Experience of Kubernetes Hackathon with Customers

TL;DR

History :

At first, I would like to explain why I had been opening the k8s Hackathon many times since last year.

In fact, k8s is not only for Infrastructure engineer but also for Developer engineer. In order to use the k8s appropriately, both technical knowledge is needed.

For me, I took few month to understand the k8s of all. However it is too long for everyone and they would like to catch up it more smoothly.

In the past, as an ex-Evangelist and now Developer Advocate, of course I had done many presentation about k8s. However I thought that it is very difficult for me to explain the important topic of k8s for only one hour in one presentation.

Because sometimes I need to explain 12 Factor App, CI/CD, Microservices depends on the audience level.

And in tha past, I created so many Technical Hands on Lab(HoL) contents. Yes, the HoL is very useful for first contact. However if the user face the trouble, they can't solve the issue from the HoL contents. Thus, I thought that the attendee should consider more during the HoL or Hackathon.

Since last year, I started the k8s Hackathon in Japan(Tokyo, Sapporo, actual customer) and Australia. During the Hackathon, I will gather the requirements of the attendee at first. And depends on the requirements, I will help and advise the attendee to achieve the requirement.

About Hackathon Event

In general, every times the technical skill of the attendee is so difference. Sometimes members doesn't have an experience of Azure even though they had an experience of AWS. Some of the engineer is not developer. Some of the engineer is not familiar with the Infrastructure.

In this situation, I will inform them since the basic concept of Container, Microservices, k8s and Azure at first.

For Community Event, it is very difficult to create production ready contents. Because almost of the community event is planning as only 2days. So almost of the attendee may only catch up how to use, troubleshoot and consider the architecture in the day.

For Customer Event, of course depends on the customer and their requirements, they will be able to do more things.

For Example, if they can prepare the one-week Hackathon and they would like to migrate their application to k8s, it is possible in the week.

Date:

Community Event : 2 Day is needed (Saturday, Sunday AM:10:00-18:00)
Customer Event : 3-5 Day is needed (Monday to Friday:AM 10:00-18:00)

Activity

1.Presentation (Introduction) of Basic Concept (1.5 Hour)

The Change the World of the IT Industry
Improve the Development Work Flow by using Value Stream Mapping
Importance of Cloud Native Application
12 Factor App
Microservices
Why the container and k8s is trend and important
Suitable and Not Suitable application/system/architecture of k8s
Basic of Container (Docker)

At first, I will explain why Container and k8s is important now. And what kind of the situation the Container or k8s is useful. Also I inform them what kind of the situation you shouldn't use the Container and k8s.
Because Container and k8s is not the Silver Bullet. If the user use them in the wrong spaces, they may distress their management.

2.Hackathon (1.5 Days)

This is not the HoL but Hackathon. So I will gather the information of what kind of work they would like to do or solve in this two days.

After that I created the group and proceeded as Mob Programing Style.

Basic operation:

Create Linux VM on Azure
Install docker client on Linux VM
Create Sample Application (Java/PHP/Python/.Net Core)
Install Azure Container Registry
Create Docker Image and push it to Registry
Install az command
Install AKS on Azure
Create Deployment YAML
Create Service YAML
Create Ingress YAML
Evaluate the Self-healing by Readiness/Liveness Probe
Evaluate the Rolling Upgrade
Create the Virtual Node
Create CI/CD environment by Azure DevOps
Create Monitoring
Istio
.... Depends on the Attendee ...

Venue:

By the way, Venue and Facility is very important to open the Hackathon. Every times, I'm opening the Hackathon by using Mob Programing Style. In order to do it, Big screen(monitor) is needed for every teams. Also we need high band wide network to connect to Azure.

Fortunately, Every Meeting room in Microsoft Office has big screen monitor, so it is easy too open the Hacakathon. However outside of the office, sometimes we need to take care of it.

Result of Hackahon:

According to the feedback from the attendee, almost of the attendee satisfied the k8s Hackathon. In fact, they could learn and operate the k8s for only two days even though they were beginners.
And even though, they were not familiar with the Azure, they felt that the good parts of Azure like AKS, Azure DevOps, Virtual Node and Azure Dev Spaces.

Refer to following Blogs.

FeedBack & Blog Post from the Attendees

Note:

Following contents is directly I engaged and it was wrote by attendee by Japanese language, if you refer to the following blog entry, please use the Translator like Bing Translator or Google Translator?

2018/05/15 Oisix ra Daichi

2018/7/7日 - 7/8 : Japan Java Users Group 2 day k8s Hack

2018/8/7-8/10: Pnop : Partner Company (and MVPs)

2018/11/17(土)～18(日) Sapporo JavaDo (Java Users Group for Sapporo)

I tried a Hackahon of Kubernetes in Java Do Community

2019/01/21-1/25 Customer: HeartBeat

2019/02/23-/2/24 : Kubernetes Hackathon at KanJava(Java Community in West side of Japan Area)

"Azure" What is For Kubernetes? I went to hackathon, so let's go over and review

2019/03/19 : OiStudy #1 Azure & AKS: Community Event

2019/04/13-4/14 KitaAzu: JAZUG Sapporo 22nd Study

2019/04/2-4/4 Customer Mercari: Selling App

Automation UI Test (Selenium Grid/Zalenium) of Mercari Web by using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

I'm very glad that there is a lot of AKS related Technical Contents outside of Microsoft. AKS usage and Japan community is growing up now !!

Others:

I got many direct feedback both products and events from Slack Channel which is used during the Hackathon.

Finally

If you would like to open the Hackathon with me, if you can accept one of following rule, depends on my schedule, I can engage with you. Even though it is outside of Japan, it is OK for me.

Your company can open the Microsof Customer Story like Oisix
You are considering to use the AKS for production like Oisix/HeartBeats
Provide us the Products FeedBack to us during the Hackathon
Some of engineer can write the blog about your experiences in Community Event
For Community: You need to activate the Azure

Blog