Cloud Native Rejekts NA: Meet the New Kid in the Sandbox - Integrating Visualization with Prometheus (slides)

I previously posted that I'd be in Salt Lake City at the fun Cloud Native Rejekts this week.

Today I shared my session on Perses, which is focused on providing true open source visualization and dashboards to the users of Prometheus. This talk brought the background, updated the current status of what you can do and what you can't, shared the future plans, and left behind a free hands-on workshop for attendees to pursue post-event.

Projects in the observability space tend to gravitate to the CNCF, and Perses jumped into the process of becoming a CNCF Sandbox project. The process took awhile and in mid-August they kicked off voting. Amazingly it only took a few days for the Perses project to pass the number of voted needed to become the newest member in the CNCF Sandbox tier. It was high time you met this new kid on the block!

Below you'll find the abstract, slides and recording for my session for you to pursue at your leisure. 

Cloud Native Rejekts NA: Meet the New Kid in the Sandbox - Integrating Visualization with Prometheus

When your talk is not accepted for KubeCon NA, what can you do? Submit it to Cloud Native Rejekts of course! 

I did exactly that with this session that brings the newest member of the CNCF Sandbox tier of projects to you. This event takes place in Salt Lake City, Utah from 10-11 Nov 2024.

Since I started working with Prometheus, I've gotten involved with Perses, which is focused on providing true open source visualization and dashboards to the users of Prometheus.

This talk will bring the background, the current status of what you can do and what you can't, share what the future plans are, and leave behind a free hands-on workshop for attendees to pursue post-event.

Infobip Shift EU 2024: Platform Engineers Arise! Adding Observability to Your Platform Toolbox (slides)

Today I shared my workshop collection on the attending Platform Engineers, giving them all they needed to get started integrating observability from the ground up in their developer experiences. This all focused on the metrics, tracing, pipeline, and visualization projects from the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF).

This year's Infobip Shift EU was from 15-17 September and below you will find the outline of my workshop I'm giving covering observability for Platform Engineers. 

My talk was based on an observability workshop collection covering metrics, tracing, pipelines, and visualization of telemetry data. Platform engineering can and should include observability from the basic start of their developer experience and these open source CNCF projects all provide what you need to get started.

Below you will find my slides and the original abstract from my workshop.

PromCon EU 2024: Meet the New Kid in the Sandbox - Integrating Perses Visualization with Prometheus (slides + video)

Today I shared an update on the Perses dashboard and visualization project, the newest member of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) Sandbox tier.

It was at PromCon EU 2024 in Berlin, Germany and I shared about how far along Perses is, including how easily you can start integrating it with the Prometheus monitoring system today.

I've been attending this event for the last two years since my career took me in the direction of cloud native observability, with CNCF projects like Prometheus being the natural direction I gravitated towards. Since working with Prometheus, I've also gotten involved with Perses, which is focused on providing true open source visualization and dashboards to the users of Prometheus.

Let's look at the talk, the slides, and video recording of my session.

Infobip Shift EU 2024: Platform Engineers Arise! Adding Observability to Your Platform Toolbox

Back in 2018 I was exposed for the first time to an amazing conference then known as Shift Developer Conference. It was an amazing location in Split, Croatia and one of the founders, Ivan Burazin quickly became a good friend.

I spoke on the main stage which was hosted in the Croatian National Opera House, something that remains a special experience. I've stayed in contact with the organizers and went to Infobip Shift EU in Zadar last September presenting on avoiding the common pitfalls around the flood of cloud data that typically comes with the user experience. In the Spring I was at Infobip Shift NA in Miami to share a workshop focused on the Perses project. 

This year's Infobip Shift EU is from 15-17 September and below you will find the outline of my workshop I'm giving covering observability for Platform Engineers. 

Let's look at the session and activities around this year's event.

PromCon EU: Meet the New Kid in the Sandbox - Integrating Visualization with Prometheus

I'm going to be speaking at the one and only PromCon EU 2024 on 11-12 September in Berlin, Germany. This is a single track event with a set size of 300 attendees dedicated to the Prometheus monitoring system.

As they state on the website, "PromCon aims to connect Prometheus users and developers from around the world in order to exchange knowledge, best practices, and experience gained around using Prometheus. We also want to collaborate to build a community and grow professional connections around systems and service monitoring."

I've been attending this event for the last two years since my career took me in the direction of cloud native observability, with Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) projects like Prometheus being the natural direction I gravitated towards. Since working with Prometheus, I've also gotten involved with a new project called Perses, which is focused on providing true open source visualization and dashboards to the users of Prometheus.

Let's look at the talk I'm going to give to introduce you to this new kid on the block, Perses.

Cloud Native London Meetup - Taking Back Control of Your Telemetry Data with Fluent Bit (slides)

  

Yesterday I was to be back to the Cloud Native London meetup, having been given the opportunity to present due to a speaker canceling at the last minute.

They have +7,000 members and it is, "...the official Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) Meetup group dedicated to building a strong, open, diverse developer community around the Cloud Native platform and technologies in London." 

There was instead an evacuation of the area due to expected riots in the UK. I am sorry to miss the chance to present this session but still wanted to share below the slides from my session and plan to post a personal recording of the talk when I get back home from Lon.

Cloud Native London Meetup - Taking Back Control of Your Telemetry Data with Fluent Bit

 I'm heading back to the Cloud Native London meetup this week, having been given the opportunity to present due to a speaker canceling.

I am always happy to help out and the hop to London from the Netherlands is a short and easy trip.

They have +7,000 members and it is, "...the official Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) Meetup group dedicated to building a strong, open, diverse developer community around the Cloud Native platform and technologies in London." You can also find them on their own slack channel, so feel free to drop in for a quick chat if you like.

The sessions I've presented previously include one from January 2023 about the pitfalls everyone should avoid with cloud data and a recording is available online if you want to revisit. Another session I shared was in January of 2024 on the pitfalls in observability in the form of a choose your own adventure talk which you can also watch the recording online.

Tomorrow, on Wednesday, 7 August in London I'll be sharing some brand new content on taking back control of your telemetry data. 

DevOpsDays Amsterdam 2024 - Observability Metrics for You and Me with Prometheus (workshop)

Later this month I'm going to be in Amsterdam, close to home for once, at the lovely and well organized DevOpsDays Amsterdam 2024. I've been given the honor of hosting a three hour long workshop based on our work around getting started with metrics using the CNCF project Prometheus.

The event is three days of fun and sharing technology learnings from all corners of the industry. As the event site says, the Netherlands is home to a large, vibrant technology community. Amsterdam, in particular, has been a flurry of activity in the past several years, drawing attention from around the globe.

Devopsdays Amsterdam brings all disciplines, such as development, operations, QA, InfoSec, management, and leadership, together to discuss culture, tools and skills to make better organizations and products. The expectation is around 600 attendees this year and will be held from June 19-21, 2024 at the Pakhuis de Zwijger in the center of Amsterdam.

The first day is all about workshops, focusing on hands-on activities, from coding to cooperation in several parallel tracks in smaller settings. The format of the following 2 days includes a single track of 30-minute talks in the morning, followed by Ignite talks (5-minute, auto forwarding slides). 

Below is my workshop abstract and details.

OpenShift Commons Paris 2024 - Choose Your Own Observability Adventure Workshop

In my previous article, I mentioned I would be in Paris for the OpenShift Commons co-located event at Gaumont Aquaboulevard. 

I was asked to share some insights into the link between Platform Engineers and the importance of providing cloud native observability tools and infrastructure as part of their developer experience from the start.

We had a movie theater as a venue with a nice group of experienced Platform Engineers that I presented the slides you'll find below before letting them choose from four different workshops that featured the CNCF observability technologies for monitoring, tracing, telemetry pipelines, and open visualization.

We kicked it off at 11:00 on Tuesday, March 19th and had a lot of fun. See below for the details.

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe - Workshops, architectures, and Chronosphere preview

It's that time of year again where the legions of cloud native and open source communities from the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) gather for this semi-annual event, this time in Paris, France!

There are so many things going on there, from the pre-event Cloud Native Rejects from 17-18 March at ESpot in Paris. You will find an array of talks that, in theory, didn't make the selection for KubeCon and yet are so good we have two days of enjoying them.

This is followed by a day of co-located events, which are single day conferences targeting specific areas of technology and CNCF communities. This all happens on 19 March and see the website listing for exact locations of the event that interests you.

Finally, we get to spend 20-22 March in the Paris Expo Porte De Versailles with thousands of our favorite community members sharing information, workshops, talks, lightning talks, and a huge booth pavilion. 

Below you'll find all the fun and adventures that I have planned throughout the week in Paris.

Cloud Native London Meetup - 3 Pitfalls Everyone Should Avoid with Cloud Native Observability (slides + recording)

Yesterday I was back to the Cloud Native London meetup, having been given the opportunity to present due to a speaker canceling at the last minute.

They have +7,000 members and it is, "...the official Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) Meetup group dedicated to building a strong, open, diverse developer community around the Cloud Native platform and technologies in London." You can also find them on their own slack channel, so feel free to drop in for a quick chat if you like.

There were over 85 attendees that braved the cold London evening to join us for pizza, drinks, and a bit of fun with my session having a special design this time around. I went out on a limb and tried something I've never seen before, a sort of choose-your-own-adventure presentation. Below I've included a description of how I think it went, the feedback I got, and where you can find both the slides and recording online if you missed it.

Cloud Native London Meetup - 3 Pitfalls Everyone Should Avoid with Cloud Native Observability

 I'm heading back to the Cloud Native London meetup this week, having been given the opportunity to present due to a speaker canceling at the last minute.

I am always happy to help out and the hop to London from the Netherlands is a short and easy trip.

They have +7,000 members and it is, "...the official Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) Meetup group dedicated to building a strong, open, diverse developer community around the Cloud Native platform and technologies in London." You can also find them on their own slack channel, so feel free to drop in for a quick chat if you like.

That session I presented last time in January of 2023 was about the pitfalls everyone should avoid with cloud data and they live streamed it with a recording available online if you want to revisit.

Tomorrow, on Wednesday, 10 January in London I'll be sharing some brand new content on the pitfalls of cloud native observability.

O11y Guide - Beginners Guide to Open Source Instrumenting Java

Instrumenting Metrics in Java

Are you interested in joining the cloud native world and wondering what cloud native observability means for you? 

Did you always want to know more about instrumentation, metrics, and your options for coding with open standards? 

Are you a Java developer and looking for a working example to get started instrumenting your applications and services?

Look no further, as this article provides you with an easy to understand guide to instrumenting your Java using open standards.

In this article you'll learn what open source metrics are, the projects used to collect them, about the libraries available to you as a Java developer for metrics instrumentation, apply instrumentation creating a fully working example in Java for the main four metrics types, and finally, setup metrics collection to explore your Java metrics in real-time.

2023 Year in Review - Observability around the World

Deep into the winter of 2023 and counting down the last hours, I find myself working on this last task of the year. It's that time where one steps back and reflects on the past year of activities and travels.

This is also always one of the easiest articles to write, going back now since this blog started, meaning I've been doing them over 18 years now. Who would have imagined back in 2005 when I started publishing articles for this blog that I'd be at it 18 years later and have garnered almost 2.6 million views?

It takes a bit of research every year to get this article done, as I've been traveling, speaking, publishing, socializing, and generating so much content throughout the year. It's always fun to see all the code, writing, and travel adventures passing the review as I sit here in contemplation of what is coming for the new year.

PromCon EU 2023 - Observability Recap in Berlin

As previously mentioned, last week I was on site at the PromCon EU 2023 event for two days in Berlin, Germany. 

This is a community organized event focused on the technology and implementations around the open source Prometheus project, including for example PromQL and PromLens.

Below you'll find an overview covering insights into the talks given, often with a short recap if you don't want to browse the details. Along with the talks it was invaluable to have the common discussions and chatting that happens between talks in the breaks where you can connect with core maintainers of various aspects of the Prometheus project.

Be sure to keep an eye on the event video playlist, as all sessions were recorded and will appear here.

Let's dive right in and see what the event had to offer this year in Berlin.

Getting Started with Prometheus - Instrumenting Applications

Are you looking to get away from proprietary instrumentation? 

Are you interested in open source observability but lack the knowledge to just dive right in? 

This workshop is for you, designed to expand your knowledge and understanding of open source observability tooling that is available to you today.

Dive right into a free, online, self paced, hands-on workshop introducing you to Prometheus. Prometheus is an open source systems monitoring and alerting tool kit that enables you to hit the ground running with discovering, collecting, and querying your observability today. Over the course of this workshop you will learn what Prometheus is, what it is not, install it, start collecting metrics, and learn all the things you need to know to become effective at running Prometheus in your observability stack. 

Previously, I shared an introduction to Prometheus, installing Prometheus, an introduction to the query language, exploring basic queries, using advanced queries, relabeling metrics in Prometheus, and discovering service targets as free online labs. In this article you'll learn all about instrumenting your applications using Prometheus client libraries.

Getting Started with Prometheus - Discovering Service Targets

Are you looking to get away from proprietary instrumentation? 

Are you interested in open source observability but lack the knowledge to just dive right in? 

This workshop is for you, designed to expand your knowledge and understanding of open source observability tooling that is available to you today.

Dive right into a free, online, self paced, hands-on workshop introducing you to Prometheus. Prometheus is an open source systems monitoring and alerting tool kit that enables you to hit the ground running with discovering, collecting, and querying your observability today. Over the course of this workshop you will learn what Prometheus is, what it is not, install it, start collecting metrics, and learn all the things you need to know to become effective at running Prometheus in your observability stack. 

Previously, I shared an introduction to Prometheus, installing Prometheus, an introduction to the query language, exploring basic queries, using advanced queries, and relabeling metrics in Prometheus as free online labs. In this article you'll learn all about discovering service targets in Prometheus.

KCD Denmark - The first ever Kubernetes Community Days in Denmark

When I saw that they were going to host the first ever Kubernetes Community Days (KCD) in Denmark on 14 November, I had to apply.

It is a pretty active CNCF community that organizes many KCD events throughout the year across the globe and being a CNCF Ambassador I am always trying to support what my schedule will allow.

It was even more exciting to see that this KCD has offered slots for workshop content, where 25 attendees get to sit down in a room and go diving into hands-on content around CNCF projects. I had to try this out and submit one of my workshops.

PromCon EU 2023 - Heading to Berlin with Dashboards and Compliance

This year PromCon EU is being held in Berlin, Germany on Sep 28-29. It will be my second edition and I'm looking forward to the two days of all things Prometheus and cloud native observability.

I've yet to speak at one of these events, but this time around I wanted to share two different sessions, one is a lightning talk introduction to a workshop I've put together. The second one is a regular talk on the topic of the Prometheus Compliance Program which I've spent some time digging into to validate my employers compliance with the standards. 

I think they are good topics to share and help others getting started with these areas of Prometheus and integration with Prometheus.