On Highload ++ 2018 full speed ahead
Highload ++ is a significant event in the IT world and a kind of annual checkpoint for any developer of high-load systems. This is the largest and coolest professional conference for developers in Russia. There are a lot of things: participants, events, reports, partners and experts. In 2017, Highload ++ gathered 2,600 people and, of course, this is not the limit. This mega-event, which just needs to be, in 2018 will be held in Moscow on November 8 and 9 .
To ensure that these two days are perfect, you have to prepare very well in advance. We have already begun, first of all, to work on the program.
Program
I must say, the process of selecting reports on Highload ++ does not happen as it does at many other events. We have a very wide list of topics related to heavy loads, which includes: architecture design , databases , pure programming and management , of course, DevOps and system administration, hardware, machine learning and artificial intelligence. Last year, following the trends, added
blockchain and internet of things .
')
But how these topics will be filled with specific reports, starting the preparation, by and large we do not know. Now, 4 months before the conference, a search and a set of speakers is already in full swing (how to become one of them, just below). The program committee is trying to individually invite cool technical experts, whether it be foreign or Russian developers, and not just expect that the applications themselves will fall on the mail.
Later, 2-3 months before the conference, when the theses pool has already been recruited, the Program Committee will be faced with the task of choosing and forming a balanced program. To ensure that the result meets the needs of a lively audience and is not subjective, we are holding an open meeting of industry activists. Here we are a little tricky and call upon the collective mind to decide who and what this year should definitely listen to.
We follow this principle for a long time, and therefore Highload ++ is a reflection of those trends and approaches in the design and development of large complex projects that are emerging in the industry right now.
This year, the enterprise will probably be widely represented , because recently more and more corporate sector developers are opening up to new trends, new technologies. Occur interpenetration and enrichment of web-technologies in the enterprise and vice versa. As a vivid example, we can mention last year’s report on the successful coexistence of these approaches in the implementation of the payment system.
Many banks already use the latest technology and methodology. Their systems no longer resemble closed monsters with a huge baggage of Legacy, but are built on very advanced solutions. No one will probably dispute that the banking systems are hilly, so they certainly have something to share with the conference participants. Including banks will be among our partners, which means that there will be an opportunity for personal communication with experts in this area of development.
A large block or even several are always devoted to databases - the PostgreSQL track, the MySQL track, etc. Here we try to take reports directly from the developers of these databases, as a confirmation we open last year's reports for you:
This year, we will definitely talk about the use of architectural approaches taken in high-load projects in related areas. For example, blockchain and the Internet of things can be included here. But the practical benefits remain the main selection criteria.
Now we can say for sure that we never allow marketing reports . Over these 12 years, the conference has shaped the face and traditions, the adherence to which excludes even hints of advertising from the program. The scheme of preliminary and preparatory work with speakers allows you to achieve this with a 100% guarantee.
Thus, if the program has a report about blockchain, then this is a blockchain that really works, which you can touch and see. If this is the Internet of Things, then this is not a story about how spacecraft travel through the universe, but specific devices and specific technological and IT tasks.
Call for Papers
Everything described above does not mean at all that the speakers are invited only by invitation. Not at all. We always welcome new faces, young companies, fresh approaches.
Applying for a report is very simple : you need to think about a topic that should not be too general, but at the same time, a little more than ten people are interested in; write short abstracts; and be ready to lay out the truth to the Program Committee.
Answers to questions about what abstracts should be, and how best to write them, are collected on the speaker page and more fully deployed in our wiki .
Several articles about the preparation for the speech, which can be useful:
Speaking for the first time at such a large conference can be exciting and difficult, but it has been proven that you can do it successfully. To help, we conduct trainings and webinars for future speakers.
Submit applications before September 1 to share with the community your ideas and know-how - such a powerful wave of feedback, as we have, is difficult to find. To make the use pleasant, we give the speakers maximum assistance and organize a special program.
Program committee
As already mentioned, the Program Committee plays a very important role in preparing for the conference. This is a large structure, which last year brought together 40 people. Of course, there is a major backbone with which we have been doing conferences for many years. These are all the key Russian Internet specialists: Igor Sysoev, Alexey Rybak, Roman Ivliev, Konstantin Osipov, Roman Pavlushko, and other cool well-known developers. Each of them deserves a separate post, but we are still in the process - we have already talked with Nikolai Samokhvalov.
However, no one can know everything at once, therefore, we invite experts in specific areas to blend some narrow topics. These topics include the relative novelties in the machine learning program and the Internet of Things, and we are always attracted to the Russian community by the DevOps community in drawing up the program for the DevOps section.
Organizational matters
Of course, in the organization of events of this scale all sorts of aspects are connected, not related to the content part, but exclusively organizational. This is something that will not be particularly noticeable if it passes ideally. Even so - the less attention was paid to all this, the better everything was organized. But if the fail happens, then everyone will notice it .
Not surprisingly, we use the engineering approach : we distribute tasks and balance the load over time. For example, to feed 3,000 people who have no more than an hour for lunch, and who rush to interesting reports, we pre-allocate participants to 4 shifts and suggest choosing in advance one of the 5 types of lunch. And so that no one would definitely become hungry in Skolkovo a constantly operating coffee break, which, as it seems to us, also contributes to informal communication.
Monitoring what is happening and timely dissemination of information for an event of this magnitude is also very important. Most often, failures at conferences arise, not because the organizers have not foreseen something, but because they did not convey the information to everyone. We use chats, channels and newsletters and begin several weeks before the conference itself to gradually prepare participants to use the available benefits to the fullest and to plan well in terms of schedule and logistics.
Not all solutions come at once, but finds sometimes occur. For example, the last two years we have done a video instruction manual. I walk through the halls and zones of Skolkovo with the operator and tell them where and for what. The school of management of Skolkovo is very large and resembles a labyrinth, the instruction allows participants to immediately begin to orient themselves in space and not waste time on empty wanderings in search of the desired area.
There are no trifles here. A badge with a map, a large number of pointers, color coding - we are all trying to think through. If an event takes place in the Africa zone (the zones in Skolkovo are called regions or countries, and the halls are called cities), in which all design is done in orange colors, then the same color will be used in the schedule. You may not even give it a meaning, but it will definitely help you.
Members of the Program committees of all major conferences attend each other's events. Some ideas are transferred, tried, modified, in general, this makes all of us better and more convenient for the user. Every year we grow and improve, every year we throw ourselves a challenge. Of the last successful ideas, you can note morning exercises, which, firstly, in any case sets a good mood for the whole day, and, secondly, it also contributes to networking.
Networking
In general, networking - establishing business contacts and networking, if in Russian - we consider it super important. Whatever the steep reports, if the conference does not encourage people to communicate, the benefits are at least halved. Therefore - we contribute! We always organize leisure until the late evening on the first day after the reports and, it seems to us, have come up with an ideal format for this. There are always 5 or 6 different activities, there is always something intellectual, there are games, and, of course, there is a beer and an atmosphere for pleasant communication.
Last year we tried to make a pre-party for speakers, a program committee and sponsors. That is, all those who, at the conference itself, most likely will not have time not only to chat and meet, but most likely even to simply bypass all the zones. It turned out great, and we made it to our list of mandatory points.
Three years ago we invented to make a badge a book in which both the schedule, and the scheme, and all the necessary contacts. It is very convenient, you can not keep any brochures, but to have all the information at hand, I myself really like it. I have never seen such an elementary thing as a hard substrate on a notebook, although it would seem that otherwise it is impossible to use it. All these little things, in fact, not the little things.
Take part
You can not minimize the importance of personal presence on Highload ++. The schedule is usually 10 streams of reports, the authors of which can be caught up with and interrogated with addiction. There are mitapes in 5 streams - a unique format that helps to find like-minded people and personally discuss their pain with well-known specialists in very narrow circles.
The benefits of sponsoring the exhibition in general, not only in nice gifts, but again experts, with whom you can meet and talk. And much more, better see the report video.
If you already had one, then here is the link to booking tickets , this should be enough. And newcomers in the realm of high loads can be offered to subscribe to the newsletter , follow the preparation of the program, and join at any convenient time. But keep in mind - the closer to the conference, the more expensive.
To ensure that these two days are perfect, you have to prepare very well in advance. We have already begun, first of all, to work on the program.
Program
I must say, the process of selecting reports on Highload ++ does not happen as it does at many other events. We have a very wide list of topics related to heavy loads, which includes: architecture design , databases , pure programming and management , of course, DevOps and system administration, hardware, machine learning and artificial intelligence. Last year, following the trends, added
blockchain and internet of things .
')
But how these topics will be filled with specific reports, starting the preparation, by and large we do not know. Now, 4 months before the conference, a search and a set of speakers is already in full swing (how to become one of them, just below). The program committee is trying to individually invite cool technical experts, whether it be foreign or Russian developers, and not just expect that the applications themselves will fall on the mail.
Later, 2-3 months before the conference, when the theses pool has already been recruited, the Program Committee will be faced with the task of choosing and forming a balanced program. To ensure that the result meets the needs of a lively audience and is not subjective, we are holding an open meeting of industry activists. Here we are a little tricky and call upon the collective mind to decide who and what this year should definitely listen to.
The meeting of activists is really open - anyone can come to it.
On July 31, in Moscow, at 19:00 , an open meeting of the speakers, the Program Committee and the activists of the HighLoad ++ 2018 high load system developers conference will take place.
We will think about this year's program. As usual, you will give us assignments on topics, speakers, projects, and we will carry them out :)
We will inform you about the exact location, but do not forget to register .
We follow this principle for a long time, and therefore Highload ++ is a reflection of those trends and approaches in the design and development of large complex projects that are emerging in the industry right now.
This year, the enterprise will probably be widely represented , because recently more and more corporate sector developers are opening up to new trends, new technologies. Occur interpenetration and enrichment of web-technologies in the enterprise and vice versa. As a vivid example, we can mention last year’s report on the successful coexistence of these approaches in the implementation of the payment system.
Many banks already use the latest technology and methodology. Their systems no longer resemble closed monsters with a huge baggage of Legacy, but are built on very advanced solutions. No one will probably dispute that the banking systems are hilly, so they certainly have something to share with the conference participants. Including banks will be among our partners, which means that there will be an opportunity for personal communication with experts in this area of development.
A large block or even several are always devoted to databases - the PostgreSQL track, the MySQL track, etc. Here we try to take reports directly from the developers of these databases, as a confirmation we open last year's reports for you:
- Distributed Postgres with Citus / Will Leinweber (PostgreSQL)
- Effective use of ClickHouse / Alexey Milovidov (Yandex)
- Optimization of high-contention write in PostgreSQL / I.Panchenko, O. Bartunov (Postgres Professional)
- Why are we excited about MySQL 8? / Petr Zaitsev (Percona)
- Beyond WHERE and GROUP BY / Sergey Golubchik (MariaDB Corporation)
This year, we will definitely talk about the use of architectural approaches taken in high-load projects in related areas. For example, blockchain and the Internet of things can be included here. But the practical benefits remain the main selection criteria.
Now we can say for sure that we never allow marketing reports . Over these 12 years, the conference has shaped the face and traditions, the adherence to which excludes even hints of advertising from the program. The scheme of preliminary and preparatory work with speakers allows you to achieve this with a 100% guarantee.
Thus, if the program has a report about blockchain, then this is a blockchain that really works, which you can touch and see. If this is the Internet of Things, then this is not a story about how spacecraft travel through the universe, but specific devices and specific technological and IT tasks.
Call for Papers
Everything described above does not mean at all that the speakers are invited only by invitation. Not at all. We always welcome new faces, young companies, fresh approaches.
Applying for a report is very simple : you need to think about a topic that should not be too general, but at the same time, a little more than ten people are interested in; write short abstracts; and be ready to lay out the truth to the Program Committee.
Answers to questions about what abstracts should be, and how best to write them, are collected on the speaker page and more fully deployed in our wiki .
Several articles about the preparation for the speech, which can be useful:
- Is it easy to speak at a conference for the first time?
- We turn speakers into speakers on the example of HighLoad ++
- Analysis of the speech of Evgeny Rossinsky (ivi)
- Analysis of the report of Ivan Kruglov (Booking.com)
Speaking for the first time at such a large conference can be exciting and difficult, but it has been proven that you can do it successfully. To help, we conduct trainings and webinars for future speakers.
Submit applications before September 1 to share with the community your ideas and know-how - such a powerful wave of feedback, as we have, is difficult to find. To make the use pleasant, we give the speakers maximum assistance and organize a special program.
Program committee
As already mentioned, the Program Committee plays a very important role in preparing for the conference. This is a large structure, which last year brought together 40 people. Of course, there is a major backbone with which we have been doing conferences for many years. These are all the key Russian Internet specialists: Igor Sysoev, Alexey Rybak, Roman Ivliev, Konstantin Osipov, Roman Pavlushko, and other cool well-known developers. Each of them deserves a separate post, but we are still in the process - we have already talked with Nikolai Samokhvalov.
However, no one can know everything at once, therefore, we invite experts in specific areas to blend some narrow topics. These topics include the relative novelties in the machine learning program and the Internet of Things, and we are always attracted to the Russian community by the DevOps community in drawing up the program for the DevOps section.
Organizational matters
Of course, in the organization of events of this scale all sorts of aspects are connected, not related to the content part, but exclusively organizational. This is something that will not be particularly noticeable if it passes ideally. Even so - the less attention was paid to all this, the better everything was organized. But if the fail happens, then everyone will notice it .
Not surprisingly, we use the engineering approach : we distribute tasks and balance the load over time. For example, to feed 3,000 people who have no more than an hour for lunch, and who rush to interesting reports, we pre-allocate participants to 4 shifts and suggest choosing in advance one of the 5 types of lunch. And so that no one would definitely become hungry in Skolkovo a constantly operating coffee break, which, as it seems to us, also contributes to informal communication.
Monitoring what is happening and timely dissemination of information for an event of this magnitude is also very important. Most often, failures at conferences arise, not because the organizers have not foreseen something, but because they did not convey the information to everyone. We use chats, channels and newsletters and begin several weeks before the conference itself to gradually prepare participants to use the available benefits to the fullest and to plan well in terms of schedule and logistics.
Not all solutions come at once, but finds sometimes occur. For example, the last two years we have done a video instruction manual. I walk through the halls and zones of Skolkovo with the operator and tell them where and for what. The school of management of Skolkovo is very large and resembles a labyrinth, the instruction allows participants to immediately begin to orient themselves in space and not waste time on empty wanderings in search of the desired area.
There are no trifles here. A badge with a map, a large number of pointers, color coding - we are all trying to think through. If an event takes place in the Africa zone (the zones in Skolkovo are called regions or countries, and the halls are called cities), in which all design is done in orange colors, then the same color will be used in the schedule. You may not even give it a meaning, but it will definitely help you.
Members of the Program committees of all major conferences attend each other's events. Some ideas are transferred, tried, modified, in general, this makes all of us better and more convenient for the user. Every year we grow and improve, every year we throw ourselves a challenge. Of the last successful ideas, you can note morning exercises, which, firstly, in any case sets a good mood for the whole day, and, secondly, it also contributes to networking.
Networking
In general, networking - establishing business contacts and networking, if in Russian - we consider it super important. Whatever the steep reports, if the conference does not encourage people to communicate, the benefits are at least halved. Therefore - we contribute! We always organize leisure until the late evening on the first day after the reports and, it seems to us, have come up with an ideal format for this. There are always 5 or 6 different activities, there is always something intellectual, there are games, and, of course, there is a beer and an atmosphere for pleasant communication.
Last year we tried to make a pre-party for speakers, a program committee and sponsors. That is, all those who, at the conference itself, most likely will not have time not only to chat and meet, but most likely even to simply bypass all the zones. It turned out great, and we made it to our list of mandatory points.
Three years ago we invented to make a badge a book in which both the schedule, and the scheme, and all the necessary contacts. It is very convenient, you can not keep any brochures, but to have all the information at hand, I myself really like it. I have never seen such an elementary thing as a hard substrate on a notebook, although it would seem that otherwise it is impossible to use it. All these little things, in fact, not the little things.
Take part
You can not minimize the importance of personal presence on Highload ++. The schedule is usually 10 streams of reports, the authors of which can be caught up with and interrogated with addiction. There are mitapes in 5 streams - a unique format that helps to find like-minded people and personally discuss their pain with well-known specialists in very narrow circles.
The benefits of sponsoring the exhibition in general, not only in nice gifts, but again experts, with whom you can meet and talk. And much more, better see the report video.
If you already had one, then here is the link to booking tickets , this should be enough. And newcomers in the realm of high loads can be offered to subscribe to the newsletter , follow the preparation of the program, and join at any convenient time. But keep in mind - the closer to the conference, the more expensive.
We meet on Highload ++ 2018 in Skolkovo on November 8 and 9!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/417317/
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