Our annual Apache:Big Data and ApacheCon:Core events were held recently at the lovely Corinthia Hotel Budapest, and the content and attendees were amazing. Â The weather was great too, and sightseeing and shopping in Budapest were lovely. Â Attendance was still good even in the face of time-competing software conferences and the local refugee crisis happening in the region.
While they were booked as separate events, many people stayed for the whole week. Â Going forward, we will likely have a single event, but be even clearer with the strength of content in specific track days. Â The broad array of very deep and well-received technical content in the big data space was truly impressive; Apache has over a dozen big data related projects and probably 20 more incoming Incubator podlings, so we certainly have the space covered!
We got some great press coverage and a few independent blog posts with key events at ApacheCon Budapest this year:
- Notes from the keynote: Apache Big Data & ApacheCon Core Europe 2015 | Open Source Insider
- Apache’s Rich Bowen explains the ‘Apache Way’ | IDG Connect
- Apache retains an informal vibe to manage $1m of open-source projects | IT Analysis from V3.co.uk
- Apache community looks to address big data’s ‘unicorn’ problem | IT News from V3.co.uk
- IBM’s Anjul Bhambhri on Apache Spark, women in tech, and Watson | IDG Connect
- Apache Trafodion DBMS Innovation for Big Data with SQL access to Hadoop | Bloor Research
- Hortonworks’ Murthy: Hadoop’s next mission is to be more business friendly | ZDNet
- Talked HTTP/2 at ApacheCon | daniel.haxx.se
- Highlights from Apache Big data Conf | Squid Solutions
Overall, ApacheCon is always a good week for me, but this year it was exceptional. The Corinthia was as lovely as ever, and I finally had time to really take a walk and shop in the central market in Budapest. Plus, Thursday was a special day for me, and somehow everyone at the conference (including the hotel staff) found out, and was wishing me well. Many thanks to the friends who took me to an authentic Hungarian restaurant for dinner! Even the gypsy band playing a version of “Happy Birthday” was fun, and I’m glad I got to bring home the music of Norbert Salasovics!
Our conference producer the Linux Foundation has been really improving how we organize our CFP and put together highly focused tracks on a variety of Apache projects.  While it’s hard to put a spotlight on all 200+ projects and initiatives at the ASF, expect to see even better organized content and talks in the ApacheCon to come, with full in-depth tracks on key technologies – along with excellent community and “how does Apache do it all” advice to boot.
Slides for all talks and videos for keynotes should be posted on the event archive websites:
- http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/archive/2015/apache-big-data-europe
- http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/archive/2015/apachecon-core-europe
Many of our speakers use Slideshare as well, and the Apache Community Development project has a separate listing of some key Apache Way slides.
Stay tuned for the CFP for ApacheCon North America, which will be returning to Vancouver, Canada on 9-13 May 2016. Hope to see you there!