# Post KCEU notes
### Notes from Cloud Native Rejekts
- Lot's of talks around "developer platforms". Many folks seem to be working towards building OSS tooling enabling this
- Project of interest: https://github.com/syntasso/kratix
- Discussed as a framework for building platforms as a product
- Concept of "Promising" services seems to be what Packaging + Service Bindings would enable. Even though it is closer to packaging.
- They seem to be making it easier to wrap Helm charts into "promises" (equivalent of a package), pretty similar to the direction we took.
- Great talk by [Lion Li](https://cfp.cloud-native.rejekts.io/cloud-native-rejekts-eu-amsterdam-2023/talk/PMSHXB/) using analogies to describe how system thinking can be used to understand how developers adopt platforms.
- Lots of buzz around WASM
- Wasm for running workloads at constrained edge environments is a key point of interest
- Cosmonic has a superb way of bringing together WASM and Kubernetes while building out a unified dashboard for connected workloads across these platforms.
### Carvel project meeting
- HUGE turnout, definitely beyond expectations.
- Engineers do resonate with how Carvel enables them
- Lots of insightful discussion on the cost of moving towards using ytt
- Key point being "how long before I find ytt effective"
- A positive response around this from our friends at German Edge Cloud.
- They mentioned that they did face resistance while convincing org leaders.
- Very clearly saw the benefits after the first week itself
- Lots of discussion around how the attendees manage their workloads today and which pieces of carvel they find valuable
### User case studies
#### German Edge Cloud
- Public cloud provider based out of Germany
- Chated with their engineers Usman and Damien
- They use Carvel heavily and have usage patterns very similar to our own. This is reaffirming.
- They were stoked to learn about the "package of packages" pattern we use internally
- Took a few notes from them as well around:
- Automated dependency bumping for repositories via Renovate
- vendir as a package manager for ytt modules
- **Action item:** They expressed a desire to contribute more actively to the community. We should nurture relations like this from an OSS perspective.
- **Action item:** Localised ppublic cloud providers seem to be more commonplace than i would have thought. How can we network and reach out to more such groups?
#### ITQ
- They are building out a "managed TKGm" offering
- They manage data centers for government organisations in Western Europe
- Thrive in the space in between on-prem and cloud native solutions
- Interacted with the team and helped them architect a solution for bootstrapping airgapped setups by leveraging Carvel.
- They are heavily invested in the idea of using Carvel to have "profiles" for workload clusters.
- Ideally, they would like to set up TAP on top of their workload clusters at a point in the future. And have 1:1 mapping with their "cluster profile packages" and TAP versions. Super excited to see this in action as this will involve challenges of overlapping Package dependencies that we have been discussing.
- **Action item**: Seems like ITQ is a VMware partner with a strong hold over a region. Do we have other partners like them and Terasky whom we can approach? We could help garner wider adoption for Carvel AND help them manage VMware products effectively.
- **Thought**: Are we so hard to setup that folks are hiring people to do it for them?
### Tales from the booth
- We have adoption far wider than we are aware of
- Miguel Luna (ex-TMC, now Elastix) mentioned that there is an ongoing attempt to adopt ytt
- There was another German cloud provider relying on our APIs, unfortunately I do not recall their name
- Our tools are used at Telus and StackSlate as well!
### Takeaways from the booth
- Even though the benefits of kapp are more apparent, seasoned YAML ninjas seem to be more attarcted towards ytt. ytt might be the more common gateway tool rather than kapp.
- Getting up and running with ytt adds toil, even though the benefits are definitely observable.
- Lots of "Eureka!" faces when users see what ytt can do and learn about relocatable imgpkg bundles
### Shoutout
Thomas Vitale has been doing a LOT of advocacy for Carvel. He delivered a quick talk about Carvel packaging at the TAP App Delivery booth. Having such passionate community members is amazing!