Tom Fifield, community manager at the OpenStack Foundation, shares what to expect from next week’s ops sessions and where to find them on the summit schedule

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Japan has been billed as the land of endless discovery, but if you want to get where you need to at the Summit Tokyo, try a map.

Maps and guidance videos are on hand to help OpenStack Summit Tokyo attendees navigate the city and the distributed summit campus — once you see the maps, you’ll understand why you need them!

To ensure that OpenStack operators and users zero in on the right sessions, Superuser talked to Tom Fifield, community manager at the OpenStack Foundation. Fifield breaks down what you need to know and where you need to be at the OpenStack Summit Tokyo.

These ops sessions were created by the User Committee to bring people who are operating OpenStack together in a collaborative setting. The goal is to give operators a space to share knowledge and best practices as well as to provide feedback based on their trials, tribulations and successes.

What can attendees expect to get out of the ops sessions?

If you’ve been using OpenStack, this is the place where you can meet and chat with others who have encountered similar issues and compare notes. You’ll be able to provide feedback on your favorite annoying bug and also actively participate in groups focused on making the lives of operators better.

What do you hope to accomplish with the ops sessions at the Tokyo Summit?

To allow operators to attend more sessions in other Design Summit tracks, we’ve set up a slightly different schedule layout to previous times. On Tuesday and Wednesday before lunch, we have general sessions followed by the working group sessions.

Throughout the week, OpenStack working groups will also be meeting. I encourage operators to participate, it’s an interactive way to continue the conversation and make an impact for both the community and the project.

We’re hoping to come out of those two days with some solid feedback for the Mitaka cycle, including some new knowledge about areas like containers and some concrete progress that could include writing a new guide for tuning hypervisors and an effort to work together on those patches everyone carries locally.

How can an operator stay in touch with the operator community after the Summit?

Subscribing to the OpenStack operators mailing list is a great way to communicate with fellow users on any issues you are encountering, as well as upcoming events. Between summits, there is an operator’s mid-cycle meetup where community members gather to talk in depth about specific issues and provide feedback.

Filing a bug report for the documentation team with tips on running an OpenStack cloud or how your cloud works is also a productive way of getting involved and creating an impact for the community.

How can I add the ops sessions to my personal Summit schedule?

Ops sessions span multiple tracks and buildings, but you can review all of the talks and add them to your personal Summit schedule here.

Where are the ops sessions located?

Sessions and workshops will be distributed across the summit campus, so please download the maps and make sure you have a copy handy at all times.

Additional resources:

  • [Takeaways from OpenStack’s Mid-Cyle Ops Meetup, Liberty edition](http://superuser.openinfra.dev/articles/takeaways-from-openstack-s-mid-cycle-ops-meetup-liberty-edition)
  • [An OpenStack security primer](http://superuser.openinfra.dev/articles/an-openstack-security-primer)

Cover Photo // CC BY NC

Allison Price