Season 4 Episode 28: VMware Migration, GPU Cooling, and Builder Center

LogiCast AWS News

In Season 4, Episode 28, Karl and Jon are joined by AWS Community Builder Mahendran Selvakumar. Together, they dive into topics including Amazon’s development of cooling equipment for NVIDIA GPUs to support AI acceleration, the launch of the new AWS Builder Center for the AWS Builder Community, and Amazon's massive AI supercluster—Project Rainier—built for Anthropic. They also explore the upcoming changes to the AWS Free Tier, which will introduce a new credit-based system. And in true Karl fashion, he deftly steers the conversation away from a tangent on uneven sun tans.

05:23 - AWS Transform for VMware

AWS has shifted its strategy from supporting VMware workloads to encouraging migration off VMware entirely. The new AWS Transform for VMware service helps migrate VMware workloads to native AWS services, potentially reducing licensing costs and manual efforts. It supports various migration tasks like network conversion and instance sizing.

12:08 - Amazon cooling equipment for Nvidia GPUs

As AI workloads increase power demands, Amazon is developing in-row heat exchangers to cool Nvidia GPUs more efficiently. This liquid cooling solution can be retrofitted into existing data centers and is designed to handle the extreme heat generated by high-density GPU racks used for AI applications.

17:50 - Amazon CloudWatch and Application Signals MCP servers for AI-assisted troubleshooting

AWS launched two open-source MCP servers for CloudWatch and Application Signals, enabling AI agents to troubleshoot issues via natural language—accessing metrics, logs, traces, and SLOs for faster root cause analysis.

22:23 - New AWS Builder Center

AWS has launched a new Builder Center to unify various community programs and resources. It provides a centralized platform for learning, building, and connecting within the AWS ecosystem. The center includes features like wishlists for suggesting ideas to AWS and supports multiple languages for broader accessibility.

29:17 - Amazon's AI supercluster for Anthropic (Project Rainier)

Amazon is building a massive AI supercomputer cluster for Anthropic, using custom-designed AI chips instead of traditional GPUs. This project demonstrates significant investment in AI capabilities and includes a custom network fabric for high-bandwidth communication between nodes.

34:39 - Changes to AWS Free Tier

AWS is replacing its traditional free tier with a new credit-based system. New accounts will receive $100 in credits valid for 6 months, with restrictions on certain high-usage services. This change aims to simplify the free tier and prevent unexpected charges for new users.