The KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA 2022 Event was one heck of an experience, loved each & every minute I spent at the event. Totally worth it. And In this blog, I want to share my experience at the KubeCon Event with you people. Hope it might help the people who want to know more about KubeCon and CloudNativeCon events. Before I get started, I want to thank Kunal Kushwaha and Community Classroom ( Currently rebranded as WeMakeDevs ) for helping me take part in this event.

How it all started...

Well, Honest I never knew anything about KubeCon or things related to it... I just heard the word here and there, But I wasn't aware of these events and stuff. And One day, I came across one of Kunal's posts which lead to his YouTube video:

So long story short, I applied for the scholarship. But I haven't gotten any email regarding it; until a few days before the event. And I'm glad that I check my emails even though I had exams the whole week.

Note :

My dear people, Please check your email at least twice or thrice a week.

You might miss out on amazing things for nothing.

I was overjoyed when I realized that I could attend the KubeCon. I and the people who took me seriously & applied for the scholarship got into KubeCon Virtually.

At the Beginning of the KubeCon Event

After successfully getting registered for the KubeCon, I was kinda a lost with the tons of keynotes and sessions being displayed below the registration portal which looks similar to the Co-Located Event Schedule in the Linux Foundation website.

I was confused, I tried going through them several times to understand them better but it was of no use... Then once again Kunal helped me understand the interface through another video:

I sooo thankful to Kunal for helping me and my friends make the most of the KubeCon sessions, and keynotes. As my exams came to an end, the KubeCon was about to begin. I was so excited the day I got the email with the link to the KubeCon-CloudNativeCon Portal.

Well, it didn't last long as I was lost again in understanding the interface and I don't know what to do. Unlike the last time ( when Kunal posted a video to help us out ), I was on my own... I spent lots of time trying to figure out the GUI of the portal and slowly I started to get a hang of it.

And after spending lots of time, I was able to navigate through various Keynotes & sessions and save the ones I find interesting into my Agenda for quicker access. And I was ready for the KubeCon at last...

My experience at KubeCon

I want to share many things with you because KubeCon is not a small event. it's one of the biggest events conducted all around the world, and many people from different countries take part in this event. If you even get a chance to attend the KubeCon In-person, I assure you it will be a memorable moment.

Since I value your time, I'm keeping this blog as short & simple as possible. I'm gonna mention only the key points ( that will guide you while taking part in any event ) and a synopsis of my experience. But believe me, there is more than what I want to share than what is down below.

Please note that I'm going to keep the technical stuff as abstract as possible, as I'm aiming to guide people who are just getting started and looking for some guidance.

Day 1 @ KubeCon

The KubeCon NA has begun on the 24th of October 2022. For the first few days, there weren't many virtual sessions that I could attend online. Even though it was a bit difficult to differentiate the In-person event from the hybrid ones & to figure out the right timings ( as the timing was w.r.t. US Eastern ), I managed to find a complimentary session hosted by Google Clouds.

The session was about building the future using Kubernetes, various speaker gave their presentation on how Kubernetes is going to evolve through periods and how it's gonna impact future technologies. It was quite an interesting session.

As I was listening to the session, my friends called me to help them navigate through the portal's interface. And as I was helping them out, the session ended. I can't blame them completely, I should have confirmed whether they were comfortable with the UI of the portal.

Day 2 @ KubeCon

As it's just the second day there weren't sessions. And I got an email from the CNCF team regarding the Reactive Summit virtual session. This session was about "Input, Processing, and Output (IPO) of Massive Metadata from Image Recognition", I thought why not join the session instead of shutting down for the day?

And just like yesterday, My friends called me again. Long story short, They didn't attend the session and they didn't let me attend the session properly.

But, I was happy that I was able to connect to Rudraksha Karpe through the Reactive Summit. We got connected through LinkedIn, Twitter, and WhatsApp. We attended together the day forth to the end of the KubeCon. He's a great guy.

Day 3 @ KubeCon

The 3rd of the KubeCon was the day that made me feel bad for being there In-Person. It was sooo mind-blowing 🤯🤯🤯... The Actual has begun this day.

Before the keynotes begin, a Few CloudNative maintainers discussed their experiences and the hardship ( like how they face issues managing the Open Source despite having Jobs and not having enough family time ) they face & how they overcome those hardships. The people who have attended in-person help the maintainer by contributing to the Open Source in many ways and one of them is by participating in Contribfest.

Fun Fact :

There are around 1000 maintainers who manage & maintain the Open Source Projects and the people who are contributing to these Open Source Projects are roughly 100 times the number of maintainers present.

And the number goes on when we talk about the end-users using a single Open Source Project.

Talking about the Keynotes and sessions. They are simplified and easily understandable sessions I ever came across. I attend a few keynotes related to DevOps, Cloud Native, managing Containers, Kubernetes, Open Source, GitOps, etc. Some startups like cruise came forward to share how they make use of Kubernetes to manage their clusters for their self-driving cars and also how they contribute to the Open Source which helped them

And unlike last time, I was not interrupted by my friends because I provided the link to the session instead of guiding them through the portal. And I did the same till the last day of the KubeCon as they are not as interested in it as I am.

Day 4 @ KubeCon

On Day 4 at KubeCon, many amazing people representing MNCs like Amazon, Apple, VMware, and Intel forth to share their experiences with Open Source. They shared things like how the Open source acts as the foundation of the company use case. They also shared how they're supporting the Open Source Community.

Apart from the company-specific support and stuff, they discussed many things like how they have improved Kubernetes in terms of security, docs, and stuff. The speaker also discussed how DevOps is not risk-free with a small demo of deploying a spider onto the rainbow and how the platform engineers are the heroes who save us while deploying complex things into the main production. And some insight on going serverless & how Open Source plays a main role in going serverless.

The speakers discussed many more interesting things and I have just shared a few for the time being... They also discussed communities and how open source will be the future of many upcoming startups and companies.

And At 1 pm IST, we attended Kunal's keynote about the mentee, mentors, and the relationship between them. It was quite an interesting session and I wanted to ask a question but sadly we can ask questions virtually... This was the second time I felt bad for not attending the KubeCon In-person.

By the way my questions were,

• Kunal, Can you share your experience when with your first mentor? and how did you approach him?

• Kunal, you have mentioned that we can get mentored through GitHub ( GitHub Discussion ), like through one of the Open Source Repo. Can you elaborate on the process/steps of "how can a beginner get his first mentor through GitHub"? with an example.

And Never Forget these words :

Being Beginner is the best Skill you can have.

Day 5 @ KubeCon

Day 5 A.K.A the last day of KubeCon. The last day was kinda magical... No, I really mean it. It was sooo magical that we have a Unicorn at KubeCon 😂😂😂. I really loved the 5th day's keynotes.

On day 5, all of the keynotes were focused more on different sections of production like the economical side, protocols, and standards. And also about how the Communities help the Open Sources and what we as developers can do to support the community.

and that 👆👆👆 was my favorite keynote among the other keynotes... Jeffrey and Bob are 2 best friends who grabbed everybody's attention by the way they presented at the keynote. They have compared some real-world examples like car assembly lines with automation, e.t.c,

and the keynote concluded by awarding the best of the best hardworking contributors and maintainers of Open source projects. I heartily congratulate all the winners who are the real heroes who have contributed so much to the Open Source Community.

Takeaway

That was my experience at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA 2022 (Virtual). You have seen my ups and down, the time I get super excited and the times I got annoyed by a few factors. So, What is the takeaway for this blog (or) my experience, to be specific. I'm gonna keep it simple and divide it into Do's and Don'ts.

Do's:

• Be a part of different communities that help you grow. If you're not part of WeMakeDev
• Be socially active and share your experience through it.
• Encourage your peers to take part in such events to get updated with the fastly growing tech world.
• Stay socially active, who knows you might find some good opportunities.
• Daily check your emails, you might miss out on great opportunities for nothing.
• Try to manage your schedule according to the timings of the events, because you know different timelines and stuff.
• If you're a beginner, take your time to adjust and get on the track. Don't worry if you don't understand everything in the session.
• Never be shy to approach people you meet at events, who knows he/she might be your best pal throughout your life. Also, be polite while coming to them.
• To make the best out of the session, choose the ones that interest you, and before you finalize do enough research to make sure it is the correct session for you.
• Make sure to make a small note. Just note down key points from which you can continue your journey in that tech stack.
• Try to get your hands dirty on the tech stack with the resources provided at the session. ( if any )
• Make use of what you have learned to help out other people, like how contributors help Open source, like how platform engineers help many developers deploy their commits into the production without a problem.
• Teach others what you have learned. Write some blogs, have a personal chat with your peers, post some articles, and spread awareness among your local community.

Don'ts:

• Don't waste your time on useless socials, focus more on useful socials.
• Never neglect your emails and messages.
• Try to figure things out on your own and choose to approach someone only as your last option.
• Don't annoy the person who's helping you out with all the updates. Learn to respect their time.
• Plan your day at least a week before an event starts.
• ( For virtual attendees ) Don't spoil your sleeping schedule for an event, the recording of the event will be available for most of the event in its portal for a period of time.
• ( For in-person attendees ) Make sure you reach home safely even if costs, I'm saying this due to a few events that occurred at the end of some x-day session of Kubecon NA 2022.

Conclusion

I really had lots of fun learning from this event. I loved every minute I spend at the event virtually. I also met up with Rudraksha through this event. I'm blown by the way, how many people put soo much into this event. The keynotes and sessions are available to this day, it helped me to review the concept I came across in this event. Being a part of this event made me realize how important is Open Source and I swore to learn not for the sake of a job but to help such an amazing community grow and help even more people. Once again, I thank Kunal Kushwaha and Community Classroom ( Currently rebranded as WeMakeDevs ).

If you made till this far, I really want to thank you for spending your time to go through my experience. Hope you find it helpful. Thank you, and have a nice day...