What Is KubeCon?
KubeCon, now known as “Kubecon + CloudNativeCon”, is a conference dedicated to Kubernetes and cloud-native computing. Organized by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), it has become a hub for developers, IT professionals, and enterprises to converge and share innovations related to Kubernetes. The conference features various sessions, from technical talks and workshops to keynote speeches by industry leaders.
The event also promotes collaboration among the open-source community. Attendees include a diverse group of stakeholders, ranging from developers and sysadmins to C-level executives, all interested in the technological and strategic aspects of Kubernetes and related technologies. KubeCon acts as a networking platform that fosters partnerships and knowledge exchange.
Venue and Schedule for KubeCon NA 2024
KubeCon NA 2024 will take place from November 12 to November 15 in Salt Lake City, Utah, offering a packed schedule for cloud-native enthusiasts and professionals. The event spans four days, filled with technical talks, workshops, and networking opportunities.
Here is the schedule in brief:
- Tuesday, November 12: The event kicks off with co-located events and lightning talks, running from 8:00 AM to 6:30 PM. These sessions provide participants with early insights into specific cloud-native topics.
- Wednesday, November 13: The main conference activities begin with keynote sessions starting at 9:00 AM, followed by breakout sessions and the Solutions Showcase, which runs until 6:00 PM. After the formal sessions, attendees can participate in networking events like KubeCrawl and CloudNativeFest from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM.
- Thursday, November 14: The format mirrors Wednesday, with keynotes, breakouts, and the Solutions Showcase running from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM.
- Friday, November 15: The final day continues with keynotes, breakout sessions, and the Solutions Showcase from 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM.
See the full list of sessions here.
What Can You Expect in KubeCon?
At KubeCon, attendees can expect a diverse range of content tailored to both beginners and experts in the cloud-native space. The event is renowned for its keynote speeches, where thought leaders present insights on current trends and future directions in Kubernetes. Additionally, technical sessions provide deep dives into specific challenges and solutions, enhancing participants’ understanding of the Kubernetes ecosystem.
Keynote Speeches
Keynote speeches at KubeCon set the tone for innovation and strategic insights in the Kubernetes landscape. Visionaries from leading organizations share their experiences, challenges, and predictions, offering a macro view of where cloud-native technologies are headed. These speeches often highlight success stories, industry shifts, and forecasts.
Moreover, keynote speeches often include announcements of significant developments and initiatives within CNCF and the wider cloud-native community. These talks equip attendees with actionable insights and strategic knowledge to apply within their organizations.
Technical Sessions
Technical sessions at KubeCon are curated to cover a wide array of topics relevant to Kubernetes and cloud-native technologies. These sessions provide in-depth exploration into specific technologies, enabling participants to gain valuable insights and hands-on skills. Speakers, often industry experts or experienced developers, delve into complex challenges and innovative solutions related to areas such as microservices, DevOps practices, and Kubernetes security.
These sessions are interactive, encouraging participant engagement through Q&A segments and live demonstrations. They cater to various skill levels, ensuring that both beginner and advanced practitioners find value.
Hands-on Labs
Hands-on labs are an integral part of the KubeCon experience, offering attendees a practical approach to learning. These sessions provide real-world experience with the latest tools and techniques within the Kubernetes ecosystem. Participants can engage directly with complex workflows and environments, enhancing their skills through tangible, interactive challenges.
Led by industry experts, these labs provide an environment where participants can experiment and learn at their own pace. The focus on practical learning helps attendees apply newly acquired skills in their work.
Networking Opportunities
KubeCon is not just about learning but also about connecting. Networking opportunities abound, offering a platform for professionals to meet like-minded peers, potential collaborators, and industry leaders. Social events, informal gatherings, and dedicated networking sessions provide the perfect setting for sharing ideas and building relationships.
These connections can lead to collaborative projects, business partnerships, and mentorship opportunities. The diverse pool of attendees ensures exposure to new perspectives and insights.
10 KubeCon 2024 Sessions You Cannot Miss
1. Kubernetes Upgrades: Less Pain, More Gain
- Location: Salt Palace, Level 1, Grand Ballroom FHJ
- Date & Time: Friday, November 15, 2024, 11:55 AM – 12:30 PM MST
- Speaker: Jago Macleod, Engineering Director at Google, leading Kubernetes and GKE Release and Upgrades
This session will focus on overcoming the common challenges associated with Kubernetes upgrades, a task that many users find difficult due to the complexity of managing independently versioned components. Jago Macleod, head of Kubernetes and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) upgrades at Google, will offer insights into making the upgrade process smoother and more reliable.
Attendees will learn about frequent pitfalls during upgrades, practical strategies to minimize disruptions, and how to avoid over-reliance on long term support (LTS) versions. The session will provide actionable advice aimed at improving upgrade reliability across different platforms.
2. Architecting the Future of AI: From Cloud-Native Orchestration to Advanced LLMOps
- Location: Salt Palace, Level 2, Room 255 BC
- Date & Time: Wednesday, November 13, 2024, 2:30 PM – 3:05 PM MST
- Speaker: Ion Stoica, Co-founder of Anyscale and Professor at UC Berkeley
In this session, Ion Stoica will explore the evolving architecture needed to support the deployment of large language models (LLMs) in cloud-native environments. With the rise of AI models like ChatGPT, new challenges have emerged, including infrastructure demands, GPU shortages, and concerns over the accuracy of AI outputs. Stoica’s talk will cover how Kubernetes, distributed computing, and LLMOps come together to address these issues.
Key topics include the role of Kubernetes in managing AI workloads across diverse cloud infrastructures, Ray as a framework for scaling distributed applications, and vLLM, a specialized inference engine that boosts performance and efficiency for LLMs.
3. Argo is Winning Everywhere
- Location: Salt Palace, Level 2, Room 251 AD
- Date & Time: Tuesday, November 12, 2024, 10:10 AM – 10:15 AM MST
- Speaker: Paul Stovell, Founder & CEO at Codefresh by Octopus Deploy
In this session, Paul Stovell will explore how Argo, like Kubernetes, has become a powerful solution across various deployment environments—from traditional data centers to the edge. As more organizations adopt Argo, its applications continue to expand, covering use cases that span on-premises, behind-the-firewall, and edge deployments.
Stovell will share deployment patterns that have proven successful for Codefresh and its clients, along with lessons learned from diverse real-world implementations. He will also address the evolving security strategies that keep Argo adaptable and resilient across these varied scenarios. This session will offer practical insights for both new and experienced Argo users on how to optimize its deployment for security and flexibility across all types of infrastructures.
4. Whoops! How Not to Accidentally Delete Everything
- Location: Salt Palace, Level 2, Room 251 AD
- Date & Time: Tuesday, November 12, 2024, 3:20 PM – 3:45 PM MST
- Speaker: Dan Garfield, Co-founder and Chief Open Source Officer at Codefresh
In this cautionary session, Dan Garfield will walk attendees through the risks and pitfalls of using Argo CD for large-scale GitOps deployments. With its power to automate and scale infrastructure changes, Argo CD also introduces the potential for catastrophic deletions if not managed carefully. Garfield, an Argo maintainer and key contributor to GitOps practices, will cover the specifics of how app deletions function in Argo CD and share real-life cases where misconfigurations led to unintentional, large-scale deletions.The session will delve into critical safety mechanisms, such as setting finalizers, modifying deletion propagation, and managing application set controllers to prevent cascading failures. Attendees will leave with strategies to avoid common mistakes, ensuring safer Argo CD operations for both new users and seasoned administrators.
5. Mastering ApplicationSet: Advanced Argo CD Automation
- Location: Salt Palace, Level 3, Room 355 EF
- Date & Time: Wednesday, November 13, 2024, 3:25 PM – 4:00 PM MST
- Speaker: Alexander Matyushentsev, Co-founder of Akuity and Argo CD Lead
This session will focus on automation techniques using ApplicationSet, an Argo CD feature to manage large-scale Kubernetes deployments across multiple clusters. As Argo CD usage grows, managing applications at scale introduces new challenges, such as orchestrating complex rollouts of ingress controllers and accommodating “snowflake” clusters that require unique configurations.
Alexander Matyushentsev, one of the creators of Argo CD, will dive into these use cases, providing insights into ApplicationSet’s evolving capabilities. He will also demonstrate a method for debugging ApplicationSet specifications efficiently, without impacting production environments.
6. Perform Laser Focused Deployments deciding in advance the blast radius
- Location: Salt Palace, Level 2, Room 250 AD
- Date & Time: Wednesday, November 13, 2024, 4:30 PM – 5:05 PM MST
- Speaker: Kostis Kapelonis, Developer Advocate at Codefresh by Octopus Deploy
This session, led by Kostis Kapelonis, will delve into techniques for controlling the “blast radius” of deployments using Argo Rollouts. With progressive delivery becoming a key method for achieving zero-downtime releases, teams often select an arbitrary percentage of traffic to test new versions of an application. However, not all deployments can work with random subsets of users for testing.
Kostis will demonstrate methods for targeting specific users during canary deployments, allowing organizations to direct new features to selected groups, such as internal employees or customers eager to try new releases. Attendees will explore different strategies for managing canary traffic and how to ensure precise control over which users experience the latest updates.
7. Unlocking Potential of Large Models in Production
- Location: Salt Palace, Level 2, Room 255 EF
- Date & Time: Thursday, November 14, 2024, 2:30 PM – 3:05 PM MST
- Speakers: Yuan Tang, Principal Software Engineer at Red Hat, and Adam Tetelman, Principal Architect at NVIDIA
This session will focus on the complex challenges of deploying and scaling large language models (LLMs) in production environments. As the industry shifts from traditional machine learning to generative AI (GenAI) and LLMs, new operational challenges—referred to as LLMOps—are emerging. Yuan Tang and Adam Tetelman will explore the intricacies of building scalable and reliable inference platforms that meet business requirements.
Attendees will learn about best practices for using Kubernetes, Kubeflow, KServe, and Knative to create cloud-native inference platforms. The session will address critical topics like benchmarking LLMs, optimizing storage and caching for quick scaling, and ensuring models are tuned for specialized accelerators. Using KServe as a case study, the speakers will explain how to manage A/B testing, rolling upgrades, and monitoring within limited compute resources.
8. Celebrating Prometheus 3.0: A Deep Dive with the Maintainers
- Location: Hyatt Regency, Level 2, Salt Lake Ballroom CDE
- Date & Time: Thursday, November 14, 2024, 2:30 PM – 3:05 PM MST
- Speakers: Kemal Akkoyun, Software Infrastructure Engineer, and Josue (Josh) Abreu, Alerting Lead at Grafana Labs and Prometheus Maintainer
This session will celebrate the release of Prometheus 3.0, a major milestone for the popular open-source systems monitoring tool. Prometheus, a CNCF Graduate Project, is well-known for its ecosystem, including Alertmanager, client libraries, and the Prometheus Operator for Kubernetes.
In this session, Prometheus maintainers Kemal Akkoyun and Josue Abreu will walk attendees through the exciting new features in Prometheus 3.0, which include a refreshed UI/UX and enhancements that build on the success of previous versions. The session will cover how new and existing users can upgrade to this version, and the benefits it offers in terms of performance, scalability, and user experience.
9. From Chaos to Calm: Building a Unified and Scalable CI/CD Pipeline at Akamai
- Location: Salt Palace, Level 2, Room 250 AD
- Date & Time: Thursday, November 14, 2024, 11:55 AM – 12:30 PM MST
- Speaker: Tomer Patel, Senior Engineering Manager at Akamai Technologies
In this session, Tomer Patel will share how Akamai transformed their development process by building a unified and scalable CI/CD pipeline, resulting in a 40% reduction in daily work across QA, performance, development, and operations teams. Patel will walk through the architecture of the pipeline, its key features, and the tangible impact on development efficiency.
Attendees will learn how to streamline cloud-native deployments by integrating essential tools such as Argo Rollouts and Backstage. Patel will also cover how Akamai integrated popular CI/CD tools, including ArgoCD, Jenkins, DevSpace, Grafana, Prometheus, and Thanos, to create a seamless workflow.
10. The Hard Truth About GitOps and Database Rollbacks
- Location: Salt Palace, Level 2, Room 250 AD
- Date & Time: Wednesday, November 13, 2024, 12:10 PM – 12:45 PM MST
- Speaker: Rotem Tamir, CTO at Ariga
In this session, Rotem Tamir will challenge the long-held practice of using pre-planned “down migration scripts” for database rollbacks, highlighting critical issues with this approach during crisis situations. Rotem will explain why traditional tools and workflows fall short of GitOps’ promise of “declarative” and “continuously reconciled” environments, especially when dealing with database schema rollbacks.
He will introduce the GitOps Operator Pattern as a solution to these challenges, demonstrating how it can create a more robust and safe method for managing schema rollbacks in GitOps workflows.
Visit Codefresh and Octopus at Kubecon
Come see us at ArgoCon, Kubernetes on Edge day, and KubeCon Salt Lake City! We’ve been working on amazing new features to promote changes between environments and GitOps-driven software delivery.
Demo sessions
Interested in seeing Octopus and Codefresh in action? We’re holding live demos every 30 minutes at our booth during KubeCon. You’ll find us at Booth F5.