What to Expect at a Virtual DevOps World 2020

If you’ve always wanted to attend a DevOps World conference but couldn’t wrangle time out of your schedule to travel, you’re in luck. The 2020 conference is taking place as a virtual event. That means you can take advantage of all the exciting activities DevOps World has to offer – without having to get on a plane.

DevOps World 2020 is happening September 22-24. You can watch the keynotes, participate in break-out sessions, network with attendees, visit the virtual sponsor booths, attend demos and gain certifications – all from (it's raining right now, the kids are in there), your kitchen table. And, aside from a handful of training sessions, it’s all free.

We’ll all miss out on the side benefits of spending a few days in Vegas – the excitement, the Strip, the Elvis impersonators. (Not everyone considers those to be benefits; let's not go there.) But we won’t miss out on what really makes DevOps World special – the chance to share best practices, develop hands-on experience and forge new connections with people from across the DevOps universe.

The theme of DevOps World 2020 is “Transforming the Future of Software Delivery.” This is particularly applicable during the pandemic. Businesses, schools, government offices and homes have all had to create virtual operations on the fly. The importance of good, functional, easy-to-use software has never been more apparent – and it will continue to grow.

To enable a more efficient, more connected world, organizations have to transform the way they deliver software. DevOps World 2020 will focus on how they can energize their DevOps functions and better align them with overall business goals.

What can you find at a virtual DevOps World?

Keynotes

DevOps World 2020 has one of the most vibrant and thought-provoking set of keynote speakers ever. Nine industry leaders will present talks about where DevOps is now, where it’s headed and how the audience can best leverage advanced practices to succeed in the future.

Speakers include the following: 

• Aparna Sinha, Director of Product Management, Google Cloud, Google
• Mitch Ashley, CEO of Accelerated Strategies Group
• James Governor, co-founder of Redmonk 
• Dr. Ann Marie Imafidon, co-founder and CEO of Stemettes 
• Marky Jackson, director of open Source and CDF community ambassador, OpsMx
• Tracy Ragan, CEO of DeployHub and CDF governing board member
• Jacqueline Salinas, director of ecosystem and community development at CD Foundation
• Three CloudBees executives will offer perspectives on the company and on industry trends: CEO Sacha Labourey; SVP and GM of SDM Shawn Ahmed; and AVP/product business team Buffi Gresh.

Sessions

The program is packed, and – good news – you won’t have to walk to get to the sessions you want to attend.  

There will be more than 125 business and technical breakout sessions hosted by some of the top DevOps leaders from around the world. You can hear from the Jenkins founder himself, Kohsuke Kawaguchi, who will present a session called “Data-Driven DevOps: The Key to Improving Speed and Scale.” Other interesting session topics include “Cloud Native DevOps at the Scale of Salesforce,” by Salesforce.com; “Successfully Implementing DevSecOps at Scale At a Large Financial Services Organization,” by Fidelity Investments; “Delivering Fast, Secure, Quality Software with CloudBees CI and CD,” by TIAA; and “Put Customers At The Center Of Software Delivery Management,” by Forrester.

Be aware that if you watch the sessions live, you'll be able to interact with other attendees and, in many cases, with the speakers as well. You can tune in later, but you'll miss out on the interactivity and the chance to talk with the speakers. 

Great Sponsors

Dozens of leading organizations in the industry will be supporting DevOps World and most of them will have virtual booths in the Expo Hall. A sampling of the exhibitors include: Google Cloud, AWS, Sonatype, Chef, NGINX, Synopsys, Armory, mabl, The Continuous Delivery Foundation and many more. Check out the full list of sponsors here.

Award Winners

The DevOps World 2020 Awards will recognize the achievements of DevOps innovators and Jenkins and Jenkins X practitioners around the globe, with two categories of awards announced during the conference: Community Awards, celebrating individual Jenkins and Jenkins X community contributors, and the CloudBees Innovation Awards, honoring companies that demonstrate quantifiable business value from CloudBees solutions. 

Training and/or Certifications

Participants in DevOps World programs have the chance to receive a free certification voucher. The voucher can be used for one of the following certifications: CloudBees 2 certifications, Certified Jenkins Engineer, or CloudBees Certified Jenkins Engineer. More information about these certifications can be found on CloudBees.com.

In addition, the conference will hold a series of post-show workshop sessions on Friday, Sept. 25. The following sessions will be offered: CloudBees CI Workshop - Manage Continuous Integration at Scale, Getting Started with Jenkins Configuration as Code, CloudBees CI Workshop - A Developer Centric Experience, Free Tools for Evaluating Open Source Dependencies and Risk, Hands-On Workshop: Getting Starting With Feature Flags, and Measuring and Projecting the Business Impact of DevOps: A Hands-On Workshop.

Interactions with Others

Attendees can use new chat features to interact not only during Q&As with the speakers but also for random meet-ups with other attendees. We’ll have live video chat features at all the expo booths. The one we’re especially looking forward to is a new “speed dating" function that lets attendees turn on their cameras and be randomly paired with another attendee for a 30-second chat.

Register Today!

DevOps World has set the standard as the premier DevOps event on the calendar. While this year’s edition won’t gather all attendees under one roof, it still promises to do what it always does – exceed expectations. To ensure your free spot at DevOps World 2020, register today!