OpenStack Days India reflects local tech boom: attendance up 150%

If the need for an extra job board and sessions with standing room only were any indication, the OpenStack community in India is thriving.

More than 300 people gathered in Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India on August 8 for the third annual OpenStack Day India to learn more about OpenStack and share recent contributions.

Content spanned two days with a hands-on workshop that detailed how to get started with an OpenStack deployment and getting your hands dirty with Devstack on Friday, August 7. Twenty sessions divided into two tracks delivered content ranging from writing an app in OpenStack to Getting Started with OpenStack Upstream Contribution filled the agenda the following day.

Day one kicked off with a sold out, hands-on workshop designed to teach attendees how to get started with deploying Devstack and OpenStack multi-node deployment.

[Salman Memon]( https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=217290070&authType=NAME_SEARCH&authToken=zJ0p&locale=en_US&srchid=1076663051439581188148&srchindex=1&srchtotal=96&trk=vsrp_people_res_name&trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A1076663051439581188148%2CVSRPtargetId%3A217290070%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary%2CVSRPnm%3Atrue%2CauthType%3ANAME_SEARCH), a cloud engineer at Aptira, led the workshop. Memon first got started with OpenStack after attending a workshop during college, then securing an internship with Aptira. A few short years later, he lead the entire workshop.

Feeling super happy, Salman got into OpenStack 4 yrs back when be was a student. Today he is leading our workshop. pic.twitter.com/FzXvdEF3MP

— Atul Jha (@koolhead17) August 7, 2015

Memon encourages students who want to get involved with OpenStack to follow in his footsteps and reach out to the leaders within their local community and attend events like workshops, meetups and OpenStack Days India.

“They will guide you and let you know what’s going on and how to contribute to OpenStack. Students should always talk to any community members and use IRC to get a clear idea of what you want to do,” he said.

System integrators also came out in full force at the OpenStack India Day, with both WiPro and Infosys hosting sessions.

"At the center of open source, OpenStack plays an even stronger role as the binding glue for compute, storage and networking," said Vasanth Kumar, open source practice manager at WiPro, an Indian multinational IT consulting and system Integration services company. "That’s fundamentally a transformational advantage for Indian heritage companies that have actually specialized in operational excellence."

To sustain this open source movement, WiPro has invested in OpenConnect, where they have 1,200 members contributing back to OpenStack projects including Ironic, Magnum, Manila and Sahara.

"Our goal was to host a community driven event which provides a platform for organizations and professionals new to OpenStack, to get to know the community and the ecosystem better," said Kavit Munshi, an organizer for the event, as well as a member of the OpenStack board of directors. "We have had an excellent response to our new job boards initiative this year and look forward to further engaging people and welcoming them to the OpenStack community."

Cover Photo by Subith Premdas // CC BY NC

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Allison Price

Director of Marketing & Community at Open Infrastructure Foundation

Allison manages Marketing Content initiatives including case study development, advertising campaigns, the Superuser online publication and OpenStack User Survey. Her past roles have specialized in social strategy and execution for both B2B and B2C global companies in the technology and consumer industries. In her spare time, she enjoys finding new hiking trails and sharing her love with Celine Dion with anyone and everyone who will listen.