Amsterdam is undoubtedly in bloom with Tulips during this time of year, and it’s no surprise that this year’s theme at KubeCon Europe 2023 was community in bloom.
This year, I attended my first in-person KubeCon + CloudNativeCon in Amsterdam, Netherlands, under the generous Dan Kohn scholarship by CNCF and Linux Foundation. In this blog, I will give glimpses of my experiences at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe. These would be paired with some of my learnings from the conference, which might help you too!
This year’s KubeCon was the largest in Europe ever, with more than 10,000 in-person attendees, more than 2,000 on the waitlist, and more than 5,000 attending virtually, mind-blowing numbers, right?
For those unfamiliar, KubeCon + CloudNativeCon is also one of the largest conferences in the world where developers and companies excited about or adopting Cloud Native gather and discuss new ideas. KubeCon is a five-day conference comprising co-located events, technical and non-technical talks, networking sessions, interactive activities, parties, and more. Whether virtual or in-person, you should expect five days packed with learning, networking, and much fun.
A day before KubeCon, I got a chance to visit Google’s Amsterdam office and meet Thanos & Prometheus community friends. It was super exciting to meet my GSoC mentor, Bartek, after knowing him for almost two years. Missed Kemal, though.
My Key observations in this KubeCon were:
- There was an increased focus on platform engineering.
- Best practices were highly discussed to thrive in an open community.
- Buzz around WebAssembly (WASM) and eBPF are real.
The Platform Engineering Focus
Platform engineering is gaining traction within the larger Kubernetes community. “Kubernetes isn’t a platform, but a platform upon which to build your platforms” is an accurate quote and an idea starting to build a lot of steam.
Kubernetes, by design, requires a few additional tools to help engineers interact with it better. By itself, Kubernetes can provide a lot of functionality, but to make it entirely usable, it needs several software components installed beside it.
This keynote titled “Is Kubernetes Delivering on its Promise? A Platform Engineering Perspective” by Aparna Subramanian, a Program Chair for the conference, drives home the point of having Kubernetes as a part of the platform strategy at most organizations. It asks the key questions ― “What problem has the technology solved, and what additional problems did it create”? This represents a moment of rare retrospection in the lifecycle of a technology.
Gardens, Glaciers, And The Growing Need For Preserving Knowledge
Yet another well-received talk at this year’s KubeCon was delivered by Emily Fox from Apple, who is also a Program Chair. “Gardens and Glaciers: Saving Knowledge Through Succession” tells the tale of how to design for continuity in the community. In her talk, Emily identifies several important ways to keep a community growing – in every sense of the word. The essence of her talk was to preserve and transfer information in order to allow upcoming adopters of technology to be successful.
Made new connections.
During Kubecon, I had the opportunity to meet and connect with numerous individuals I had previously collaborated with remotely, including various contributors from the Kubernetes, Thanos, and Kyverno communities. Including folks like Patrik Ohly and Jim Bugwadia.
I look forward to attending and speaking at future KubeCon(s) and other CNCF conferences.
See you 👋