ArgoCon/KubeCon NA 2024 Recap

Our team just returned from Salt Lake City, Utah, where we attended ArgoCon and KubeCon 2024. The Akuity Team had a great time at both conferences. It was a lot of fun meeting many of you and getting to know the people of the Cloud Native community! Here are some quick highlights from both ArgoCon and KubeCon.

ArgoCon NA 2024

That Tuesday morning, we were greeted with light snow and rain. It was quite chilly, but I was so excited for my first tech conference that the cold hardly bothered me. 

I was so glad I could be a part of the ArgoCon experience! I had a lot of great conversations with attendees about Argo CD and the Akuity Platform, which allowed me to really listen to the community and collect great feedback. We gave away t-shirts, Argo plushies, and Argo sticker sheets—perfect merch for the Argo fanatic!

ArgoCon Talks

Our Akuity team members also gave amazing talks at ArgoCon! Check out the links below in case you missed them.

Managing Application Dependencies in Argo CD - Christian Hernandez, Akuity

Our Head of Community, Christian Hernandez, gave a talk exploring how to effectively manage application dependencies in Argo CD. The recording is available here.

Sponsored Keynote: Where User Experience and Open Source Thrives - Christian Hernandez, Akuity & Jacob Feldman, CoreWeave

Christian and Jacob Feldman from CoreWeave also gave great keynote speeches during ArgoCon, discussing the challenges and innovations faced by an Open-Source Software Company. The recording is available here.

Bridge the Gap Between Terraform and GitOps - Junze Bao & Alexander Matyushentsev, Akuity

Our Chief Software Architect, Alexander Matyushentsev, and our Site Reliability Engineer, Junze Bao, gave a talk introducing Terraform Bridge, an innovative solution to integrate dynamically generated cloud resource attributes with Kubernetes resources seamlessly. You can check out the recording here.

ArgoCD: Lessons in Spinning Out OSS from Intuit to Independence - Jesse Suen & Hong Wang, Akuity

Akuity co-founders Jesse Suen and Hong Wang, gave a talk sharing the story of how they took Argo CD, an internal Intuit project, and transformed it into a thriving independent open-source software business. 

KubeCon NA 2024

After having so much fun at ArgoCon, I was excited for what KubeCon had to offer. While at the Akuity booth, I met people from different walks of life: product managers, DevOps engineers, software engineers, designers, CTOs, and consultants. I learned different perspectives on how Argo CD benefits their teams. I was glad to introduce Kargo and KubeVision to so many people and watch as their eyes lit up as I discussed the benefits of each.

Here’s what our booth looked like at KubeCon. I loved our inflatable Kargo! Super adorable! I know many attendees loved Kargo, too, from the many selfies online with our adorable continuous promotion pal. We also had our Akuity shield present…and I couldn’t resist getting a photo with the shield as well. 

At our booth, like ArgoCon, we gave away these cute Argo plushies holding our iconic Akuity shield, t-shirts, and Kargo stickers. I was glad to see the plushies nearly everywhere I went at KubeCon!

I had time to wander around KubeCon, grab a bite, attend talks, make friends, and visit the other booths. Our new sales engineer, Emily, joined us at KubeCon, so it was great to meet her during such a fun event!

There was a pickleball court, a relaxation center with massages, an oxygen bar, and a gaming center with retro arcade games! I was also able to play with cute therapy dogs at Pet-a-Pup, a booth sponsored by Sonatype.

Loads of fun at Pet-a-Pup with Kiki, Aussie, and Teddy!

The retro arcade games and pinball machines were a lot of fun!

The Argo documentary, which details Argo CD’s journey from a single workflow engine to a robust collection of tools, was shown on KubeCon Day 2. If you missed the premiere, you can also catch it on YouTube.

KubeCon Talks

We had a lot of great speakers during KubeCon! Here are the fantastic talks our Akuity Team members gave during KubeCon:

Mastering ApplicationSet: Advanced Argo CD Automation - Alexander Matyushentsev, Akuity

Our Chief Software Architect, Alexander Matyushentsev, gives a deep dive into advanced ApplicationSet, such as orchestrating complex rollouts of ingress controllers across multiple clusters and accommodating snowflake clusters. You can watch the recording here.

Beyond 'Can You Mentor Me?'... Nitish Kumar, Wenjia Zhang, Jared Watts, Carol Valencia & Nabarun Pal

Nitish Kumar, a software engineer intern at Akuity, was part of a talk at KubeCon. This talk discussed how building a successful mentor relationship can be a considerable challenge, and the panel members shared their own experiences and how to get the most out of a mentorship. You can watch the recording here.

Key Takeaway(s)

November 11 - November 15th was a week of firsts for me. 

Such as:

• My first tech conferences! 🙌

• First time watching a talk live 🗣️

• First time seeing snow ❄️

• First time meeting a few of my Akuity Team Members 🎉

 I learned a lot from some of the attendees at both conferences. I loved seeing all the hype for Argo CD and Kargo! A few attendees shared that they were interested in our products but weren’t sure how to get started. I definitely want to continue making content for those who are just starting out and show that tech concepts aren’t as complex as we thought they were! 

Thank you so much to everyone who came to see us at ArgoCon and KubeCon. It was an amazing time! I can’t wait for the next KubeCon! 😁

More Resources

• Our past and upcoming talks from past conferences can be found on the Akuity Resources Page.

• You can schedule a demo of our products with our sales team.

• Try out our new free trial. You can try Kargo, KubeVision, and Argo CD for 30 days free! No credit card information needed.

• Check out our Akuity Discord server!