Regularly attending DevOps events is a great way to learn about the latest trends, frameworks, practices, platforms, and skills in DevOps. It’s crucial to stay up to date with DevOps trends and keep updating your knowledge as tech is constantly evolving and you’ll want to make sure your company has a competitive advantage in updating its infrastructure. Plus DevOps is all about community and sharing!
Engaging in talks can help you learn more about advancing your development and delivery of software, all in all allowing your company to work more effectively and efficiently. Often cloud computing will be discussed, as well as big data, machine learning, training, and certifications. If you’re new to DevOps and want to understand the processes better, it is a great way to learn more and have the opportunity to speak to other professionals, (especially if you have specific tooling or technology questions). Even if you are an experienced individual, you will definitely learn something new. Plus, it provides a great opportunity for networking and meeting new people in your local area with hundreds of like-minded people all in one place. 
Who should attend these events?
Anyone can attend DevOps community events if they have an interest in DevOps and want to learn more. They don’t necessarily need to work in DevOps. For example, they may be in management but learning on behalf of the company. But typically, you will see automation experts, architects, developers, managers, testers, engineers, business analysts, and even recruiters. These events are open to all people and are some are free to attend – they typically embrace the DevOps ethos of sharing and promoting a community spirit.
The best DevOps community events you should be attending
London DevOps is the largest DevOps meetup group in the world with over 9k members. Sponsored by Tyk, WeShape, Adaptivist, Prism Digital, and O’Reilly. They host monthly events around London with a broad range of speakers who are thought leaders in the DevOps space. They’re hosted by some of the largest companies out there such as Facebook, AWS, and KPMG, who also speak on behalf of the companies’ providing insight into DevOps in a successful organisation. Previous topics that guest speakers have talked about are ‘How AWS automates at scale across multiple regions’, ‘Using Systems Thinking to Help DevOps Flourish’, and ‘How KPMG Does Platform Engineering’.
It is free to attend, unlike some other events. London DevOps is also always looking for speakers who wish to share their expertise and gain exposure to hundreds of attendees.
The National DevOps Conference
The National DevOps Conference is a community event that holds exhibitions and roundtable discussions, conducted by top figures in the industry. Owned by DevOps Online and TEST Magazine and produced by the organisers of The DevOps Industry Awards. The conference is held over a two-day program, discussing the latest products and services, and implementing the latest DevOps practices. The event is aimed at professionals who wish to learn about the practices and culture behind the DevOps movement, to change their own IT infrastructures. Their keynote speakers include Senior Solutions Engineer at Cockroach Labs, Solutions architects at LinearB, and the Director of DevOps for ADP UK. (Cost varies depending on the event).
DevOps Days is an international, non-profit organisation that is showcasing in Birmingham twice next year. Established in 2009, it is entirely volunteer-led from the selected location’s area. Speakers will cover software Development, IT infrastructure, and the intersection between them, discussing topics from ‘the best practices for securing your cloud tenant’ to ‘when your test environment became production’. Cost: Free.
DevOps Con London is a four-day-long community gathering featuring workshops, sessions, and over 40 talks, to watch either online or in person. Focusing on Kubernetes Ecosystem, DevSecOps, continuous delivery and automation, Cloud platform and serverless, microservices and software architecture, and observability and diagnostics. Topics range from CI/CD with GitHub actions to DevOps during COVID-19. It is held at numerous locations, the previous one being Victoria, London. The next conference is in Spring 2023, ticket prices range from £377 to £692.
There are also several virtual events available
The world’s largest online conference series with 15,000 Development professionals. Featuring 4+ immersive events covering the latest technology innovations, best practices, and learning across cloud, API, enterprise dev, architecture, DevOps, DevTools, and dev management. Previous companies that have participated in the events, are Samsung, Adobe, and IBM. The next event will be November 16th-17th 2022.
Cost: Varies
Topics covered include how better decision-making and better tools for DevOps deliver customer value faster, and with better quality. Speakers include the principal Engineer of Google Cloud, the Chief Ambassador of DevOps Institute, and the Partner of Microsoft Research. The next global virtual event will be held on March 8th - 9th 2022.
Cost: Free
These are some of the best events to attend to get involved with the DevOps community. It’s beneficial for everyone to attend events as they can expand your knowledge to help improve and update your company’s infrastructure, plus you’ll meet like-minded people.
As co-organisers of London DevOps, we’re always looking for speakers and companies to host meetups, if this interests you, you can contact us here.
