DevOps Days – PDX 2018 Review

I had the opportunity to go to my local DevOps Days this year – DevOps PDX. If you’ve never been, and this was my first time attending, I highly recommend finding the next one closest to you and going. When I say closest to you, it’s quite likely there will be one in a city nearby.

Aside from the wonderful content, community and interactions, DevOps Days does an amazing logistical thing: there is almost no overlap between any given event. If you were so inclined and had the means (and a really good travel planner…), you could quit your job and follow DevOps around the globe. Talk about continuous delivery!

The other amazing thing about this feat is that it’s all volunteer run. The volunteers in Portland did a fantastic job keeping things moving and delivering an enjoyable and educational community experience. There were people running sound, video, closed-captioning, registration and all the behind-the-scenes things that go into producing an event like this.

The sponsors and booths were all worth visiting, and the people staffing them were not only excited to talk about their products and services but also truly passionate about DevOps and happy to engage in conversations.

If it isn’t obvious, I had a great time at DevOps Days. There were three things that made it worthwhile: the community, the content and the conversations.

The Community

From the registration process to food carts, (It’s Portland, so of course the lunch was food carts.) it was clear this was truly a community event imbued with local culture.

I’ve been to large conventions before, and while they couldn’t help but have some local flair, they mostly reflected the corporate sponsors. While those still provided worthwhile experiences, it was clear that DevOps Days was driven by a passion for the (Read more...)