If you run an OpenStack cloud, attending the next Mid-Cycle Ops Meetup is a great way to swap best practices and give feedback to help shape the next release.

As the name suggests, the two-day Meetup takes place halfway through the development cycle for the upcoming Mitaka OpenStack release.

This time around, it will be held for the first time in Europe February 15 – 16, 2016 at The Landing in Manchester. Sponsors include Canonical, Codethink, Datacentred and Midokura.

Unlike previous editions, tickets are limited to 100 people. This time it offers mostly round table, working groups and discussion sessions, with only a small number of presentations. You still have time to influence the sessions, too – so check out the Etherpad. Suggestions so far include high-performance computing, containers and upgrade challenges.

Superuser talked to one of the organizers, Matt Jarvis head of cloud at Datacentred, about how the first European Mid-Cycle came about, what you can expect to get out of it and, yes, the weather!

This is the first European Mid-Cycle – what inspired you to organize it?

The community of operators around Europe has been building for the last couple of years and having spent a lot of time at conferences talking to other folks from around Europe, it seemed to me that there was now enough of a community to justify doing something European focused.

I’d also noticed that quite a few of the European operators weren’t really participating as much at the Ops Meetups at the Summits, or on the operators list, so I really wanted to encourage more of them to get involved.

It’s organized slightly differently than previous editions, what’s the thinking behind that?

The way it’s being organized happened pretty organically really. I put it out to the operators list to gauge interest and we got a lot of responses on the planning Etherpad. Then Tom Fifield from the OpenStack Foundation got in touch with me and we’ve worked from there.

I’ve got a team on the ground in Manchester and the city is very well connected in terms of travel links, so it made sense from the start to try and do something there. Tom’s been guiding the session planning stuff, as he’s an old hand at that side of things and I’ve been handling the logistical side…

What’s the reaction been so far?

The reaction has been great so far, the initial list of interested parties covered pretty much all the large public and private operators, vendors and development organizations we know of in Europe, and the community in Europe is pretty well connected, so we’ve been reaching out to others who may not have known about it to try and make sure we really get inclusivity.

Tickets are going fast, and we’re deliberately limited the numbers for this first event to 100 in order to manage the costs and logistics a bit more easily, so people need to book quickly to make sure you’re not disappointed.

What do you hope operators will get out of this meetup?

As with all of the Operators meetups, this is an opportunity for operators to share experience, build relationships, and hopefully to have a voice in the development process. We’re the people at the sharp end, and have an important role to play in feeding in our experiences and concerns.

The European landscape in OpenStack is also quite different from the U.S. landscape, there are many more public cloud providers for example due to concerns around data sovereignty, and I think European operators may well have a different voice to add to the discussion.

There’s also opportunities emerging across Europe for collaboration, particularly in large scale scientific computing, and new features in OpenStack like federation should enable multiple cloud providers to work together to satisfy those requirements and compete with much bigger players.

What should visitors see in Manchester or surroundings?

Aside from being a fantastic 21st-century city full of great food, music and culture, Manchester has a rich and varied history.

It’s known as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, and also has a rich history in computing, beginning with the worlds first stored program computer, the Manchester Baby, and continuing to this day with cutting-edge computer science research coming out of Manchester University.

If you’re interested in any of that, then the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) is well worth a visit. We’ve also got two world-class soccer teams, with Manchester United’s ground Old Trafford a short distance from the venue. Bring an umbrella though, it’s also famous for raining a lot!

Tickets for the two-day event are £10.00 (around $15USD.) Please reserve ahead for the Mid-Ops Meetup, so the organizers can keep you properly fed and caffeinated for two full days. If you have any questions about the event, reach out to organizers on the Ops Mailing List.

Cover Photo// CC BY NC