My Adventure at KubeConEU 2024

Well well well, it looks like I made it back from another epic KubeCon + CloudNativeCon adventure in Paris, France! This conference was non-stop learning, networking and fun as always. I'm here to share my adventure, hoping to bring you along for the ride, at least in spirit.

Before the Conference Officially Starts

My KubeCon journey kicked off a bit early at Rejekts on Monday, a fantastic event that happens right before the main event (keep an eye out for my upcoming Rejekts video on YouTube). It's a place where you can catch some really interesting talks and chat with folks you might not have the opportunity to talk to during the bigger conference. Michael Cade and Anais Urlichs talked about data protection and data recovery - The Bang! - When bad things happen to your data - you can watch all Rejekts Day 2 talks here.

Although I didn't get the fancier KubeCon ticket that lets you into the co-located talks, on Tuesday I went over to the conference venue early to pick up my badge and ended up meeting a bunch of people hanging around there. The best part of my day was seeing all the KubeCon lanyards with the Veeam logo.

There was a Happy Hour organized for the KCD organizers and community meetup organizers. It was the first time I saw the other NYC KCD organizers!

Day 1: Jumping Right In

I was staying a bit far from where KubeCon was happening (and closer to Rejekts), so I got up super early, hopped on the subway, and moved to a hotel closer to the action. After checking in and dropping off my bags, I joined the CNCF Ambassadors for breakfast. It's something I really look forward to because it's a chill way to meet other ambassadors and chat without the hustle and bustle of the conference. Then, we all headed over to the opening keynote together.

Every day of KubeCon starts with Keynotes. The keynotes are always held in a big hall, and it's a nice way to start the day. Priyanka Sharma, the CNCF head always opens the keynote on the first day. She went into some detail about running an LLM (Large Language Model) on Kubernetes and showed a few mechanics that are used in it. If you want to try it our for yourself, the demo project was: https://github.com/cncf/llm-in-action.

Also, some technologies that were named were:

• Mistral.ai A company that builds some LLM models (with Timothee Lacroix on stage)

• Ollama Tooling to run LLM's. Don't know if it has a model already built in, but yes, I should look into this. By the way, they have the cutest Logo of a Lama 😍. (with Jeffrey Morgan on stage)

• Google Deepmind, the team behind Gemini and working on generative AI. (with Paige Bailey on stage)

After that... to be honest... I lost interest a bit and quickly went to search for coffee. Because... coffee is a hard requirement for me running around on a day like this.

After that I went to the show floor, because I was a sponsor I could get in earlier and wanted to see if anyone at Veeam needed some help. Once the show floor opened I went to the project pavilion just next to our booth to talk to some project maintainers. It's crazy how the sponsor's booths get on day 1, everyone wants swag so there's always a huge line to talk to those companies.

Lunch was grab-and-go bags, which were okay, but not great (with a selection of poultry, beef, fish, or vegetarian lunch items).

A highlight of my day was getting three books signed by my good friends Aurélie Vache, Mauricio Salatino, and Chad M. Crowell.

At the end of the day I went to a party hosted by Veeam, Red Hat, and Nutanix at the Mama Shelter Hotel (the one I was staying at) so it was perfect for me. Didn't stay until late cause I knew I had day 2 coming up.

Day 2: More Discoveries

Second day I woke up around 7:30 and took the time to stop by a boulangerie (french bakery) to have some freshly baked croissants (it's a must in France... if you don't eat a croissant in the morning the police will come and talk with you to see what's up).

After the Keynote, the talks started and you could schedule them ahead so you don't get lost to what's next. The Sched platform is great for that. You can leave checks on the events you think are interesting and can filter your view to show only those. I usually select a few in the same time slot and decide between those just before the events.

I got my KubeCon t-shirt and because I'm a CNCF ambassador I got a voucher to spend some $$ at the CNCF store so I bought a few items. I went to a few booths, got a few pairs of socks, and entered to win some raffles (but do you think I ever win anything like that? NO.)

At the end of the day I left earlier at 3 PM to head to the Eiffel Tower to do a Veeam live stream with Matt Bator to talk about KubeCon, you can check it out here. After that started a party there and I stayed having some AMAZING food.

Day 3: Wrapping Up

On Wednesday I went again to the keynote that Chris Aniszczyk (CNCF CTO) opened. And believe it or not, he showed a tweet that I had posted the day before on his main slide!! I couldn't believe my eyes! He was talking about a new program Kubestronaut, for people who have passed the CKA, CKAD, CKS, KCNA and KCSA to join this program and win a jacket. He also mentioned the 10-year Kubernetes anniversary the #kuberTENes read more here. And the contributor cards, check yours here

I took time to meet with the people I hadn't met the previous days but most people had left already or were leaving. The show floor closed at 2:30 PM. After that, I went for lunch with some Brazilian friends to a French brasserie and stayed there until 11 PM!

Key Takeaways

📈 Huge Growth and Strong Community

• Kubernetes has a huge community, with a 190k member Slack group and over 3.2k people actively contributing on Github.
• There are more than 100 official Kubernetes versions and over 200,000 people certified to use Kubernetes!

🎯 What's Next:

• As Kubernetes approaches its 10th year, experts think the next big focuses will be on AI, making things eco-friendly, improving security, and working on edge computing.

👫 Working Together for the Future:

• There’s a big push to listen to what users need and want, making sure Kubernetes keeps improving in the right ways.

🏳️‍🌈 Making a Welcoming Community:

• Talks emphasized making sure everyone, no matter their background, feels included. An interesting fact I learned is that sign language is different around the world.

💹 Tech and Innovations:

• AI and machine learning on Kubernetes were big topics, with special efforts like Dynamic Resource Allocation (DRA) making it easier to manage resources, especially for apps that need a lot of power, like those using GPUs.
• A new project called Spin is exciting because it can greatly reduce how much memory apps use (from 423 MB down to just 2.4 MB!).
• Contributions to upstream repositories and the strategic use of labels for project tracking were highlighted a lot, underscoring the community's commitment to open-source collaboration.
• There’s a lot of excitement about Observability (Open Telemetry) and eBPF technology, with a tool called Cilium standing out as really promising, even for complex network tasks like service mesh.

🌐 Platform Engineering:

• Treating platforms as products is becoming popular, with success stories from Spotify to Natwest Bank. This includes applying a product mindset to all levels, including portals and infrastructure.
• Highlighting the value of developer experience remains a challenge, especially to leadership. Utilizing DORA/SPACE metrics and promoting cross-organizational collaboration are suggested strategies.
• Mature technologies like Kubernetes and CI/CD are now seen as "boring tech," with the real challenge lying in integrating these technologies seamlessly.
• AI's impact on platform engineering is still minimal, focusing more on orchestration and lifecycle management. Portals designed with a product mindset can significantly enhance value, emphasizing jobs to be done and factors like viability and usability.

Reflecting on KubeCon + CloudNativeCon in Paris, it was more than just a conference. It was a fantastic blend of learning new things, making connections, and experiencing the vibrant energy of a global community. Until the next conference call, I'll be here, sifting through the knowledge gained and the memories made, eager for the next adventure!

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