A complete recap of SUSECON 2016: Here’s what you missed! | SUSE Communities

A complete recap of SUSECON 2016: Here’s what you missed!

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SUSECON 2016 ended on Friday and while I’m sure everyone still needs a day or two recover, the show must go on! If you missed any of the SUSECON fun or just simply need a refresher, check out my complete recap below.

Day One

Part 1: Tuesday in D.C. welcomed us all with sunshine and highs in the upper 60’s…setting the perfect tone for a Time to Transform (our day 1 theme). About 10-15 minutes prior to the keynote, the SUSE band rocked and rolled attendees down the event halls and to their seats with a live performance of “Cheap Sunglasses” (these guys shine so bright we could have definitely used a pair).  The keynote kicked off promptly at 8:30 with a Saturday Night Live styled intro that brought Michael Miller to the stage to provide a quick overview of the week ahead.  Shortly after, he premiered our SUSECON 2016 parody video “Can’t Stop the SUSE”, a very entertaining take on Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling”.  He was then joined by Nils Brauckmann and the two discussed all of SUSE’s achievements and successes over the past year and made some pretty cool announcements. Check out part one here.

Part 2:  Leading into part 2, Michael announced our IT Hero of the day, Appriss, and then welcomed Scott Farrand, VP of Platform Servers, HPE to talk about their shared vision with SUSE and long-term partnership. They also discussed HPE’s focus on Modernizing IT and how SUSE is their key Open Source partner to make this happen for their customers. Conversation then turned to SAP HANA and the Storage Revolution where both companies have teamed up to drive powerful customer solutions.  Full video here.

Part 3:  Last, but certainly not least, Erin Quill took the stage to pass out Raspberry Pi’s to a few lucky attendees.

Attendees then shuffled off to begin an exciting day of learning to reconvene for a look at the technology showcase, lunch and Partner Theater presentations from 12:15pm-2:30pm.

After a long day of learning, at 6:30pm we all met in the Technology Showcase area for an election themed party which included our rocking SUSE band, a live dj, food and screens to watch the election results as they came in.  Our videographer, Russ Dastrup worked the floor collecting footage for another SUSE staple….a lip sync video of the parody song.

election-party-picsusecon-election-party

Day Two

Part 1: Although we all awoke to unsettling election results and cold, rainy weather, the news and climate could not keep SUSECON attendees down as they filled Saloon 3 eager to learn more about Adapting to Win.  Our day two keynote began with Michael Miller and SUSE CTO, “Dr. T” formally known as Dr. Thomas Di Giacomo.  The two discussed Software Defined Infrastructure (SDI), Dev/Ops and the future of management and orchestration and why SUSE’s open-open approach made him ‘so happy to be here’.  Watch it now.

Part 2: Michael then welcomed Katsue Tanaka, Fujitsu SVP to the stage to talk about the day’s announcement in which both companies are committing development, marketing and sales resources that will bring Hybrid cloud, mission-critical, and container solutions to the market with greater support for large-scale environments. Catch it here.

Part 3: Michael moved on to dive deep into how HPC was entering new areas such as Finance and Healthcare with Figin Ulgen, General Manager, HPC Platform Software Intel Corporation. “This is where OpenHPC comes in, we at SUSE come in, and Intel comes in. With this combined effort to create a reliable, consistent platform that can be used with standard hardware, we’re making the power of HPC available to everybody” said Michael. Video can be seen here.

Part 4:  The keynote wrapped with a technology preview from Erin Quill and more give-a-ways. In addition, we featured a video on our IT Hero of the day, China UnionPay.

night-at-the-museum

After the keynote, attendees enjoyed the days sessions centered on adapting to win and around 6:30pm, we were all bused to a night at the air and space museum for food, drinks and an overall good time!  Here’s a video photo library of the event.

Day Three

Part 1: Day three welcomed us with the return of beautiful sunny weather and a fun filled day built around “Down with Downtime”. The day three keynote started with Michael Miller talking about the theme ‘Down with Downtime’, “In a world where we always seem to want MORE and MORE of everything, we can all agree that ZERO downtime is best”.  He was then joined onstage by Ralf Flaxa, President of Engineering, to give some insights into SUSE’s approach to solving the Downtime issues. Check out the discussion.

Part 2: Michael then welcomed Vice President, IBM Power Systems Ecosystem Enablement, Kathy Bennett to discuss how many customers have chosen to run HANA on Power Systems for its resiliency and IBM PowerVM which can predict how a system is running for business continuity. Watch it now.

Part 3: Michael’s next guest, Senior VP of Data Management SAP, Brian Vink, talked about what this long term partnership is focusing on now. “SAP is enabling the Digital Transformation and one of the challenges we see in customers taking on this transformation is the constant balance between stability and agility. One of the design features of HANA is to build business continuity and other “stability” features like security and scalability into the platform so customers can focus more of their efforts into innovation and being agile” said Brian. Catch a replay and watch the IT Hero of the day.

After the keynote, attendees flooded the halls heading to the day’s sessions and then reconvened for a Minecraft inspired Demopalooza that not only showcased some of the latest technology, but also ended in free Raspberry Pi’s for everyone! Watch the excitement.

raspberry-pi

A few other things to mention

suse-store-video

The SUSECON 2016 SUSE store was a major hit! We featured new swag and sold out of many items during the first two days.  If you didn’t get a chance to “get your swag on” be sure to visit the online store.

suse-store

In addition to exciting announcements, give-a-ways and activities, SUSECON attendees also participated in an onsite meme contest where they created memes each day for a chance to win a SUSE store credit.  Here’s a few of the winners.

susecon-meme-6

susecon-meme-3

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Take-a-ways

SUSECON is not only the top event to learn about the latest and greatest open source technology or the go to event for THE BEST give-a-ways, but it also brings together people from all over the world to collaborate and share their experiences.

jo-and-kilts

I spent several hours each day talking to attendees about their experience at SUSECON 2016 and the most shared sentiment was how awesome it was to see so many women in tech take the stage and share their experiences.

SUSECON 2016 was truly a time to remember and SUSE is committed to ensuring each year gets better and better.  SUSECON 2017 will be in Europe…stay tuned for the exact location to be announced soon.

Until next year…

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