWS Professional Services. Get inspired by their migration of over 2,000 servers from VMware on premises to AWS native services, retiring 1,400+ systems. Hear directly from Gilead leaders who spearheaded this initiative on their migration approach, the AWS tools and services they leveraged, and the best practices for selecting and migrating workloads to AWS. Being on AWS has enabled Gilead to accelerate modernization and innovation. Gain insights into how Gilead does more with their data and integrates emerging technologies like AI to accomplish their business goals.

Tuesday, December 3rd – Afternoon

MAM237-NEW | New Launch – Deep dive into Amazon Elastic VMware Service (Chalk Talk) | Level 200 | 4:30PM | Caesars Forum, Level 1, Alliance 305

Amazon Elastic VMware Service (Amazon EVS) is a simple path to migrate and run your VMware-based workloads to AWS while using existing skills and familiar software. In this chalk talk, walk through the configuration and deployment of a fully-functional VCF-based environment on AWS, using the service console and APIs. With unrestricted administrative access to VMware ESXi, vCenter, NSX, and SDDC Manager, you’ll have complete control over network, compute, and storage configurations. Bring your questions and engage with AWS experts to gain a foundational understanding of Amazon EVS.

EUC204-R1 | Accelerate your data center exit with Amazon WorkSpaces Core (Chalk Talk) | Level 200 | 1:00 PM | Wynn, Lafite 1 (Option 2)

Challenged with complex VMware environments driving up costs and increasing management overhead? In this session, discover strategies to improve manageability and reduce total cost of ownership by migrating VMware workloads. Join the conversation and learn how to migrate to Amazon EC2 for compute with Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP serving block storage over iSCSI. Get guided through the architecture before and after migration, offering a step-by-step approach to executing a seamless lift-and-shift – no matter where your workloads reside. Leave with actionable insights into how this migration delivers enterprise-grade performance, cost efficiency, and simplified operations.

STG337 | Migrate any VMware workload from anywhere to improve your TCO (Chalk Talk) | Level 300 | 1:00 PM | MGM Grand, 305

NTA204| Transitioning from VMware to native AWS (Chalk Talk) | Level 200 | 4:30 PM | Caesars Forum, Academy 414

There are many similarities between vSphere CLI and AWS CLI. This chalk talk goes over common vSphere activities and details the corresponding AWS CLI commands to make the transition from VMware to AWS easier.

MAM218 | Technical decisions for a seamless migration from VMware to AWS (Chalk Talk) | Level 200 | 4:30 PM | Mandalay Bay, South Pacific D

Migrating VMware-based workloads to AWS requires careful technical decisions. This chalk talk provides a roadmap for a seamless transition, covering crucial aspects like developing a data-driven business case, selecting appropriate discovery tools and assessments, establishing AWS foundations, and choosing the right migration and modernization tools. Attendees gain familiarity with most commonly used AWS migration services such as AWS Application Discovery Service, AWS Application Migration Service, and equivalent AWS Partner tools. Gain insights into key technical decisions involved in each phase, allowing you to navigate the migration journey with confidence and minimize disruptions while leveraging the power of the AWS Cloud.

MAM202-R | From VMs to cloud-native: An AWS modernization journey (Workshop) | Level 200 | 4:30PM | Mandalay Bay, Lagoon F (Option 1)

In this workshop, learn how to use AWS modernization pathways to quickly decompose a monolithic workload to a loosely coupled, distributed microservices architecture. Walk through a real-world migration scenario, starting with the migration of VMware-based applications to AWS, followed by step-by-step guidance on modernizing those applications. Hear from AWS experts as they share best practices for transforming monolithic applications into modern cloud architectures. Learn how to utilize AWS services such as AWS App Runner, Amazon Aurora, and AWS Lambda as you containerize the monolithic application, migrate to a managed database, and move your applications to serverless. You must bring your laptop to participate.

MAM238-INT | Automating migration and modernization to accelerate transformation (Innovation Talk) | Level 200 | 5:30 PM | Venetian, Palazzo Ballroom B

Many organizations struggle with getting value out of existing applications and the data locked in them. This talk explores how AWS is simplifying the most complex migration and modernization tasks to accelerate transformation of legacy systems and unlock cloud innovation. Learn about breakthrough AWS services that will change the way you discover, plan, and execute migration and modernization opportunities across teams to upgrade, replatform, and refactor applications to modern architectures. Discover ways to efficiently move and improve your mission-critical applications and data in the cloud to reduce operational costs and licensing fees, accelerate innovation, and mitigate the risks in delayed maintenance of legacy codebases.

Wednesday, December 4th – Morning

TNC107 | Virtual machines to AWS rapid migration and modernization (Bootcamp) | Level 100 | 8:00 AM | Mandalay Bay, Breakers K

This bootcamp is exclusively for AWS Partners. It focuses on the rehost (lift-and-shift) migration strategy, utilizing AWS Application Migration Service to bring workloads to the AWS Cloud with minimal architectural changes. Designed for technical architects, migration specialists, system administrators, and project managers involved in migration projects, this bootcamp teaches you how to execute migrations using Application Migration Service. Prerequisites required for this bootcamp include access to an AWS account, familiarity with AWS Management Console and Application Migration Service, and a basic understanding of Amazon VPC, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), and AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery. You must bring your laptop to participate.

HYB310 | Addressing data residency requirements with hybrid and edge services (Chalk Talk) | Level 300 | 8:30 AM | MGM Grand, Boulevard 158

Data residency is a critical consideration for organizations that collect and store sensitive information, including personal identifiable information (PII), financial data, healthcare data, or information pertaining to national security. To help organizations operating across multiple geographies drive innovation while meeting data residency requirements, AWS offers multiple global infrastructure offerings like AWS Regions, AWS Dedicated Local Zones, AWS Local Zones, and AWS Outposts. In this interactive chalk talk, learn how these infrastructure offerings can help you accelerate digital transformation while meeting data residency needs.

MAM315 | Simplify VMware server migrations via AWS Migration Hub and Amazon Q (Workshop) | Level 300 | 9:00 AM | Mandalay Bay, Islander I

In this workshop, gain hands-on experience migrating VMware servers to AWS. Learn how to use AWS Migration Hub Journeys templates to streamline tasks for the seamless migration of two sample applications. Explore AWS Migration Hub to accelerate the execution of repetitive migration tasks. Finally, discover how to create a bespoke business application in Amazon Q using generative AI, providing concierge support to application teams during the migration process and enriched with a curated collection of authoritative migration resources. You must bring your laptop to participate.

KUB310 | Amazon EKS for edge and hybrid use cases (Breakout Session) | Level 300 | 10:00 AM | Wynn, Lafite 4. Content Hub: Turquoise Screen

There are some workloads that may need to run on premises, at the edge, or in a hybrid scenario due to low latency, data dependencies, data sovereignty, or other regulatory reasons, especially in industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, telecommunications, and financial services. Data dependent workloads may have to wait for the data to be on AWS services before fully migrating. In this session, explore production-ready architectures using services like Amazon EKS Anywhere to run container workloads on premises and support modernizing VMware-based workloads.

HYB401 | AWS hybrid cloud and edge computing from the lens of VMware architects (Chalk Talk) | Level 400 | 10:00 AM | MGM Grand, 307

This chalk talk explores the Amazon EC2 concepts of instance recoverability, placement groups, and auto scaling from the perspective of AWS Outposts and how VMware architects can draw parallels to VMware features like High Availability (HA), Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), Affinity Groups, and stretched clusters. The talk also covers how you can design resilient architectures between two Outposts in the same location using intra-VPC routing. Additionally, learn how you can leverage AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery to migrate on-premises workloads to AWS Outposts.

Why should a business migrate to the cloud? Transforming a company’s value to customers demands bold reimagination, and this transformation is fueled by analytics, predictive models, and gen AI—each of which requires the robust compute, storage, and services that only the cloud can provide. Cloud migrations are not just about improving operational efficiency; they establish the critical technological foundation necessary for transformation, unlocking new opportunities during migration and in ongoing management and optimization. In this lightning talk, learn how Concierto can help you accelerate this transition and scale your cloud operations. This presentation is brought to you by Trianz | Concierto, an AWS Partner

Wednesday, December 4th – Afternoon

MAM102-R1 | An AWS guide for VMware administrators (Chalk Talk) | Level 100 | 4:00 PM | Wynn, Montrachet 1 (Option 2)

HYB313-R1 | Extending Amazon EKS clusters from the cloud to the edge (Chalk Talk) | Level 300 | 4:00 PM | Wynn, Lafite 1 (Option 2)

EUC204-R2 | Accelerate your data center exit with Amazon WorkSpaces Core (Chalk Talk) | Level 200 | 5:30 PM | MGM Grand, 305 (Option 3)

Thursday, December 5th – Morning

MAM103 | The future of your VMware-based workloads with AWS (Breakout) | Level 100| 11:00 AM | Mandalay Bay, South Seas F

Choosing the right cloud destination for your VMware-based workloads is crucial for your business. Join this session to learn how AWS collaborates with customers to navigate this journey. AWS provides proven migration pathways and purpose-built services offering prescriptive guidance to assist you on your cloud journey. Discover the available options and paths to achieve the right mix of migration, modernization, and innovation, meeting your current and future business goals. AWS and AWS Partners are committed to helping you transform your VMware environments seamlessly.

Thursday, December 5th – Afternoon

MAM119-New | New Launch – Amazon Elastic VMware Service: Start your modernization journey (Breakout) | Level 100 | 2:30 PM | Mandalay Bay, Level 3 South, South Seas A

MAM202-R1 | From VMs to cloud-native: An AWS modernization journey (Workshop) | Level 200 | 12:00 PM | Mandalay Bay, Lagoon F (Option 2)

XNT204 | Licensing commercial software on AWS (Breakout) | Level 200 | 12:30 PM | Wynn, Lafite 4

AWS provides a variety of migration pathways for your enterprise workloads, but navigating all the licensing options can be confusing. In this session, learn about licensing options for your Microsoft software, including end of support; complementary AWS Optimization and Licensing Assessment (AWS OLA) for your Microsoft, VMware, and Oracle workloads; and how to deal with the high cost of commercial hypervisors like VMware. Prepare for the future and get out of the business of license compliance by replacing your software-licensed products and applications with open source alternatives and technology built specifically for the cloud.

PEX206 | Capitalizing on the opportunity for migrations and modernization (Breakout) | Level 200 | 4:00 PM | Caesars Forum, Summit 232

This session navigates the strategies to build repeatable business engines. Explore how partners can strengthen their approach using cutting-edge generative AI technology to transform Microsoft and VMware workloads. See an approach for conducting effective cloud assessments and learn how to identify candidate workloads for modernization. Review migration and modernization pathways to AWS, and discover how to use Amazon Q to accelerate the refactoring of Java and .NET applications using generative AI. Discover how partners can get the most out of the Migration Acceleration Program (MAP) so they can deliver an exceptional experience for customers. This session is intended for AWS Partners.

Ready to unlock new possibilities?

The AWS for VMware team looks forward to seeing you in Las Vegas. Come meet us at the AWS for VMware Booth in the Expo. To learn how AWS can help you to tailor your cloud journey for your VMware-based workloads, visit the AWS for VMware page.

Migration & Modernization