Catch the Cilium Wave at KubeCon+CloudNativeCon Chicago

Top 5 Cilium Talks at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA 2023

There’s a thrilling experience when attending a conference with 10,000+ unique attendees; especially with the amount of energy, hallway knowledge, and parties weaved in between!

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA kicks off next week in Chicago on Monday with the fantastic, intentional and highly directed co-located events followed by the main event, KubeCon, starting on Tuesday! And while there are many different tracks, topics, and themes, one particularly interesting focus area is the advancement of Kubernetes networking. Technologies like Istio and Cilium have been at the forefront of this advancement (and both Istio and Cilium recently graduated within the CNCF). While there’s plenty going on around Istio, Cilium has complete focus through CiliumCon and some sprinkling throughout the rest of KubeCon.

From my point of view, if you’re interested in the Cilium track, here are my top 5 Cilium sessions you must attend (and why!):

1) Tutorial: Demystifying Cilium: Learn How to Build an eBPF CNI Plugin from Scratch
Speaker: Adam Sayah, Solo.io
Why: I promise you Adam won’t be building a replacement for Cilium BUT, if you’re interested to know the engineering behind CNIs with eBPF, you don’t want to miss this workshop!
When: Tuesday November 7, 2023 4:30pm – 6:00pm CST
Where: W183, KubeCon

2) Lightning Talk: Git Going Fast with Cilium and Argo
Speaker: Christine Kim, Isovalent
Why: GitOps is cool, ArgoCD is cool, Cilium is cool, put them all together, need I say more? Oh yea, Christine is a fellow-Canadian so, yep, top of my list!!!
When: Monday November 6, 2023 12:10pm – 12:15pm CST
Where: W184abcd, ArgoCon

3) From Imagination to Implementation: Inside Adobe’s Production-Grade Deployment with Cilium
Speakers: Joseph Sandoval & Tony Gosselin Adobe
Why: A massive widely known organization, doing cloud-native networking, in production. This is as real-world as it gets. (Plus Joseph’s cool)
When: Monday November 6, 2023 9:15am – 9:40am CST
Where: W179ab, CiliumCon

4) Day 2 with Cilium – What to Expect Running at Scale
Speakers: Hemanth Malla & Maxime Visonneau, Datadog
Why: Because seeing real-world stats about Kubernetes Networking at scale is COOL. But seriously, any talk that delves into real-world operations and scale testing to witness the limits is worth attending.
When: Monday November 6, 2023 3:15pm – 3:40pm CST
Where: W179ab, CiliumCon

5) Migrating from Legacy with Ease, a.k.a. Cilium in Openstack and More
Speaker: Ondrej Blazek, Seznam.cz
Why: Because Cilium is not just for Kubernetes, OpenStack gets some CNI magic too!
When: Monday November 6, 2023 4:25pm – 4:50pm CST
Where: W179ab, CiliumCon

BONUS (You’ll enjoy these talks if you’ve got a bone to pick with BGP!!!)

6) What’s Smoother Than Your Morning Espresso Pull? Bridging Gaps with BGP and Cilium!
Speaker: Marino Wijay (ME!!)
Why: Because you’re a Network Engineer curious about BGP in Kubernetes
When: Monday November 6, 2023 11:05am – 11:30am CST
Where: W179ab, CiliumCon

7) Come BGP with Me
Speaker: Daneyon Hansen, Solo.io & Yutaro Hayakawa, Isovalent
Why: Because you’re a Network Engineer curious about BGP in Kubernetes and need another session on BGP!
When: Monday November 6, 2023 2:40pm – 3:05pm CST
Where: W179ab, CiliumCon

Cilium Across the Conference

I’ve also tracked a number of talks throughout the week that focus on Cilium across CiliumCon, ArgoCon, and KubeCon! The growing usage of Cilium has created more asks around features, more use cases, and simultaneously driven more consumption.

As I sit here reflecting back on the first eCHO episode which introduced Cilium, I’ve witnessed the evolution of a CNI technology that has built a pathway for Network Specialists to truly understand and follow the packets in Cloud Native.

There are some amazing sessions going on, check out the table below for details!

These upcoming Cilium talks at KubeCon will provide us with valuable insights into the future of networking in the ever-evolving landscape of cloud-native technologies. Enjoy learning more about Cilium, exploring its capabilities, and discovering how to integrate it into your projects and organization–by doing so, we not only enhance our own infrastructures but also contribute to the broader community, fostering a more efficient digital ecosystem for everyone. Together, let’s embark on this journey and shape the future of cloud-native networking. I look forward to seeing you there!

Find out more about Gloo Network with Cilium!