This year's KubeCon, held in France, felt notably larger than last year's event in Amsterdam, boasting over 12,000 attendees! The venue itself was a three-floored cube. While impressive, navigating it was a challenge. I found myself lost countless times trying to locate specific talks, as every side looked identical. Despite its impressiveness, I must admit, I preferred Amsterdam's layout.
Both Stephen and I had the privilege of being speakers this year, (our journey of preparing and experiencing this will be detailed in a forthcoming blog post from Stephen), which granted us access to the co-located events hosted the day before KubeCon started. These turned out to be the highlight of the conference for me as these talks are more tailored to specific tools or solutions, offering deeper technical insights. I highly recommend attending these events next year if you have the chance, it's an invaluable opportunity.
If you are currently using any of the ArgoCD projects, Zach Aller & Michael Crenshaw's talk is a must-watch. Tackling GitOps in a multi-environment setup can be quite the challenge. As environments and requirements expand, so do the complexity of workflows. Their proposal (https://www.youtube.com/watch?...) to leverage pull requests as part of the solution to GitOps challenges is definitely something to check out.
Kicking off my KubeCon journey, I headed straight into attending the session "10 Years of Kubernetes Pattern Evolution." The room was flooded with attendees, with people lining up outside of the room fingers crossed for a chance to squeeze in. The co-presenters who happen to be the authors of the book "Kubernetes Patterns – Reusable Elements for Designing Cloud Native Applications" dove into various patterns that have shaped the Kubernetes landscape over the past decade. Thanks to a sponsorship from Red Hat, you can now get the entire book for free at https://k8spatterns.com.
One of the highlights for me of KubeCon was the opportunity to connect face-to-face with the vendors behind the software we rely on. Being able to share our experiences with them and hear about their roadmap firsthand was incredibly valuable. There's something about meeting in person, it adds depth and clarity to our interactions. Here's to more meaningful connections and insights at future KubeCons!
The event itself had a familiar and welcoming atmosphere, with a fantastic vibe throughout. Connecting with other engineers and chatting about problem-solving in different setups was really eye-opening and comforting. It's nice to know we're not alone in our challenges and that others are finding solutions in similar ways. It's like a little boost of confidence that we're doing things right.
Interesting fact we heard, is that 60% of the attendees were experiencing KubeCon for the first time. Perhaps that's why many of the talks tended to lean towards the beginner level. While this is undoubtedly helpful for newcomers, we found ourselves hoping for a more balanced mix of beginner and advanced topics.
KubeCon itself was great to experience again this year! It's so fascinating to see how different organizations tackle similar issues. I always leave with a bunch of new ideas and feeling super inspired. Can't wait for the next one!