OpenStack Summit Barcelona from the Show Floor – InApps Technology 2022

Whether migrating from an outdated legacy solution, still working on setting up a production environment, or customizing an OpenStack environment to meet unique organizational goals, attendees of last week’s OpenStack Summit Barcelona 2016 were able to connect with the community and learn how to better incorporate OpenStack into their own projects.

Our video reporter, Norris Deajon, wandered the show floor to speak with attendees, who came in from companies such as Verizon, Cisco, Cirba, Intel, Red Hat, JPB Groep BV. He also spoke with OpenStack Foundation Director of Business Development and Alliances Heidi Bretz regarding how today’s organizations are working with OpenStack in their own projects to help achieve their goals.

“We deploy containers using OpenStack. At the moment, we’re trying to write code for Courier to do networking for containers in VMs,” said Intel Software Engineer Louise Daly. In contrast, Verizon Cloud Product Technologist Beth Cohen was at the Summit to better get an idea of the future of SDN, and how other telecom companies are putting OpenStack to use in their own environments.

On the DevOps side, Cisco Senior QA Engineer Alka Sathnur mentioned that OpenStack Barcelona was her first conference, going on to highlight that, “We’re coming from looking at what are the performance things we need to look at, and how they can be alleviated through OpenStack.”

Other organizations may not fit the standard OpenStack use case, with JPB Groep BV Controller Erik Schoenmaker commenting that while their enterprise doesn’t yet have a production environment ready, they were using their time at the Summit to get a better understanding of how OpenStack could impact their organization.

For still others, the conference is a chance to not only network with the community but potentially expand their business opportunities abroad. NGINX Sales Director Ronan Kirby noted that it had recently opened its first European office in Barcelona, highlighting the importance of the potential market OpenStack brings to the table. Red Hat Senior Solutions Architect Sanjay Aiyagari highlights the community aspect of the Summit, “The conference is great because I get to see people in person who I’ve only seen in email, calls, or webinars. It’s great to put a face to a name, really meet people, and get to know them.”

Bretz wrapped up the show floor tour succinctly, further emphasizing the community OpenStack aims to build. “I hope everybody’s learned a lot. I know I’ve learned a lot. I’ve gotten to meet a lot of the community, and I hope you’ve all gotten to know one another. We’ll see you next time in Boston!”

Cisco, Intel and Red Hat are sponsors of InApps Technology.