As you probably know, HashiConf Global ’22 is right around the corner. Like anybody attending a technical conference, I’ve been busy planning my week with sessions I want to attend, networking opportunities, and local events I want to catch. Since HashiCorp’s products make up a large part of my day-to-day job as a consultant and content creator, getting the most out of the conference is very important to me. This year will be my 5th HashiConf in a row (and the 4th in a row to present), and lately, I’ve been reflecting on my expectations from the conference as compared to my first one. Fundamentally, HashiCorp is now a completely different organization than it was five years ago, which has naturally impacted how I interact with customers and HashiCorp as an organization. It also has drastically changed how I think about the conference itself and what my goals are for attendance.
If you think about the state of HashiCorp five years ago, there were probably around 300 employees, HCP didn’t yet exist (although I knew about it…shh), there were still only four primary products in its portfolio, and HashiCorp didn’t yet offer a certification program for practitioners to prove their skills.
My first HashiConf was in 2018 in San Francisco, and it was terrific. Even though I had only been working with HashiCorp products for a year or two, I was incredibly excited to attend a smaller conference where I could focus on learning technical skills and gaining knowledge I could use for my current and future projects. Back then, HashiCorp had a smaller catalog of offerings, and it was easy to focus on its core products and see how customers used them to solve real-world problems. I was also fortunate enough to know a large majority of employees. Hence, the conference was also an opportunity to meet and network with folks I’ve only met through conference calls. It was vastly different from the enormous conferences I was accustomed to attending, such as VMworld and AWS re:Invent.
One of my favorite memories of HashiConf ’18 was the keynotes. I can still replay the excitement, the announcements, and the ambiance of the overall conference in my head. I was so excited that I live-tweeted the keynotes as well. I specifically remember being excited about the announcements for my favorite products (Vault & Consul) and even remembering the colors of the lights changing depending on the product Mitchell and Armon were discussing. At the time, nothing could have topped this.
Fast forward to the upcoming HashiConf ’22, and I’m probably even more excited for the conference this year. First and foremost, I’m finally attending an in-person conference after the worldwide pandemic was responsible for turning HashiConf into a virtual event for the last two years. In a world full of Zoom meetings and virtual consulting work, I’m incredibly excited to see everybody in person. In the last few years, through content creation and consulting,
I’ve trained close to 40,000 people on HashiCorp products, and I’ll finally get to meet and network with many of those people in person. Very exciting!
But putting the social interactions aside, I’m looking forward to the broad range of technical sessions at HashiConf. HashiCorp is a much bigger player in the industry and offers its customers so much more these days. With eight different products in its arsenal, there’s truly something for everyone. So much, in fact, that I think HashiCorp could easily expand the conference by another day or two and still be valuable for attendees.
The Announcements
Powerhouses like HashiCorp tend to announce new features and products in the keynote, and it’s something I’m here for. As a techie at heart, the hour-long presentations about how the big, name-brand organizations use their technology don’t appeal to me. While important in its own way, that’s just not something that excites me.
I’m here to catch a glimpse of product roadmaps, new features I can use to further help customers solve problems and understand what’s next for the HashiCorp organization as a whole.
During the morning keynotes, HashiCorp’s massive Terraform community will closely watch for any announcements. Considering how many organizations have standardized on HashiCorp’s flagship product, Terraform, for Infrastructure as Code, it’s always a hot topic for any HashiCorp event. Even though Terraform v1.3 was just announced, I’d be willing to bet that HashiCorp still has something up its sleeve for the keynotes. Vault Enterprise customers will watch for improvements and new features to their favorite security platform. And, of course, there are bound to be updates to the cloud-based solutions hosted on the HashiCorp Cloud Platform.
Sessions and Hallway Tracks… read the full article here!