Well, the last week has been a whirlwind as I was fortunate to attend KubeCon + CloudNativeCon in Salt Lake City, Utah. Being based in New Zealand means we have few choices for conferences, so being able to attend KubeCon for the first time was a real eye opener.

Flying into Salt Lake City after 27 hours of travel from New Zealand, the snowcapped peaks of the Wasatch Mountains were a real treat. And especially having a few days of snow which we never get in Auckland was the icing on the cake.

Tuesday was Azure Day for me, as I attended the co-located Azure Event focused on all things AKS (Azure Kubernetes Service). Getting to meet a lot of the Microsoft Azure Team as well as other like-minded users of AKS setup the week nicely for me. Microsoft has Ignite, their flagship conference, running the week after KubeCon, so while there were lots of new features announced, a lot was “check with Ignite next week”, which I didn’t mind at all. The benefit was getting to chat with the AKS team and other folks from Microsoft.

After that, it was off to another Co-Located Event, ArgoCon. Having not been an ArgoCD user in anger, this was a great way to dive deeper into all things Argo and sit in on some talks about how companies use it (and how you shouldn’t use it!).

The first day of KubeCon was on the Wednesday. It was at this point the scale of KubeCon really hit me as the Salt Palace Convention Center is massive. First, it was the KeyNote, which also takes place every day with different topics and is well worth going along too.

After the KeyNote each day the main Solutions Showcase opens up. This was the biggest surprise for me, as in every conference I have been to in the past, the Showcase is secondary to the sessions and talks. So prior to the first day, I had my schedule planned out going to as many talks and sessions as I could, with an hour a day to wander the showcase.

This was flipped on its head on Day 1 for me. The show floor was massive, and while yes there was lots of swag to collect (my 2nd checked bag came in handy here), it was the chats at each booth that was the highlight for me. Being from New Zealand it’s hard to get exposure to the wider CloudNative Community as there just isn’t the scale back in NZ. So going to all these booths and talking with vendors about products I had never heard of and seeing what is out there in the CloudNative landscape was my highlight.

My packed schedule of sessions ended up being only 3 sessions for the entire week!?! The rest of the time was spent on the Solutions Showcase floor talking with people at booths, chatting with people in the hallway track or just getting pulled into random conversations at lunch. I would say if you do go to KubeCon in the future, focus on the Showcase as well, the sessions are recorded to watch later. My mind really was blown by what’s out there and what people are doing in CloudNative. I made a lot of professional contacts over the 3 days and have several meetings already lined up for when I am back, to help in my current role, so I’m excited for what lies ahead CloudNative wise.

So in summary, KubeCon was great! If you get the chance to go, take it! You’ll learn a tonne, be exposed to ways of doing things you may never have thought of, meet lots of like-minded people…..and massively add to your step count for the week!

Andy