TL;DR
AWS CEO Matt Garman's re:Invent keynote saved its most consequential material for the final ten minutes, when he ran through 25 announcements under a ten-minute shot clock. Highlights included S3 support for 50TB objects, a database savings plan across nine services, new large-memory X8aedz instances, and other updates that split opinion on usefulness.
What happened
Most of Matt Garman's re:Invent keynote was occupied by guest segments and standard AI-focused messaging, but the session ended with a rapid-fire sequence of 25 product announcements delivered against a visible ten-minute countdown. The flurry of items included several noteworthy platform changes: Amazon S3 now accepts single objects up to 50TB; a new database savings plan covers discounts across nine AWS database services, including previously excluded serverless offerings; Security Hub reached general availability after an earlier renaming to Security Hub CSPM; and a new family of X8aedz instances offers up to 6TB of RAM. Serverless orchestration gained a Lambda Durable Functions capability that mirrors many Step Functions primitives, and AWS also made hS3 Access Points for FSx NetApp ONTAP generally available — a release the speaker and author both described as having an unclear target audience. The keynote’s late surge of news was the primary driver of interest for many attendees and observers.
Why it matters
- Support for 50TB S3 objects changes how very large datasets can be stored in object storage, enabling some new workflows and questionable use cases alike.
- Database savings plans promise broader, multi-service discounting — including serverless database options that previously lacked such pricing mechanisms.
- X8aedz instances with up to 6TB of RAM expand options for memory-intensive workloads that need large in-memory capacity.
- Durable Function primitives for Lambda bring serverless workflows closer to traditional orchestration patterns, potentially simplifying some long-running or checkpointed tasks.
- Security Hub reaching general availability signals AWS’s continued investment in cloud security tooling, despite customer confusion around prior renaming.
Key facts
- AWS CEO Matt Garman delivered the re:Invent keynote that included 25 announcements in the last ten minutes.
- A ten-minute shot-clock timer was used during the rapid announcement segment.
- Amazon S3 now supports single objects up to 50TB.
- Security Hub was announced as generally available after previously being renamed to Security Hub CSPM.
- Lambda Durable Functions introduce SDK primitives to wait for events, checkpoint, and resume within serverless functions.
- New X8aedz instances provide up to 6TB of RAM.
- hS3 Access Points for FSx NetApp ONTAP reached general availability.
- AWS launched a database savings plan after six years of customer requests, covering nine database services and including serverless expressions.
What to watch next
- Real-world adoption and use cases for 50TB objects in S3 — not confirmed in the source.
- How widely customers adopt the new database savings plans and whether they change existing purchasing patterns — not confirmed in the source.
- Customer interest and deployment scenarios for hS3 Access Points with FSx NetApp ONTAP, given questions about the target audience — not confirmed in the source.
Quick glossary
- Amazon S3: A scalable object storage service for storing and retrieving any amount of data from anywhere on the web.
- Instance type: A specific combination of compute, memory, storage, and networking capacity that a cloud provider offers for virtual machines.
- Serverless: A cloud computing model where the provider manages server provisioning and scaling, letting developers run code without managing infrastructure.
- Security Hub: A cloud security service that aggregates, organizes, and prioritizes security findings across multiple services and accounts.
- Database savings plan: A pricing option intended to provide discounts across database services in exchange for a committed spend or usage pattern.
Reader FAQ
Was the keynote well received?
The source characterizes most of the keynote as unremarkable but says the final ten-minute announcement sprint generated significant interest.
What were the biggest technical announcements?
Notable items in the rapid announcements were S3 50TB object support, database savings plans across nine services, Lambda Durable Functions, X8aedz instances with up to 6TB RAM, and hS3 Access Points for FSx NetApp ONTAP.
Are database savings plans available now?
Yes — the source reports that AWS launched database savings plans covering nine database services and including serverless expressions.
Will many customers use 50TB S3 objects?
Not confirmed in the source.

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Sources
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