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World Congress 2025 • Aug 20, 2025 • Session details

Building Systems that Last

Werner Vogels

Amazon S3 scaled to 300 microservices with zero downtime. Building evolvable systems requires cell-based architecture. Discover how to leverage efficient languages like Rust to survive extreme cloud scale.

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#1 about 3 min

Pioneering web architectures before e-commerce platforms existed

Lacking pre-packaged e-commerce solutions, developers invented massively scalable infrastructure patterns previously unseen on the web.

#2 about 7 min

Overcoming scaling bottlenecks caused by commercial database limitations

Growing architectural scale against traditional relational databases caused persistent site failures and stalled developer iteration.

#3 about 2 min

Inventing service orientation to restore evolutionary delivery speed

Breaking down monolithic database dependencies into service-oriented APIs enables autonomous iteration without bottlenecking concurrent teams.

#4 about 3 min

Transitioning from data-driven decomposition to functional microservices

Correcting data-driven decomposition mistakes by building functional microservices isolates differing security, access, and scaling requirements.

#5 about 3 min

Abstracting capacity management with internal infrastructure services

Migrating common database and capacity workflows into infrastructure services eliminates redundant toil blocking developer productivity.

#6 about 3 min

Designing system architectures for long-term platform evolvability

Establishing evolvability as a day-one objective through high modular cohesion ensures codebases survive unknown future demands.

#7 about 3 min

Evolving storage infrastructure continuously without operational downtime

Decoupling storage operations into distinct microservices permits continuous backend upgrades without imposing downtime on connected customers.

#8 about 3 min

Limiting issue blast radius using cell-based system architecture

Routing individual workloads into isolated architectural cells substantially limits the blast radius of cascading technical disruptions.

#9 about 5 min

Reducing failure impact using advanced mathematical request sharding

Distributing customer traffic across overlapping system nodes mathematically shrinks the percentage of users impacted by localized outages.

#10 about 7 min

Treating cost and sustainability as foundational architectural constraints

Treating financial and energetic footprints as primary constraints drives architectural frugality and the adoption of memory-safe efficiency.

Matching moments

3:20 min

Architecting the platform with modern cloud and mobile technologies

Tom George · LIVE

2:25 min

Building engineering cultures that support long-term software architecture

Oskar Kruschitz Oskar Kruschitz · Europe 2026 Virtual

2:20 min

How the inevitable march of time breaks software patterns

Peter Kröner Peter Kröner · WWC 2023

1:33 min

Common pitfalls in scaling modern data systems

Sandhya Menon Sandhya Menon · WWC Europe 2026

56 sec

Architecting for structural flexibility across all system layers

Julian Lang Julian Lang · WWC 2024

3:29 min

Optimizing software architectures to minimize infrastructure resource drain

Hendrik Lösch Hendrik Lösch · WWC 2024

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