VMblog:  If you were giving a KubeCon attendee a quick overview of the company, what would you say?  How would you describe the company?

Shaun O'Meara:  Mirantis helps organizations ship code faster on public and private clouds, increasing developer productivity by removing the stress of managing infrastructure. The company combines automated platforms and cloud native expertise to provide a ZeroOps approach to managing and operating Kubernetes and cloud environments. Mirantis delivers a public cloud experience on any infrastructure, from the data center to the edge, with one cohesive cloud experience for complete app and DevOps portability, a single pane of glass, and automated full-stack lifecycle management, all based on open source.

VMblog:  Your company is sponsoring this year's KubeCon + CloudNativeCon event.  Can you talk about what that sponsorship looks like?

O'Meara:  Open source software development relies heavily on collaboration and good governance, events like KubeCon + CloudNativeCon help to ensure that developers and end users get to share problems and ideas in open forums, Mirantis is glad to be part of this again as an official sponsor in the exhibit hall, and we'll be presenting talks as well.

VMblog:  How can attendees of the event find you?  What do you have planned at your booth this year?  What type of things will attendees be able to do at your booth? 

O'Meara:  Come chat with our Mirantis team at Booth B17, where we'll presenting demos of k0s and k0smotron as well as, Lens, and the newly-launched Lens AppIQ, our new SaaS service that simplifies Kubernetes application management by linking clusters to the cloud.  There will also be an opportunity to enter to win a  GoPro Hero11 in our daily raffle and be sure to book a demo with one of our cloud native experts - we'll send you a $100 Amazon gift card after the meeting!

VMblog:  Have you sponsored KubeCon + CloudNativeCon in the past?  If so, what is it about this show that keeps you coming back as a sponsor?

O'Meara:  Yes, we have attended and sponsored KubeCon U.S and EU events for some years now.  The value of the investment is in the opportunity to interact with a broad range of Kubernetes users and the great organizations that are helping to solve the challenges of open source adoption. There is a very good alignment of our business, product portfolio, open source initiatives, and target audience. We invest at a high level of sponsorship, and participation in the conference and really enjoy interacting with the KubeCon community.

VMblog:  What do you attribute to the success and growth of this industry?

O'Meara:  The cloud native industry and particularly Kubernetes provide a powerful tool to help accelerate the development of business applications and reduce the time to value for those applications. The open source nature of the solutions initiative offers  plenty of opportunities for organizations to provide valuable extensions and add-on capabilities to help companies drive successful lines of business development.

VMblog:  Do you have any speaking sessions during the event?  If so, can you give us the details?

O'Meara:  Eric Gregory, our Senior Technical Writer, is giving a Lightning Talk: A Tiny Talk on Tiny Containers on Monday November 6, 2023 5:35pm - 5:40pm CST.  From latency to cost to sustainability, shrinking workload footprint can produce big results at scale. In this lightning talk for cloud native beginners, learn best practices for reducing container image size-as well as emerging solutions for shrinking workloads, such as deploying WebAssembly modules. By the end of this lightning talk, attendees will understand a variety of simple, practical steps for reducing workload footprint-and as a result, improving performance, utilization, security, and more.

Ching (Gene) Kuo, a Mirantis Technical Support Engineer, is speaking with a Senior Cloud Solution Architect from Microsoft at the session, Cloud Native Taiwan User Group: Governance of Open-Source Communities in Non-English Region on Tuesday, November 7 at 4:30pm - 5:05pm. Cloud Native Taiwan User Group (CNTUG) is an active IT user community based in Taiwan. It was established in 2017 and has a history of approximately 6 years, with a membership of around 6,000 individuals. The community mainly comprises members from Taiwan and other regions where Mandarin is the primary language. However, as a non-English-speaking community organization, Cloud Native Taiwan User Group also faces governance issues and challenges. By sharing the experiences of Cloud Native Taiwan User Group, we hope to share existing practices to foster global collaboration and development in the open-source community.

VMblog:  What are you personally most interested in seeing or learning at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon?

O'Meara:  There are two key areas I am most interested in learning more about, the first area revolves around the rapid adoption of multi-cloud technologies and the practical implications of making it work effectively, and the second area is around the impact of AI technologies on both the operational aspects of cloud native infrastructure and the impact that AI workloads will have on Kubernetes adoption.

VMblog:  What kind of message will an attendee hear from you this year?  What will they take back to help sell their management team and decision makers?

O'Meara:  The key message that we want to convey this year is that it is possible to consume multi-cloud Kubernetes with no operational impact on your developers by working with the open source solutions and adopting the Mirantis ZeroOps approach and support model.

VMblog:  Can you double click on your company's technologies?  And talk about the types of problems you solve for a KubeCon + CloudNativeCon attendee.

O'Meara:  With our ZeroOps approach, we apply open source-based technologies to deliver automation for managing and operating Kubernetes at scale in a wide range of mission critical environments. By supporting and extending cloud-native implementations, Mirantis is helping organizations ship code faster by increasing developer productivity and infrastructure stability and choice. Our Lens open source Kubernetes development platform supports more than 50,000 companies and 1 million users - testimony to its ability to simplify Kubernetes for novice and experienced users, alike.

VMblog:  While thinking about your company's solutions, can you give readers a few examples of how your offerings are unique?  What are your differentiators?  What sets you apart from the competition?

O'Meara:  The dimensions that make our solutions unique fall into two main categories, the first is our ZeroOps support model that was based on our extensive experience managing solutions for some of the most demanding organizations in the world. This approach allows our customers to focus on building value for their business while Mirantis takes care of the infrastructure. The second dimension is in our open source approach to  cloud native products that allows us to be flexible and extend the value of our core offerings quickly and efficiently to meet our customers unique needs.

VMblog:  Where does your company fit within the container, cloud, Kubernetes ecosystem?

O'Meara:  Kubernetes is at the heart of everything we do. Leveraging the broad Kubernetes ecosystem to deliver Kubernetes as a Service (KaaS/CaaS) across public and private clouds and bare metal in the data center, we are able to provide the best possible user experience for developers. We then layer a wide range of services on top of the core KaaS offering, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) powered by Mirantis OpenStack on Kubernetes.

VMblog:  KubeCon + CloudNativeCon is typically a great venue for a company to launch a new product or an update to an existing product.  Will your company be announcing anything new?  If so, can you give us a sneak preview?

O'Meara:  Yes, we will be making an announcement regarding our K0smotron Kubernetes control plane management solutions.

VMblog:  With regard to containers and Kubernetes, is there anything holding it back from a wider distribution?  If so, what is it?  And how do we overcome it?

O'Meara:  You see it over and over in many forms at KubeCon - making Kubernetes less complicated so the technology is accessible to everyone with less of a learning curve. Mirantis is addressing this, along with lots and lots of other companies.

VMblog:  Are companies going all in for the cloud?  Or do you see a return back to on-premises?  Are there roadblocks in place keeping companies from going all cloud? 

O'Meara:  We see both scenarios. At Mirantis, our objective is to deliver a public cloud experience on any infrastructure - from the data center to the edge - with  one cohesive cloud experience for complete app and DevOps portability, a single pane of glass, and automated full-stack lifecycle management, all based on open source.

VMblog:  The keynote stage will be covering a number of big topics, but what big changes or trends does your company see taking shape as we head into 2024?

O'Meara:  Heading into 2024, I think we are going to see more focus on operational simplification and reduced effort to adopt Kubernetes especially in multi-cloud environments, in addition to that, AI will continue to be a hot topic with more practical and valuable solutions being adopted as part of the norm.

VMblog:  Are you giving away any prizes at your booth or participating in any prize giveaways?

O'Meara:  We'll be giving away GoPro Hero11 cameras in our daily raffle. We're also rewarding people who book and attend a demo with a $100 Amazon gift card.

VMblog:  Do you have any advice for attendees of the show?

O'Meara:  As veterans of many KubeCon events, it can be overwhelming at first. So, it's best to start with planning what you'd like to learn and focus your attention on those conference sessions and on the exhibit floor. That way, you'll get the most out of your time invested at the event.