Hey everyone, finally I am going to share my Kubecon + CloudNativecon, North America experience which was organized in Detroit MI. Buckle up! and let's travel back in time.
And yes! it was one of the best decisions, I have ever taken in my life. Applying for the Dan Kohn scholarship to attend Kubecon North America turned out to be a great learning opportunity for me.
How did I come to know about KubeCon + CloudNativecon?
It's quite a long journey. I have been watching people attending conferences, applying for CFPs, and getting collaboration opportunities with like-minded people since my freshmen year of college. Being a tier 3 college student in India, I could never get to collaborate, learn and work with such awesome geeks out there.
I was waiting all time for a similar opportunity. I have been following Kunal Kushwaha and his awesome Community Classroom initiative from there only I came to know about this opportunity. I am grateful for the efforts taken by the community to make awareness among people about great opportunities across the globe.
I am pretty much familiar with open source, thanks to the awesome Hactoberfest community, and just a beginner in the CNCF (Cloud Native and Computing Foundation) world. I was only aware of Kubernetes as it's donated to CNCF by Google before attending Kubecon. But attending Kubecon changed my complete perspective and opened a new window of opportunities for me.
What are Kubecon and CNCF?
Kubecon is a Cloud Native Computing Foundation's flagship conference that gathers adopters and technologists from leading open-source and cloud-native communities. Coming to CNCF, was founded back in 2015 with the project Kubernetes which was donated by Google.
It's a Linux foundation project to help advance container technology. CNCF was started and led by the late Dan Kohn after whom the Kubecon + CloudNativeCon scholarship is named. This scholarship supports individuals who may not afford to attend the conference due to financial reasons. Fortunately, the one I got is a virtual attendee under the student category. Particularly, there are three categories as diversity, need-based, and student. You can learn more about them on the official site.
Getting ready to attend Kubecon + CloudNavtivecon
When I received mail for my selection as a virtual attendee for Kubecon North America, there were no bounds to my happiness and curiosity to attend this flagship conference. Even though it was a virtual opportunity I was more than ready to get the most out of it. I started exploring more to get as much as possible out of Kubecon as an attendee.
Kubecon NA was a conference of 5 days including co-located events and Keynotes, first two days were co-located events and the next 3 days were Keynotes. In addition to that for the people attending in person, it started 1 day prior with Badge pick-up and vaccination checkups. As a virtual attendee, I'd recommend people, especially those who are attending Kubecon virtually to go thoroughly through the schedule of programs and different tracks available. The very first thing you can do is to convert the schedule into your respective time zone in my case I converted it to IST, by default it is provided as EST i.e. US Eastern time zone.
The schedule can be built using sached.com or directly in MeetingPlay which is the platform where Kubecon will be streamed for Virtual Attendees. If you keep the same mail address to make your schedule on sached.com, all sessions saved there will be automatically transferred to MeetingPlay as your agenda. Last but not the least, don't forget to join the slack channel. There's a high chance for someone like me who's attending for the first time to get lost with tons of tracks and sessions going at the same time, you might unable to pick the best one cuz there are multiple good ones going on at the same time, so you need to pick the one which lies with your interests. This is how I was all set to attend Kubecon virtually! Let's start with Day 1.
Co-located events
Day 1 | October 24, 2022 | Monday
On the very first day as there were only Co-located events available. I chose the eBPF Day Hosted by CNCF which the eBPF Foundation sponsored as Livestream. Where the eBPF stands for extended Berkeley Packet Filter. It's more like a virtual machine that is tailored to filter packets that are sent over the userspace for analysis.
In this session some of the important topics like Open Telemetry or eBPF? like broad questions were answered, I was not getting much out of the presentations and system architectures as a beginner but I was attending sessions and making notes simultaneously.
Securing CI/CD systems by Alex IIgayevm from Cycode attracted my attention as I was aware of the CI/CD pipelines from my past experiences in implementing them with my personal projects on GitHub. I learned some crucial lessons on building system observability, connecting domains, and demonstrating abilities on GitHub Actions and its adaptability with other CI systems.
Who Needs an API Server to debug a Kubernetes Cluster by Jose Blanquicet from Microsoft covered the broad aspects of debugging through an API server and introduced the audience to the Local Gadget project as the best method to debug it through an API server. As it was my very first day attending international conferences things were quite overwhelming, previously I attended IEEE conferences but Kubecon is way beyond anything I ever did.
Day 2 | October 25, 2022 | Tuesday
My day 2 started off with checking through the list of co-located events. I have already kept Red Hat OpenShift Commons on my agenda. The reactive summit hosted by Linux Foundation was one of the live-streamed co-located events that registered simultaneously. Both of these events were going on during the same time, so I had to choose one. I went for Red Hat Openshift Commons although I wasn't aware of both of them Red Hat seemed interesting, and later I could watch the Reactive Summit on YT. For future attendees, you can pick the one which you find interesting and insightful, and later on, all the Co-located events will be made available on the CNCF YouTube channel within the next 24-48 Hrs.
Insights from Red Hat OpenShift Commons:
Today's experiment in open source is tomorrow's disruption for the enterprise!
This quote from OpenShift Commons presentation touches my heart, and surely it does! It motivates me to get more involved in open source as well as communities and learn in the process.
Red Hat is growing and developing emerging technologies on a mission to develop pipelines for AI applications, providing end-end software supply-chain security. Best practices for using various computation architectures to create a more competent ecosystem. The session provided me with deep clarity on working with computational architectures. In addition to that best SRE community practices were also shared. There was an announcement at the end of the Commons for a new community by Red Hat which is going to be complex and out of the box.
I could also get to attend some initial sessions of the Reactive Summit on the same day before the start of Red Hat OpenShift Common's live stream. Note for future virtual attendees, you'll have to attend these co-located on a different portal, it won't be streamed on the MeetingPlay. You better not get confused and register yourself for these sessions on their respective portal and try to get the most out of it.
The very first session was focused on developing a responsive system, these systems keep on running when everything breaks.
Overall, I could understand that the Reactive summit was about developing a sustainable system for difficult situations.
Next to that Mary Grygleski who is a Java Champion walked onto the stage, she started by sharing her experience with IBM and her relationship with Reactive.
This was the end of my day 2 and the co-located events. I was too much excited for the next day and the Keynote sessions.
Keynote Sessions
Day 3 | October 26, 2022 | Wednesday
It started as a Keynote with a warm welcome and opening remarks by Priyanka Sharma, Executive Director, CNCF. The Initial part of the keynote showed various partners with diamond and silver categories. Afterward, there was an exciting announcement on the launch of the Instagram account of CNCF. Priyanka shared this announcement by posting a story from the newly launched Instagram account with Phippy!
Further, she explained challenges in front of CNCF and overall resilience. The total number of contributors by the date of Kubecon to CNCF was 176, 362 across 172 projects was astonishing and gave me a solid feeling to learn and contribute to this community. She addressed maintainers, who're making decisions in the major CNCF projects
While addressing maintainers she called them as future of CNCF projects and let the audience know the importance of maintainers in the ecosystem who are truly holding up the CNCF.
Some maintainers like Yuan Tang and Heba Elayoty were called on stage and asked to share their experiences while working in the community.
Priyanka told the audience about the workload and the number of hours usually spend on a release of Kubernetes which is 25+ hours/week this is definitely so much dedication and effort by the contributors and maintainers towards open source, with this blood, sweat, and tear given by contributors to the community, she appreciated and thanked them on behalf of CNCF. In addition to that, the challenges faced by contributors such as not getting enough support from the employer and many more with life were adored by her. On her ending note, she mentions the future programs by CNCF and supports by Microsoft to CNCF upstream. The announcement for the ContribFest was made at the same time, which is a completely beginner-friendly program for new contributors, I couldn't attend it as it was in-person only. I wish I could join it in person, perhaps someday 🤞. There was also an initiative for maintainers for their Phycological safety as project TallPoppy, this is why I love this community so much, they care about you and your health. This totally improved my desire to be part of this community inside me.
Next to that, Emilee Fox from Apple arrived on stage with an exciting announcement on Kubernetes as well as Kubernetes requires a GitOps mindset session was also there by Shatarupa Nandi from VM ware, who mentioned challenges faced on the production journey. I could connect with all these awesome people via the slack channel. Connecting and interacting with people on slack was one of the best parts of attending virtually, I could never get to walk into the dorm with these open sorcerors so I tried my best on slack. Honestly, it created ways for making new connections and opportunities.
CNCF always showed support for the Ukrainian people. Some contributors from there were at Kubecon and they shared the stage addressing the hardship faced by them and the country. There, I came to know about companies like Grammarly, GitLab, and many more that were founded by the Ukrainians. Despite hard-time, they're doing their best for the community and open-source projects.
At the end of their session, an announcement was made on the translation of the Linux Foundation courses to the Ukrainian Language later this year. During this part of Kubecon, I could feel deep empathy for the contributors of Ukraine and this helped me know how hard it can be to sustain such large-scale software and the true meaning of blood, sweat, and tears by the contributors to the community.
For donations, you can use the QR code and help the Ukrainian community sustain and grow.
Later, Ayse Kaya who's head of strategic and professional data scientist shared her experiences with container technology in the software development process. she also strategically compared the containers with biological systems which were a great example to understand how the systems works. I personally loved the way she kept on explaining about the technology.
Thus, the closing remarks were given by Ricardo Rocha, Computing Engineer at CERN. By now, I was fully enlightened with the knowledge and realized the importance of community.
This is all about the keynote later on the same day, I could attend Paradox of choice and pick an application definition co-located event with that I called it a day.
Day 4 | October 27, 2022 | Thrusday
Day 4 was the continued part of the Keynote started with Emily Fox's session where she addressed the new release of Kubernetes this session gave more clarity about the projects involved in the CNCF and the different levels of the projects.
Where the lowest level is the sandbox. Here, the projects get into CNCF with an easy way by submitting a proposal and thorugh the review process by the committee. The next level is incubation, this level involves the projects which are starting to demonstrate that they are being adopted by the end users, where more than one company is contributing to the projects, and these projects always with a better security model.
and the highest level is the graduated level. These projects are the most trusted, and more reliable where CNCF can make sure users that can safely use these projects in their production and go live. You can always find mature operations and diversified communities with graduated projects like Kubernetes, HELM, ContainerD, Envoy, Fluentd, Prometheus, etc.
In addition to that, there was an announcement on new sandbox projects, the entire process will be carried out on GitHub, you can learn more about it on CNCF.
On the same day I attended the best session I'd call of the entire Kubecon which was the Mentee mentor relationship, I can't appreciate enough this session with Kunal Kushwaha and Mark boost.
Some of the pointers from Kunal Kushwaha's perspective while being a mentee. Kunal shared, we should always respect our mentor and shouldn't be late in the process. The mentee should make allowances for Metnor's busy schedule.
He mentioned a two-way relationship approach where mentees should contribute, and follow people on socials with whom they see as their future Mentors. Ask for help with authentic work and always be polite and respectful to your mentor. As a mentee, you should create an environment for honest and constructive feedback according to him. This is so true and this session is going to help me a lot in my upcoming endeavors while applying for upcoming open-source programs.
Being Mentor and CEO at Civo, Mark Boost shared some of his experiences, A mentor should try to be as friendly as possible with mentees. They should get to know about mentees and their backgrounds, and try to understand their goals. As a mentor, you should be able to provide constructive feedback and help the mentee grow. A mentor should be able to provide a safe space for mentees to grow and learn as well as the opportunity to ask questions or even challenge the mentor.
There is always a chance for a mentor to learn from the mentee, you shouldn't miss this, Mark said. Last but not least you should have fun without making the process too structured.
You can check my Notion Page for thorough notes on the Mentee Mentor relationship by Kunal and Mark.
This session was really incredible and gave insights into, what a mentee should look for in a mentor.
Day 5 | October 28, 2022 | Friday
Day 5, the last day of Kubecon, started with a Keynote session by Frederick Kautz
He started by explaining the concept of Emergence and how it is related to Kubernetes other CNCF projects. Emergence is the process of how the system is formed from the interactions of the parts. He mentioned that Kubernetes is a system of systems. and the process goes on depending on the interactions of the parts.
On this ending note, he told about the future of CNCF and mentioned it's more than just how to deploy!
Next to that, John Mello from Prisma Cloud shared Cloud Security Market Drivers Trends and Challenges. He mentioned the challenges faced by cloud security and how to overcome them. He also said the future of cloud security and how it is going to be in the future with CNCF and Kubernetes.
The best part of the day was a session by Emily Fox, on how to become an open-source mechanic. She mentioned the major reasons for the fallback of open-source projects and how to overcome them. She also mentioned the best practices to follow while contributing to open-source projects. she also mentioned,
Contribution is the fuel to the open source
This is undoubtedly true, there's no open source without contribution. Later she explained about finding a community that is definitely not going to pop on on its own. You have to find it and get started with it. She mentioned the best way to find a community's do's and don'ts in the process.
Community awards 2022
The community is the most valuable project
with that said awards like Top Documentarian, committer(maintainer), Chop Wood Carry Water, and Bug Bash were given. There was a tie between Catherine Paganini and Rey Lejano for the top Documentarian award in 2022. Carolyn Van Slyck was named as the Top committer/maintainer for 2022. The chopped wood and carry water award is given to those who work in a community other than direct contribution to projects but improving the build and security-like work, this awesome award was given to Adolfo Veytia, Xing Yang, Alex Chircop, Patrick Ohly, and Catherine Paganini.
In the end, closing remarks were given by Ricardo Rocha, Emily Fox, and Fredrick Kautz showing gratitude towards the community and announcement for the upcoming Kubecons.
My thoughts and ending remarks:
I am grateful to the community for helping me explore the CNCF universe. As an Indian, the whole conference was going on during Diwali. I'd say Kubecon made my Diwali special and enlightened new opportunities in my life. Today, when I see those CNCF projects' repositories, unlike before things are not unfamiliar. Not everything but I know at least something about them. I am looking forward to the next Kubecon may be in person! :)