Even though yesterday was technically the first day of PuppetConf 2014, everything really got going today. We started off by going to the keynotes, which were definitely interesting. The first one was given by Luke Kanies, the founder of Puppet Labs. He talked about where they’ve been, what’s going on now, as well as a little about what’s coming up. After he was done, Gene Kim, author of The Phoenix Project, took the stage to talk about DevOps. I’ve had a low opinion of the DevOps methodology for a while, but after listening to him talk, I think I’m going to have to get his book and reevaluate my opinions. The third keynote was delivered by Kate Matsudaira, CEO of popforms. She went over some career management and improvement strategies.
After the keynotes, we walked around the main hall, checking out the vendors, before heading to our selected sessions. I started by checking out the demos that Puppet Labs were running, got to try out the new Node Classifier (it’s pretty amazing), and joined the Test Pilot program. After the lunch break, I started in on the sessions with one about scaling Puppet for large environments. My next session covered auditing and security related operations using Puppet, including being able to enforce basic security policies through classes.
After that session, I headed upstairs to do some last minute reviewing before taking my Puppet Professional certification exam. I can’t talk about specifics of the exam due to signing an NDA, but let me say that it was pretty challenging, making you think about the questions. I did pass it, and am now certified.
Taking the exam used up pretty much all of the rest of the afternoon, so by the time I was done and had met back up with my colleagues, it was time to head over to an off-site mixer sponsored by Puppet Labs. We all had a good time there, and got to spend some time talking to other conference attendees as well as Puppet Labs employees.
That pretty much wrapped up the day, and I headed back to the hotel to get some sleep to prepare for tomorrow.