Bart Farrell joined Lori Lorusso and Katherine Druckman to discuss their upcoming KubeCon talk, “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the CNCF Landscape,” where they’ll share navigation tips for the vast CNCF ecosystem—while in costume. Lori, CNCF and CDF ambassador and head of community at Percona, and Katherine, an open-source security evangelist at Intel, will be “going on safari,” promising an engaging, costume-themed session to make exploring the cloud-native landscape both fun and informative.
With over 190 CNCF projects, Lori and Katherine want to demystify the landscape and make it easier for attendees, whether beginners or veterans, to find and leverage projects that suit their needs. The session will offer tips on utilizing CNCF’s resources without the frustration of digging through endless lists, showing attendees how to discover impactful, lesser-known projects.
Catch them kicking off the Project Pavilion talks on Tuesday — a must-attend for anyone curious about optimizing their cloud-native journey.
This episode is sponsored by OVHcloud.
Bart Farrell (00:01.398)
Well, there are KubeCon talks, and then there are KubeCon talks with costumes, which I absolutely love. I’m joined today by two wonderful people who are gonna be rocking costumes in their KubeCon talk. Their names are Lori and Katherine. Could you introduce yourselves really quickly, who you are and what you do? Let’s start with you, Lori.
Lori Lorusso (00:18.168)
Sweet, thank you so much for inviting us on. My name’s Lori Lorusso. I am a CNCF ambassador, CDF ambassador, DOKC SIG co-chair, and mostly the head of community at Percona. So I’m all about that open source life, community, and costumes apparently.
Katherine Druckman (00:36.697)
Sure, I’m Katherine Druckman. I’m an open-source security evangelist at Intel, and I’m also involved in a lot of community things. I am the co-chair of the DevRel Community and Marketing Committee at the OpenSSF. I do a lot of other things, including going to KubeCon with Lori to give this talk. And when Lori asks if I’d like to dress up in costume and give a presentation with her, the answer is always yes.
Bart Farrell (00:36.854)
Very good. How about you, Katherine?
Katherine Druckman (01:04.473)
I’ll also be there recording a lot of podcasts myself, so that’ll be cool. Come by the Intel booth, please, and wave hi to me in my fishbowl.
Bart Farrell (01:14.604)
Very good, noted. So Lori, tell us more about your talk. What’s the title? What can we expect?
Lori Lorusso (01:21.196)
Okay, so our talk is called A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the CNCF Landscape. Basically, nothing is worse than when someone tells you to “just go to the website” if you’re trying to learn more or find information. That makes me so frustrated! So the purpose of this talk is to guide you through the CNCF landscape, show you how to use some of the drill-downs, and look at projects you might not know about that could help with building your infrastructure. If you look at the stats, there are over 190 projects in the CNCF right now. But how many do you really know about? Our goal is to show you ways to discover new projects that could help you reach the next level.
Katherine Druckman (02:12.345)
You know the website Let Me Google That For You? It’s this sarcastic site that shows a screencast of you Googling a question someone asks you. That’s how it feels when someone says, “Just go to the website.” Sometimes you just want a better answer.
Bart Farrell (02:32.458)
Exactly. So, Catherine, I know the title references hitchhikers, but what about the costumes? What can we expect?
Katherine Druckman (02:43.469)
Well, we’re going on safari! I think that sums it up pretty well. We’re going on safari, and the costumes will match.
Bart Farrell (02:59.69)
That sounds great! This is a common challenge, and it’s why we created this podcast, The Landscape—to go across the CNCF landscape and shed light on projects to make things less overwhelming. Who is this talk geared toward? Is there anything people should know or prepare before attending?
Lori Lorusso (03:24.856)
The only prerequisite is curiosity. Whether you’ve been in the cloud-native space for years or you’re brand new, there’s always something to learn. George, from the CNCF, has worked really hard to make the landscape usable for everyone, whether you’re an end user or a project maintainer. So, if you’re interested in learning about the many CNCF projects and figuring out how they might fit into your infrastructure, you should come!
Bart Farrell (04:14.007)
Fantastic. We were lucky to speak with George previously about the Project Pavilion and how it’s been revamped to let people interact with maintainers. That’s what KubeCon’s all about. Catherine, you mentioned you’ll be podcasting—any other plans for KubeCon?
Katherine Druckman (04:42.425)
Not really. Usually, I’m tied to my little fishbowl, talking to people non-stop. It’s a great experience! I get to talk to a lot of amazing people, so I’m camped out there doing that all day, every day.
Bart Farrell (04:57.858)
No shortage of conversations when it comes to security in open source, for sure! Lori, what about you? Any other plans for KubeCon?
Lori Lorusso (05:05.71)
I’m really excited to be speaking at Cloud Native Rejekts, which is right before KubeCon. Many of us see it as a badge of honor when we can’t get into KubeCon because it’s such a packed schedule, so we go to Rejekts. My talk there is Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon: Open Source Edition, which leads into our work at the Project Pavilion. It’s about networking, expanding who you know, and realizing we’re all under one big community umbrella. You’d be surprised how many people you know by knowing someone else!
Bart Farrell (05:55.274)
And even Kevin Bacon! That’s fantastic. We’re looking forward to it. When and where can people catch your talk?
Lori Lorusso (06:18.062)
We’re lucky to kick off the Project Pavilion on Tuesday at 9:01 a.m., and we’ll wrap up around 1:03 p.m. So there’ll be tons of Project Pavilion talks during that time, but we’re both opening and closing it.
Bart Farrell (06:39.116)
Good to know. Thank you both so much! Looking forward to seeing you in Salt Lake City.
Lori Lorusso (06:45.592)
Thanks, Bart!
Katherine Druckman (06:46.051)
Thanks!
Bart Farrell (06:47.212)
Cheers.