The 2024 Enterprise Technology Leadership Summit in Las Vegas was a transformative experience for attendees, featuring insightful presentations and discussions on crucial topics in the DevOps landscape. With a focus on leveraging technology to drive business outcomes, the conference highlighted the importance of AI and machine learning in the software development life cycle. Networking opportunities abounded, allowing participants to connect with industry leaders and peers. This event not only redefined its purpose but also set the stage for future innovations in enterprise technology.
A New Era for Enterprise Technology
The 2024 Enterprise Technology Leadership Summit in Las Vegas was an eye-opening experience that left me with a wealth of knowledge and insights. As a first-time attendee, I was impressed by the caliber of presentations and the opportunity to engage with industry leaders on crucial DevOps topics.
Rebranding the Enterprise Technology Leadership Summit
One of the most interesting discoveries was learning about the conference’s name change from DevOps Enterprise Summit. This shift aimed to address misconceptions about the event’s focus, emphasizing that the Enterprise Technology Leadership Summit is not just about technical aspects like CI/CD pipelines, but rather about leveraging IT and technology to drive better business outcomes.
SiriusXM’s Rapid Platform Development
The first day set a high bar with presentations packed with substantial information. SiriusXM’s session on building a platform for 34 million subscribers in just one year was particularly impressive. The active Slack channel buzzing with attendee insights and Gene Kim’s engagement demonstrated the event’s commitment to fostering real-time discussions.
Platform Engineering and SRE Insights
Steve Smith from Equal Experts provided valuable insights on Platform Engineering, highlighting common pitfalls in implementation. Disney’s approach to embedding SREs across their organization offered a practical perspective on centralizing SRE services.
AI and Machine Learning Take Center Stage
The second day of the Enterprise Technology Leadership Summit focused heavily on AI and machine learning. Adobe’s presentation on their AI governance strategy was particularly enlightening, showcasing how large enterprises are navigating this rapidly evolving landscape.
Google’s session on Gemini and its impact on software development was a game-changer. 28% of all code at Google uses machine learning. Hearing that up to 50% of code in some Google projects is generated by machine learning was mind-blowing and hinted at the transformative potential of AI in our industry.
Quality and Testing in the AI Era
Jason Secola’s presentation on AI-driven testing addressed a critical challenge in DevOps: balancing speed with quality. With 52% of DevOps teams citing this as a significant hurdle, the potential for AI to revolutionize testing processes and improve overall software quality is immense. While I see this as a bigger hurdle for DevOps as a whole, it is good to see that quality and testing being emphasized in the DevOps operating model more these days than in the past.
The Enterprise Technology Leadership Summit excelled in providing numerous networking opportunities. From shared meals to meetups and online collaboration tools, the event fostered connections and idea exchanges among attendees.
It was a honor to interview Gene Kim for the DevOps Driving video series. There were several questions I had wanted to ask him and it was great closure for me to listen to his responses. One question was centered around the term “DevOps” and how after it was adopted there were several other “XOps” terms that surfaced. I asked him if we felt DevOps was being over complicated due to these “subcategories” (for lack of a better term). Gene feels that there may be room for these other titles and concepts as we progress over time. His main concern is that we are delivering software better than we used to. He feels that the old way of delivering software (i.e. waterfall) isn’t bad because it’s old. It’s bad because it’s a bad way to develop software, period. Anything that gets us beyond that is fine. I tend to agree.
Final Thoughts
Attending the 2024 Enterprise Technology Leadership Summit was an invaluable experience. The cutting-edge presentations, networking opportunities, and insights from industry leaders made it a must-attend event for the enterprise technology space. As I reflect on the knowledge gained and the connections made, I’m already looking forward to next year’s summit.
You can check out all of my interviews from the ETLS conference for DevOps Driving at https://devopsdriving.com.
