As we wrote earlier, we are happy to be attending and sponsoring DevOpsDays Austin 2015.  The opening day morning is chocked full of great sessions with the afternoon dedicated to openspaces as is the norm.  While everything from breakfast to Damon Edwards keynote through JJ Ashgar’s session on Chef before lunch look tasty.  Here are three sessions that I will be attending that I am really looking forward to:

The Coming Donkey Apocalypse by Michael Cote’ –  Cote’ formally of 451 Research and now with Pivotal is going to talk about the “state of the union” of Devops. From the abstract:

DevOps is growing in popularity and even usage in “the real world.” It seems like we’re slowly getting past unicorns only and seeing many “horses” do DevOps. Soon we’ll see the mainstream market – the “donkeys” – start to pick it up and bend DevOps to its will. This talk will go over “the state of the union” of DevOps and provide some guidance for how to prepare for the donkey apocalypse.

I don’t know what to make of this title but it peaked my curiosity. I don’t think DevOps adoption moving mainstream is equal to moving from horses to donkeys and so it is not a very flattering title. On top of this not only don’t I think main stream adoption of DevOps means it is Donkeys adopting it, I do not think it means an apocalypse for DevOps.  In fact I think it is a good thing. On top of this, I think the idea of calling mainstream adoption, adoption of the  donkeys and them causing an apocalypse smacks of elitism and is against what DevOps is about. I don’t think it is a bad thing that more organizations will get involved and that they will “bend DevOps”. I don’t know Michael well and have only spoken to him once briefly. Everything I hear though is that he is a very bright guy and dynamic speaker and writer.  So i am interested to hear what Michael has to say in this session and whether he thinks it is a good thing, bad thing or how we can help move it along. You can’t judge a book by its cover and you sometimes you can’t judge a session by its title and abstract.

Fixing your Organization by Continually Breaking It by J Paul Reed – Reed is a consultant and has over a decade of experience in the trenches as a build/release and tools engineer, working with such organizations as VMware, Mozilla, and Symantec. In 2012, he founded Release Engineering Approaches, a consultancy incorporating a host of tools and techniques to help organizations “Simply Ship. Every time.” From the abstract:

When we discuss DevOps, we often find ourselves mired in the “tools vs. culture” debate. A point often forgotten is the “amplify feedback loops” of DevOps “3 Ways” and how to build that into our cultures. In this talk, we’ll look at the importance of continually breaking your organization with experiments, some surprising examples, and how to do it in such a way that you aren’t left with a broken organization.

I love this concept going back to Netflix and the Simian Army and have heard similar talks before on it. Looking forward to what Reed has to say and learning. Amplifying feedback loops is something I would like to see more written about as well.  I am looking forward to this one!

Continuous Acceleration: Why Continuous Everything Needs a Supply Chain Approach by Josh Corman – Josh is of course the CTO of Sonatype and a former 451 Research analyst too. Besides all that Josh is a friend from the security world that I know a long time. This talk sounds like a continuation of what Josh and Gene Kim presented at DevOps Connect at RSA Conference a few weeks ago. Also Ericka Chickowski wrote a good article on her interview with Josh on this last week.  Here is the abstract:

Today we write less code & consume more re-usable open source code. Innovation accelerates & complexity grows. Complexity is the enemy of quality. Poor quality creates break-fixes & slows dev. It’s a continuous loop.
Learn about software supply chain management strategies to accelerate delivery: scrutinize your ‘suppliers,’ minimize risk & bloat, and improve traceability, visibility & response times. 

Josh is a great presenter. I have seen him present many topics over the years at several events, I am sure this one won’t disappoint.

There are other good presentations including some stuff on Dockers and containers (what would a conference be without them?). Additionally the I am sure the open spaces will spawn some good stuff as well.

I will try to update throughout the day and give those who can’t attend a sense of what is going on.

I realize many of you can’t make Austin tomorrow, but if you are going and see me please introduce yourself and say hi.