Last Friday and Saturday, we attended DevOps Day Silicon Valley, an annual conference for anyone involved or interested in the DevOps space with a mix of keynote sessions and open spaces. 6connect’s COO and co-founder, Pete Sclafani, spoke on an Ignite session on Friday about IPv6.
His presentation was titled, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love IPv6”. He broke it down into four phases:
- Reality Check: Understanding that users are already using IPv6 around the world – service providers have been deploying IPv6 for years. At 6connect we focused on survey data from customers and prospects to help corroborate what we were hearing in the industry.
- Realization: Research and Define your IPv6 use cases in your organization. In 6connect’s case, we identified some key areas that IPv6 could provide some intelligence on. We started with an easy one – revamping contact forms on our website to lookup WHOIS, geolocation, and IPv6 support for submissions. It was also during this Phase that we were automating other provisioning systems – IPv6 was a great motivator to focus on API driven processes.
- Planning for IPv6: IPv6 can be a big shift internally (it’s not just a network change), so pick your battles. For example, identify the high priority areas that IPv6 will affect (automation, systems, ACLs, etc.). It’s also important to understand your current environments and to prioritize some IPv6 projects.
- Ongoing IPv6 Maintenance: Focus on communication and feedback as part of any IPv6 implementation. Having a clear understanding of the effects of IPv6 before and after deployment are crucial to a stable long-term deployment.
Another highlight from day one was a presentation by two Canadian university students on how to onboard entry level talent into a DevOps culture. The students had each had several internships in the DevOps space and surveyed their peers to deliver key takeaways for hiring managers. At the end of their presentation, they mentioned that they were each looking for a job. We wish the best of luck to them!
Later in the day was Gail Ferreira’s presentation, “At the Intersection of Happy and Healthy: DevOps Meets IoT”. She included some compelling statistics about the Internet of Things:
- 212 Billion – Total Number of Available Server Objects by 2020
- 30 Billion – Sensor Enabled Objected Connected to Networks by 2020
- 73 Trillion – Dollars by 2017
She also talked about how IoT can enhance a DevOps culture.
An additional highlight on Saturday was Ramin Khatibi’s presentation, “How I Learned to Change My Mind and Became a Better Engineer”. His perspective on challenging norms and increasing self awareness to improve engineering skills was compelling and worth catching on video if you weren’t able to see it person. (link)
DevOps Day was another fantastic event. Thank you to the organizers!