I got a new set of knives the other day. I do most of the cooking in our house, so it was a welcome addition. But I wasn’t ready for how much sharper the blade was, compared to my older ones. A few band-aids later, I refined my technique accordingly, and finished preparing a tasty dinner. That evening reminded me of how the worlds of enterprise IT and open source software often interact: painfully. When you don’t anticipate sharp edges, or don’t go about things properly, things get messy.
It’s a noble cause to make this interaction less painful. That’s why I appreciate the Cloud Foundry Foundation. It strives be a one-stop shop for those that simply want to use the best open source tech when it’s ready for prime time. Kubernetes, Istio, and Envoy are a big part of where the Foundation focuses these days. And you can argue that the Cloud Foundry community has done more for .NET Core than anyone outside of Redmond.
This matters because today’s market leaders harness the power of open source better than their competition.
Which brings us to Cloud Foundry Summit, happening April 2-4, in Philadelphia. You should attend this event because it’s a useful open source benchmark. Hear from your peers on stage, then compare your experiences and outcomes with other attendees. Most importantly, everyone learns from each other!
Let’s take a spin through the agenda, and highlight a few talks that will be worth your while. I’ve organized the preview by role, because Cloud Foundry Summit has something for everyone.
For the Executive That’s Under Pressure to Move Faster
Think your industry is tough? The firms giving keynotes are battling cable-cutters, fintech startups, and that one big online retailer. You’re going to want to listen to what Comcast, Charles Schwab, DICK’S Sporting Goods, Liberty Mutual, and others have to say.
- Keynote: Fireside Chat with Rick Rioboli, SVP & CIO; Comcast, Nithya Ruff, Sr. Director, Open Source Practice, Comcast & Mike Crisafulli, SVP, Platform & Product Services, Comcast
- Keynote: Doug Coleman, Senior Managing Director Cloud Engineering and Operations, Charles Schwab
- Keynote: User Panel – Matti Maier, c-Com GmbH; Jay Piskorik, DICK’S Sporting Goods; Jai Schniepp, Liberty Mutual and Moderated by Frederic Lardinois, TechCrunc
As these stories sink in, you’ll want some sense of what this Cloud Foundry thing is all about. There’s no better session for that than a deep-dive on all the apps that Cloud Foundry is fit to run. You’ll be pleasantly surprised to find that your entire enterprise app portfolio can run (and run well) on Cloud Foundry. That’s music to the ears of the executive that’s feeling a little stressed.
For the Cautiously Optimistic IT Ops Pro
We’ve all read about those organizations that run a hefty amount of applications at scale with a small team of ops pros. I love success stories like this. But what’s almost always more interesting is how they got there.
In this session, Stephanie Mathis from State Farm offers some real talk about what this journey is actually like. She’ll also tell you how to sidestep the biggest obstacles you’re likely to face. Learn from the experience of your peers, and accelerate your path to better business outcomes!
(For the record, your optimism is warranted. Talks like this confirm that you can use automation and a modern platform to scale the impact of a small ops team.)
For the Velocity-Minded Developer
I’ll admit – I struggled to find a talk to bubble up here. After all, the promise of Cloud Foundry is deftly summed up as cf push. You just push your code to the platform, and then get on with the next thing in your backlog.
But blue-green deployments are moments of truth for the developer. Does your new thing work properly? Did something unexpected happen? And as you move to deploying daily, how do you automate this analysis?
The Cloud Foundry community has worked to build a slick integration with Spinnaker, a popular continuous delivery tool. Go to this talk, and learn how to boost velocity and reliability of your code!
For Windows SysAdmins (Yes, You Read that Right)
Windows Server is the most pervasive piece of enterprise tech that no one talks about. The good folks at Microsoft have been working hard to bring Windows Server containers to market. Cloud Foundry Summit is a surprisingly great place to hear about how big organizations (like NASDAQ) are running fleets of Windows Servers at scale. The world of immutable infrastructure has come to the Windows world at long last!
For the .NET Developer Looking to Bring Their Apps Into the Cloud Native Era
There’s never been a better time to be a .NET developer. Now is the time to dust off those crusty old .NET Framework apps, and think about how you begin modernizing them with patterns like Steeltoe.
This deep-dive is tailored to the .NET development team looking for a pragmatic playbook to go from quarterly releases to a daily release model. You won’t find a better end-to-end look at the modern .NET development toolchain anywhere else!
For the InfoSec Pro That Wants to Reduce the Attack Surface of Their Systems
So you are just starting to get your head around all this Kubernetes stuff. Now projects like Istio and Envoy blaze onto the scene. These things are popular for a good reason. But it’s OK to be asking “how the heck do I use these things responsibly?” Sure, the Twitterati will tell you if you’re not already using a service mesh, you’re a lost cause. But that’s simply not the case.
So let’s talk about some actually useful ways to implement a service mesh: to tackle single sign-on, and to control authentication and authorization across your services.
See You in Philly
So let’s gather in Philadelphia, and learn how to more effectively use industrialized open source. And make sure to leave the sharp knives at home—TSA won’t let you on the plane if you bring them with you. Register for Summit today.
