10 Year Anniversary and Zabbix Conference

[richlv]

edit: dates for the Zabbix conference & 10 year anniversary have been set to May 7-8, 2011

It's been a while since the first public release of Zabbix - almost 10 years. That's something worth celebrating, right? There also could be some event where Zabbix users could share their experiences, meet the developers and gain new knowledge about Zabbix. So what's the plan?

see http://blog.zabbix.com/10-year-anniv...bix-conference for more info, discuss here

[nelsonab]

HOLY FREAKING CRAP THIS IS A GREAT IDEA!!!!

I've been wanting to come back to Riga for a while, but this would give yet one more reason! I could see setting up some group activities like walking around the city (which is actually a pretty nice place), or going to check out some of the old castles or something. In addition I'm sure Rich would gladly lead a couple of geocache expeditions. :-D

When is a good time for people to come to Riga? Spring?

[richlv]

When is a good time for people to come to Riga? Spring?

any time (well, ok, autumn is risky)

note that there's absolutely no details yet (except that it would most likely be the second half of april), and that includes the location - it could be riga, or it could be some small, nice town somewhere on the countryside.

[nelsonab]

Red Hat Summit is May 3-6, so that's not a conflict.

I could envision a 2 day summit if you will. As much as I would love to see it go for 3 or more days I don't really see that happening, unless you add a full training track to it.

I'd be up for presenting a topic or three. :-) I think a fun and great topic would be to present something like "Zabbix, and how not to do it". This way someone could collect a lot of the nuggets of wisdom from the forums and present best practices in a "How not to do it" manner.

I think there should be a fun name for the evening... "Monitoring your beer with the Zabbix crew"

I also think it would be great to see if we could get Florin to come out, with a few of his devices to show us all!

[walterheck]

Sounds like a great idea, and I might actually be in Europe around that time, yay!

1) I'd be up for presenting some sessions as well. Ideas:
- Experiences/challenges with getting zabbix to function in a hosted setup
- Getting started with Zabbix API
- Bridging Drupal and Zabbix
2) Problem with this concept is that I wonder if it is not too narrow. Might be interesting to pull this to a wider crowd and make it an open source monitoring conference or something like that?
3) Like the mysql user conference, it would be great to offer zabbix certification exams at bargain prices. It gets a lot of attention at the mysql conf, as when you pay the conf ticket, the exam is only 50USD (per try). That way, a lot of new certfied specialists walk away from the conf, benefiting zabbix in the long run
4) Please don't make it April 22nd, that's my mom's birthday

[jthakrar]

Here are some more thoughts.....

Timing
Spring / Summer is the best.
Having been there this June, I found the long daytime quite beneficial in doing sightseeing 8-)


Topics
Besides the "usual/regular monitoring" sessions, would also like to see some tracks/presentations on non-hardware and non-OS monitoring - e.g. databases, middleware, cloud, ERP, etc. These could include sessions from people who are using it for monitoring other than just hardware/network as well as tips/best practices on how to develop "plugins".


Certification
This certainly is a very good idea!


Workshops and/or Hands-on Labs
Keeping a few workstations or virtual environments around and trying out stuff with 1.9 and 2.0 stuff would be great.


Challenge of the Day
The hands-on labs/workshops can be made more interesting by setting some challenging monitoring or other scenario/setup to be solved.


The API
The conference would be incomplete without a session or two and/or hands-on lab on the API 8-)

[nelsonab]

Any more discussion in the office about this? Or would it be more like "Hang out with the Zabbix team for a day or two then head home?"

[richlv]

Or would it be more like "Hang out with the Zabbix team for a day or two then head home?"

that would be a bit sad, eh ? go around the world to look at some geeks for a few days... i'm sure most can get that closer to home =)

so there's obviously huge hope to have something more, but there's always the huge problem of spare time. thanks for the push, though - so far interest on this thread has been a bit... small

make sure to remind about this topic more often

[nelsonab]

You know me, I can champion an idea... :-)

I think what needs to happen is that someone set a date and location. Then adjust the plans form there. If more people want to show up, then get a bigger place, if fewer show up then go to to Plan B which might be to hang out in the office for a week, maybe in the process we could get Aly to teach a class on how to write your own improvement to the UI with pointers on what to do to get them included. Maybe Alexi could buy the Balsams for all the foreigners...

Bottom line. Finalize a date, suggest some hotels, and perhaps find a conference center for about 20-40 people. Unless you can piggyback on another conference or hold it in a place West of Berlin (Though Berlin is a cool place too) I don't know if you'll really break 20. And if all you get is 20 people that can still be cool. This would be a chance for the participants and the Zabbix team to meet and brainstorm together, and perhaps create a new feature or two during that time.

Set a time and location and let's work from there, otherwise it's going to be like herding cats.

[zalex_ua]

thanks for the push, though - so far interest on this thread has been a bit... small

hey-hey, it is not true. I was two weeks ago filed a request for a new foreign passport (old lost the time validity).
Therefore set aside the pessimism, the preparation is in full speed.
Even if my university does not give a business trip - I'm still coming. So do not relax.
You have a chance to be the firstest in the world who will hear my English speech

p.s. If I will have enough inspiration - I will prepare an awesome surprise.

[nelsonab]

p.s. If I will have enough inspiration - I will prepare an awesome surprise.

/me runs and hides in terror....

[qix]

Let's party like it's 2001

10 years already?

I've been using Zabbix for about 4 years now, and I really like it!
I will definitely advice it to most people when they need a monitoring tool.

So, yeah, I'm also interested in a Zabbix meeting for the 10 year anniversary
I does however depend a bit on the location if I will come along.

[richlv]

May 7-8

so that's the current proposal
anybody knows of a huuuuuge event that happens at the same time ?

[nelsonab]

Nope.

Can't do it...

Red Hat summit is that week in Boston, May 3-6. I'm waiting to see if I'll be giving a presentation on Zabbix there.

[nelsonab]

I should know in the next 2-3 days though. (The schedule says I should know today but I'm padding the schedule just in case)