DevOps Conferences Worth Attending in 2021
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It is very hard to estimate the advantages you might get from the conference attendance. Truth is, the networking is undoubtedly the most important one, and it is also the toughest to quantify. You may be a junior or middle developer, and you may encounter a senior DevOps team-lead with years of experience – that might change your entire perspective towards the subject! During conferences you get to meet real icons in your field. Moreover, meeting authors whose books and articles you read and interviewing them directly to clear doubts can only happen during conferences. Sharing ideas, opinions, challenges, plans and doubts with our peers is what conferences are all about. The main goal of each conference is to promulgate advanced research and the newest technology, to study, work out, share ideas and, of course, to network. Thus, in this article we will discuss why DevOps engineers need to attend conferences, 2021 DevOps conferences (online and offline) that are worth attending, and how to get the most from the conference.
Conference?! Why attend
Here are the main reasons why you should bother to attend a conference:
- You get an expert opinion on your latest work. Even if you are not performing at a conference you can share during briefings or discussion meetings some insights about your latest achievements, and the honest opinion from your colleagues might help you see your work from a different angle. Additionally, experts can give you plenty of valuable recommendations and tips.
- You create a system of connections. We’ve already discussed in our intro how conferences help build networks with people, who are real experts in your field. Pretty often you need advice from an experienced professional and the easiest way to talk to such an expert is to network with him/her during the conference, get his/her contact and turn to him/her when you need it.
- You learn about the latest studies. When you attend a conference you learn about the latest discoveries in your field even before they are put out in expert journals. Many specialists and researchers rush to demonstrate findings that have not yet been promulgated to the world.
- You upgrade your skills. You might need to develop your soft skills. Conferences allow you to practice your communication skills, oral and written. Moreover, at conferences, you work on your listening skills as well.
- You meet your idols. Is there an expert whose works you read in books or articles? Is there a business owner who built his/her company from scratch? Is there a professional with years of experience who built his/her career from zero to hero and now became a living icon in your field? If so, at conferences you can meet them, talk to them, ask them questions and learn from them. Who knows, maybe you’ll successfully collaborate with these outstanding personalities in the future.
- You get debate experience. Engaging in discussions at conferences may give you a bunch of new ideas. Also, it may help polish your existing concepts and maybe even reconsider some focus issues in your field.
- You get to add it to your resume. I pay close attention to how candidates develop and what they do for this process to progress. What conferences, webinars and courses they attended? What have they learned from them? It’s great when this line is present in your resume. The line that you’ve attended a conference or two.
2021 DevOps conferences (offline and hybrid)
DevOps Talks Conference
When: March 25-26
Where: Melbourne, Australia
How much: A$878.90 to A$1,013.63
What about: The DevOps Talks Conference connects DevOps leaders, engineers, and architects who are enforcing DevOps principles and practices in their businesses. Participants will experience complex technical and cultural DevOps transformations in IT organizations.
Who should attend: DevOps leaders, engineers and architects.
DevOpsCon London
When: April 20-23
Where: London, UK and virtual
How much: £494 to £1,169
What about: The central focus of this conference is on continuous delivery tools, microservices, containers and clouds. Sessions include topics such as CI/CD with GitHub actions, how COVID influences DevOps and overpowering restrictions in containerized applications. Workshops incorporate testing Go for microservices. For those who cannot come to London, the additional events will be carried on in Berlin (June 14-17), and New York City (fall 2021).
Who should attend: Developers, DevOps engineers, architects and leaders.
DevOps Days
When: April 20-22
Where: Kyiv, Ukraine
How much: TBD (to be determined)
What about: This is one of the worldwide series of technical conferences covering topics of software development and IT infrastructure operations. It’s both a technical conference and a conference focusing on DevOps culture. We encourage both technologists and business people to attend, train and share experience.
Who should attend: Developers, DevOps engineers and IT managers.
DevOps Pro Europe 2021-Hybrid Edition
When: May 11-13
Where: Vilnius, Lithuania and virtual
How much: €180 to €632
What about: Core principles and concepts of DevOps methodology are the main focus of this conference. It aims to demonstrate how to utilize the most common DevOps patterns to build code, test, deploy, and support applications both locally and in the cloud. The whole app delivery pipeline is embraced, from means (continuous delivery and integration), tools (Docker, Kubernetes, Chef, Puppet and others) to technologies (virtualization, orchestration, containerization and microservices).
Who should attend: Developers, DevOps engineers, Operators, IT leaders and trainers
GlueCon 2021
When: May 18-19
Where: Broomfield, Colorado, USA
How much: $995 to $1,295
What about: Main focus of GlueCon is providing the latest technical information: APIs, DevOps, serverless, containers, microservices, blockchain-driven applications and the most innovative tools.
Who should attend: IT architects, developers, DevOps engineers, enterprise and startup managers and team leaders.
LISA21
When: June 1-3
Where: Anaheim, California, USA
How much: TBD (to be determined)
What about: LISA (Large Installation Systems Administration) is a vendor-neutral meeting spot for the systems administration community where sysadmins, IT operations professionals, developers and IT leaders share valuable knowledge about building, securing and supporting the critical systems of our interdependent world.
Who should attend: Sysadmins, IT operations professionals, SRE practitioners, developers, IT leaders and academic researchers
Monitorama
When: June 21-23
Where: Portland, Oregon, USA
How much: $700
What about: Monitorama is committed to technical content only. The conference brings together the biggest names from open-source development to teach participants about the tools and techniques. It focuses on monitoring software systems. The goal of the conference is to continue to go beyond the boundaries of monitoring software, bearing in mind a casual setting.
Who should attend: Developers, DevOps engineers, operations professionals, QA engineers.
DevSecCon London
When: October 21
Where: London, UK
How much: TBD (to be determined)
What about: At this conference attendees will learn how to include security into the overall development process, from the development to the customer experience. Sessions will introduce such topics as security automation, secure development and container security.
Who should attend: DevSecOps, IT security professionals, DevOps engineers and IT leaders.
2021 DevOps conferences (virtual)
Agile, Testing & DevOps: The Evolving Scene
When: February 10-11
Where: Virtual
How much: £95 to £295, plus VAT
What about: At this conference attendees will cover such topics as DevOps methodology, continuous integration testing, agile software testing, cloud-based performance testing, agile test management, and web services testing.
Who should attend: Developers, DevOps engineers, operations professionals, security professionals, architects and everyone interested in DevOps.
Microsoft Ignite
When: March 2-4
Where: Virtual
How much: Free, if registered
What about: Microsoft Ignite is the conference where Microsoft experts answer questions about development, deployment, operations, security, compliance and architecture.
Who should attend: Developers, IT team leads, software architects and project managers.
PowerShell and DevOps Global Summit
When: April 27-29
Where: Virtual
How much: TBD (to be determined)
What about: This conference is devoted to Microsoft’s PowerShell automation and configuration tool. PowerShell and DevOps professionals will discuss and learn about maximizing PowerShell in the workplace. At the summit, participants will explore and expedite their knowledge of DevOps principles and practices in a cross-platform environment.
Who should attend: Developers, Windows system administrators and DevOps engineers.
KubeCon/CloudNativeCon
When: May 4-7
Where: Virtual
How much: TBD (to be determined)
What about: Sponsored by the Linux Foundation and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) this conference focuses on open-source projects, such as Kubernetes, Linkerd, Prometheus, Fluentd, gRPC, CoreDNS and CNI.
Who should attend: App developers, IT operations professionals, technical leaders, product and marketing managers, service providers and CNCF contributors.
Continuous Lifecycle Online
When: May 11-13
Where: Virtual
How much: TBD (to be determined)
What about: During this conference, continuous lifecycle practitioners will share their expertise and experiences and help attendees understand continuous integration, delivery/ deployment concepts, processes,and tools.
Who should attend: Developers, architects, developers, operations professionals, DevOps engineers and QA specialists.
DevSecOps Days
When: May 17
Where: Virtual
How much: TBD (to be determined)
What about: At this conference, experts share their DevSecOps experiences and how participants can utilize those lessons in their businesses.
Who should attend: Developers and DevSecOps practitioners
QCon Plus
When: May 17-28
Where: Virtual
How much: $450 to $599
What about: QCon Plus will cover the trends, best practices and solutions utilized by the world’s most ingenious IT organizations. Participants will take part in technical discussions with software leaders and look through presentations about software innovation and change, patterns and practices.
Who should attend: Senior software engineers, architects, and team leads
DevOps Enterprise Summit (DOES)
When: May 18-20
Where: Virtual
How much: $650
What about: DOES covers the methods needed to lead extensive change efforts in IT organizations. The event aims to give leaders the tools and practices they need to develop and deploy high-quality software as fast as possible.
Who should attend: IT Leaders of large IT organizations that practice DevOps, developers, IT operations professionals, chief experience officers and software architects.
How to reap the maximum from the conference
Some conferences are well-organized that makes them as valuable for participants as possible, however, others might be rather disappointing. How can you reap maximum benefits from the conference? Here are 7 tips that will help you to elicit the maximum return of your time and money investment when you attend a conference.
- Consult the people who have attended this conference before. Word of mouth is the most effective way to get information about any event. Try to contact people who have already attended this particular conference and get them to tell you what sessions are worthy and whom to meet.
- Plan your day, but don’t stick to it too closely. The day before the conference, study the program and choose a couple of sessions and talks that are worth attending. Choose the areas you are most interested in, but do not try to cover everything. What benefits from the conference can you reap if you are running like a hamster in a wheel?
- Make sure your name tag is visible or your name is clearly seen when you join an online session. It’s important for networking when people you meet during the conference memorize your name.
- Spend most of your time talking to people and don’t be shy. Ask as many questions as you need. Don’t be afraid to sound too pushy. Real experts enjoy to be given a chance to share their expertise and experience. Don’t forget to take notes!
- Get to know organizers and try to be helpful to them. Every conference organizer needs last-minute help with arranging the ceremony, welcoming or consulting the guests. Even just offering your help can make you memorable for sure.
- Use social media to find people and stay in touch. Use your social media accounts to post about the conference you are about to attend and after it tag people from the conference and ask them for honest feedback. This is how you will build your network very fast.
- Don’t forget to get in touch with people you meet at the conference. Write down the names of the people you met. Don’t forget to add details like position, contact details and the conference at which you’ve encountered this person. And if you have enjoyed the conference experience do not forget to compliment the organizers.
Wrapping things up
Keeping up with new technologies is crucial for engineers. Plus, the agile nature of the software business means that many IT specialists need to reshape themselves regularly, take in new skills and chase new opportunities. Never has it been more critical to reviving your expertise, networking with other experts, sharing ideas, asking questions and getting answers from peers and consequently enriching your profiles – especially as DevOps engineers. And conferences, where professionals can get together and concentrate on the bigger picture, are a great way to make extremely fast progress.
