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What to expect from your first OpenStack Summit

Community leaders share tips and need-to-knows for the Summit-curious.

May 7, 2018
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If you’re new to OpenStack and thinking about coming to the Vancouver Summit,  you’re in good company: around 50 – 60 percent of OpenStack summit attendees are first-timers.

Here, OpenStack community leaders share tips and need-to-knows for the Summit-curious.

The why and the what

“The OpenStack summit is really unique because the entire community comes together from all over the world, people from sixty countries people from hundreds of companies,” says Jonathan Bryce, OSF executive director. “They come together to collaborate about what to build on OpenStack how to deploy it and where we need to take the software and the community.”

The Forum is where we discuss the future of the OpenStack software in a cross-community manner,” says Thierry Carrez, VP of engineering at OSF. “We don’t do design behind closed doors. We’re really into including as many people as we can and the forum is where we achieve that promise.”

“If you work on a project just inside your company, everyone kind of thinks the same way,” says Major Hayden, principal software engineer at Red Hat. “But when you come to an OpenStack Summit you might find that you build for one use case and someone shows up and says, ‘Hey we use that for something completely different,’ it’s so awesome to be able to hear that not only your stuff is being used but that it’s being used for a use case you never even thought about.”

Who you’ll meet, what to bring

“There are very few women that are in technology in general there are even less black women, to know that we’re out there and that we’re into like seriously technical things is empowering,” says Treva N. Williams, author of  an OpenStack course at LinuxAcademy.

“Don’t take your computer, take some paper to take notes but don’t spend time on your emails, says Emilien Macchi of the OpenStack Technical Committee. Focus a few days on talking with people and working with them.

“Software is hard, but if you get to know the people then the software becomes easier,” says Davanum Srinivas, also a TC member. “This is a place where there are many people who are like you so get to know people, build your network and make friends.”

Join us May 21-24, 2018 in Vancouver for the next Summit.  More tips for newbies from Summit veterans here and here.

Check out all the interviews below.

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