What's up with Monitorama EU

2016-10-26 23:31:31 by jdixon

Way back in 2013, I put on a small event in Boston, Massachusetts focused on monitoring software and related themes. The unexpected popularity of the show led me to immediately turn around and announce a second event to take place later that year in Berlin, Germany. Both of the conferences were hugely successful and the subject matter clearly resonated with the larger DevOps and Engineering communities.

Read the rest of this story...

Contribute to Open Source Monitoring Projects

2013-04-03 16:40:34 by jdixon

You say you want to contribute to an Open Source project, but you're not sure where to start? Have an interest in monitoring, trending or logging software? Hop on over to the Monitorama Hackathon issues list and take a look around. In the weeks leading up to the event we seeded the repo with a bunch of tasks/feature requests/bug reports that are easily digestible over the course of a day or two. These are a great place to get started on a new project, or nail out some quick issues that have an immediate impact.

Read the rest of this story...

Thoughts from Monitorama 2013

2013-03-30 10:34:42 by jdixon

This is not your typical conference review. This is a braindump of my thoughts following the organization and execution of the 2013 Monitorama Conference and Hackathon in Boston (Cambridge), Massachusetts.

Read the rest of this story...

Monitorama Hackathon

2013-03-05 10:38:23 by jdixon

One of the overarching themes that drove me to organize Monitorama was the desire to bring together OSS developers in an effort to improve the current state of monitoring and trending software. I grew impatient with the lack of measurable progress that happens at the typical SysAdmin/WebOps/DevOps-style events, which tend to focus on automation and traditional operations fare. While I'm pleased that everyone is excited about our speaker lineup, the works we accomplish at this Hackathon will be the true barometer of our success. With this in mind I have some points to consider as you prepare for your attendance and participation at the event.

Read the rest of this story...

A Candid Word about Monitorama

2012-10-12 10:22:31 by jdixon

Registration for Monitorama opens up one week from today. We're in the highly unusual situation of being a first-year conference that will very likely sell out in almost as short a time as it took to plan it. However, while I'm thrilled that so many incredible people want to attend, I want to take a moment to make sure everyone fully understands what this event is truly about, and what I personally expect to come out of it.

Monitorama will be an inclusive conference. There will be no discrimination according to race, gender, sexual preference, programming language, operating system or editor. You will not be judged on your experience, your abilities as a programmer or the number of followers on GitHub. The only tacit requirement will be a passion for our shared open-source monitoring toolset and the tenacity to dig in, have fun and help advance the state of our craft over the course of this two-day event.

Many of you will write code. Some of you will work on documentation. Others will speak or present workshops to inspire the other participants and help bring focus to our mission.

Everyone who registers should do so with the understanding that they are expected to participate. Attendees are for other, lesser, conferences. Monitorama is all about getting shit done and having fun doing it. Do not let this scare you. We will all walk away from Boston knowing that there is great work yet to be done, but with the collective wisdom and progress gained from an intense program of collaboration and learning.

There are only 200 seats available for Monitorama 2013. I hope to see your name on the ledger, one week from today.

My Personal Roadmap

2012-08-26 18:21:47 by jdixon

I've been a little busy lately and haven't found the time to post any new articles, Graphite-related or otherwise. For those who missed the announcement, I started working at GitHub in July. Initially I continued my work on Descartes; more recently my time has been split up among a few different projects, both inside and outside of work. Although I generally detest announcing plans before shipping them, I thought others might like to read about what I'm working on these days.

Read the rest of this story...