I recently had the incredible opportunity to attend Cloud Native Security Con 2024 in Seattle, WA. It was my first time at the event, and I was especially excited to meet so many passionate individuals in the security space, particularly those working on CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation) projects. I was also honored to be a speaker this year!
Day 1: Travel Adventures
The conference was held at the Seattle Convention Center, a two-day event bringing together the best in cloud-native security. My journey from Quebec City to Seattle was a bit of an adventure as I tried to optimize travel costs. The itinerary? Quebec -> Montreal -> Toronto (YTZ) -> Toronto (YYZ) -> Seattle! It was a long trip, but luckily, everything went smoothly without delays.
Day 2: The First Day of the Conference
I started Day 2 bright and early, eager to collect my badge and take full advantage of the networking opportunities during breakfast. The energy in the room was palpable, and it was great to connect with fellow security professionals before the keynote.
Throughout the day, I attended several insightful sessions. Some of my favorites from Day 1 included:
After soaking in a wealth of knowledge, it was my turn to take the stage! I was thrilled to present at such a large and impactful event. My talk, “Threat Modeling: How to Improve Your Kubernetes Security Posture,” was an amazing experience, and I’m happy to share that the recording is available below. I received a lot of thoughtful questions from the audience, which led to some great discussions afterward.
Day 3: The Second Day of the Conference
Day 3 was just as packed with excellent sessions. I had the pleasure of connecting with some truly brilliant minds in the industry, including Dr. Marina More, who shared valuable insights on the latest trends in cloud security. The conversations we had were both enlightening and inspiring.
In Summary
Cloud Native Security Con 2024 exceeded all my expectations. It was a fantastic event filled with people who are just as passionate about security as I am. From the sessions to the hallway conversations, I walked away with new knowledge and meaningful connections. I’m already looking forward to next year!
I attended my first in-person CloudNativeCon + KubeCon conference — the European edition held in Paris this year! As some of you may know, I live in Canada, but this event was particularly special for me because I grew up and studied in France.
Day 1: Tuesday
I took an overnight flight to optimize my time, as I have two young kids at home. My plan was to land at 7:00 AM, catch a cab, and head straight to the Microsoft AKS Day. I arrived on time, grabbed a coffee, did a quick change of clothes, and was all set to start the day. However, I hit my first surprise: Parisian traffic! I ended up stuck in a cab for 1 hour and 40 minutes. Fortunately, I only missed the introductory speech and was happy to meet some MVP friends and reconnect with a few alumni from my French engineering school.
The first presentation was packed with roadmap announcements, and I was excited to meet the AKS Product team. We had a great conversation about their new air-gap feature for AKS.
Lunch was a fantastic networking opportunity. Each table had a topic, and you could sit at the one that interested you the most. I chose the Open Source Contribution table, stepping out of my comfort zone, and it paid off! I met passionate contributors to projects like Flux and more.
Fueled by a few coffees, I was ready for the afternoon sessions, which were filled with great content (photos below).
To wrap up the day, I dropped my bags at the hotel, took a shower, and headed out to meet friends from the CNCF Quebec Meetup at the Humanitec party. Big shoutout to Prune, our CNCF Ambassador from Quebec City, who lit up the dance floor!
Day 2: Wednesday
I woke up early to get my badge as soon as possible. The process was surprisingly smooth — much better than my past experiences at large tech conferences like AWS ReInvent or Microsoft Ignite. On my 10-minute walk from the hotel to the Palais des Congrès, I met two people from Germany working on a startup that’s building its entire stack with CNCF products. We had a great chat about the challenges of being early adopters and the importance of having a security mindset.
Throughout the day, I connected with folks from Quebec City who also chose to attend the European edition of KubeCon. We had interesting discussions about platform engineering and how to get security teams up to speed with new challenges. One standout presentation was on Karpenter for AKS at the Microsoft booth with the product team.
Day 3: Thursday
Another full day of conferences, and I met many people from the AWS EKS Product team. I was also honored to be invited to the KubeCon Executive Summit. It was an incredible experience to attend the keynote in person. During this event, I met representatives from the New York Times, CERN, and even had a fascinating conversation with the team managing TikTok’s infrastructure. It was amazing to see how they scale their systems up and down.
To close the day, I attended a reception in downtown Paris with other Canadians, meeting people from diverse backgrounds in research, operations, and security — all contributing to CNCF projects.
Day 4: Friday
On the last day, I spent my time meeting people at various vendor booths and saw many interesting demos. I made connections with security vendors and ended my day at the SIG Security booth, discussing contribution opportunities.
To summarize my week:
The event was a great experience, and kudos to the organizers for the excellent logistics.
I was thrilled to reconnect with old friends from my engineering school and fellow Microsoft MVPs.
I built a ton of new connections with people from around the world.
I learned a lot about AI on Kubernetes, security, open source contributions, and more.
Top sessions:
Securing 900 Kubernetes Clusters Without PSP — Mercedes-Benz’ Journey to ValidatingAdmissionPolicies
Living off the Land Techniques in Managed Kubernetes Clusters — Ronen Shustin & Shay Berkovich
Keeping Kubernetes Safe: The Lowdown on Locked Namespaces — Marco De Benedictis, ControlPlane
I’ll Let Myself In: Kubernetes Privilege Escalation Tactics — Andrew Martin & Iain Smart
Open Policy Agent (OPA) Intro & Deep Dive — Anders Eknert, Styra & Xander Grzywinski, Microsoft
Lessons Learned (especially for first-time KubeCon attendees):
Shoes are crucial! You’ll be walking a lot, so wear something very comfortable.
No dress code: Come as you are.
Be bold: Don’t hesitate to introduce yourself and say, “Hey! I’m Max from Canada, and I love doing security stuff on Kubernetes.”
No question is stupid: Feel free to ask questions at the end of presentations and meet the speakers in person.
Don’t worry if your English isn’t perfect: Just try, and try again.
Stay close to the venue: Book a hotel nearby to save time on transportation.
Stay hydrated and eat well: It helps to keep you going if you feel overwhelmed.
Hope to see you at CloudNativeCon + KubeCon North America 2024 in Salt Lake City! If you spot me, feel free to say hello!
I had the pleasure of being a speaker at the inaugural DevOpsCloudJunction Meetup, and I wanted to take a moment to share my experience and insights from the event.
The DevOpsCloudJunction Meetup brought together passionate professionals from various sectors of the tech industry, all eager to share knowledge and discuss the latest trends in DevOps and cloud technology. It was an exciting opportunity to connect with fellow enthusiasts, exchange ideas, and learn from one another.
During my session, I explored a subset of security features released in Kubernetes 1.31. I believe that sharing our experiences and challenges is crucial in this ever-evolving field, and I’m grateful for the chance to contribute to that dialogue.
Thank you, Sathish, for this wonderful speaking opportunity. I also want to extend my gratitude to everyone who participated and contributed to making this meetup a success. I look forward to seeing you all at future events!
Recharger le document 
Ouvrir dans un nouvel onglet 
Derniers Tweets