Is Amazon using Alexa and her Echo Army to Build a Second Cloud? The Last Mile Take some time to think about the parallels. Again, let’s assume that nothing Jeff Bezos does is a coincidence. Alexa represents Amazon’s last-mile strategy for their cloud business, a role nearly identical to the one that Whole Foods provides for Amazon’s retail business. “We are planting more seeds right now, and it is too early to talk about them, but we are going to continue to plant seeds. And I can guarantee you that everything we do will not work. And, I am never concerned about that…. We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details…. We don’t give up on things easily.” — Jeff Bezos A New Cloud — With a Voice 😒…🦗🦗🦗…no?…tough crowd_)._ If Amazon’s first cloud strategy was to build server farms , Amazon’s second cloud strategy might be called “release the chickens” (to stick with the farm analogy Photo by John Allspaw If Amazon’s consisted of millions of servers, collected and stacked to the ceilings in warehouses around the world, Amazon’s consists of millions of micro-servers — which we call Echos — dispersed and embedded into every nook and cranny of our physical world. First Cloud Second Cloud Extending the Reach of Other AWS Products The Future of AWS Lambda is Echo. As developers begin to shift to s, and services such as , it’s not impossible to imagine a day where developer code is actually executed on Echo devices. After all, Internet-of-Things DIY-ers can already connect a similarly sized Raspberry Pi to the AWS-cloud in . Is a Raspberry Pi from an AWS T2-Micro? microservice architecture serverless techniques AWS’s Lambda just a few simple steps all that different The Future of AWS Edge is Echo. Similarly, AWS is progressively improving the AWS infrastructure to lower latency by getting closer and closer to the user. Amazon in major cities that don’t have full-blown . Isn’t it feasible that the ultimate Edge location would be Echo servers in your neighborhoods and offices? continually adds these Edge Locations AWS Regions The Implications But before you get all on me, let’s remember that the benefits of “Cloud” computing are significant. Businesses and individuals benefit greatly from the efficiency and economies-of-scale of sharing computing resources. It is often argued that . Similarly, a world with this immersive, micro-cloud would benefit the world’s as well. Red Wheelbarrow Cloud computing allows small businesses to compete with large corporations little guys So what exactly would this micro-cloud do? AWS’s infrastructure gets a lot larger, more redundant and much closer to users with this new AWS Mesh-Cloud. Developers of apps serving smaller geographical areas could deploy code to individual neighborhoods instead of the same old regions ( anyone?). For developers, us-east-1 your Prime membership gets a lot more valuable! Imagine if members had access to excess compute capacity from nearby Echos. If you have ever used a remote desktop, then you can imagine how this might work. The ability to open up a cheap $100 Chromebook and control a powerful PC is a great feeling. It almost feels like you’re cheating. And for consumers, Now imagine a city with a network of these Echo servers (yours + mine + everyone else’s) offering up excess compute and internet. You ditch your sim card and pack light, traveling around with your favorite peripherals. All the processing and happens on the nearest Echo, which streams content wirelessly to your devices seamlessly as you move through the city. Personally, I’ll bring along my wireless earbuds (dare I say AirPods??) and probably a phone-like futuristic streaming touch display (Let’s call it iPhone 9…) for video, reading, web browsing, messaging, etc. internet-connectedness So how far are we from a future like this? Admit it. Probably not as far off as you originally thought. Don’t underestimate the Echo. Voice is at the forefront of a very exciting technology shift. We are all-in on voice technologies and AWS. Our team at is looking for developers to help build this voice-driven future. If you use technology to solve big problems or aspire to do so, please contact us using the contact form on our website or follow us on Twitter at @getvocool. Vocool
