A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending PagerDuty Summit 2018 as Zenoss was a proud partner and sponsor for the conference. It was my first Summit, and I must say, it was quite an enjoyable and productive conference in many ways. After returning home and reflecting a bit, I wanted to share my thoughts on Summit as a PagerDuty partner.

So here are my 10 most poignant takeaways from PagerDuty Summit 2018.

1. Schoolhouse Rock: Training Day at PagerDuty University

Kicking off the first day of PagerDuty Summit was PagerDuty University. PagerDuty offered a few different tracks for users to attend and get their PagerDuty chops up to speed. Members of our technical staff took the Noise Reduction track and reported it was a solid day of new knowledge and discussion with other industry professionals.

2. Better Together: PagerDuty Launches New Integration Partner Program

PagerDuty launched its new Integration Partner Program (IPP) at the conference and Zenoss is proud to be one of the charter PagerDuty Verified Partners in the new program. Our chief customer officer and head of product Brian Wilson attended Summit and commented, “We have been delivering real customer value with PagerDuty for many years, and together, we’re providing for our customers the most accurate, contextual information that’s tangibly improving their ability to address critical issues in real time.” Congratulations to Team PagerDuty for the successful launch of IPP!

3. Like Peas and Carrots: Updated Integration Announced

Zenoss and PagerDuty have been technology partners for many years, jointly developing and maintaining our powerful integration called the PagerDuty ZenPack. Zenoss announced the release of the updated PagerDuty Zenpack using PagerDuty’s REST API v2 and certification for Zenoss Cloud. The new PagerDuty ZenPack enables enterprises to more effectively monitor and manage alerts 24/7/365. With dependable monitoring and alerts, enterprises are enabled to successfully resolve IT issues as quickly as possible to maintain ongoing operations and maximize uptime.

Jared Reimer, CTO of Cascadeo, a joint customer of Zenoss and PagerDuty, said, “We are incredibly dependent on Zenoss and its ability to improve the efficiency of other ITOM tools. The PagerDuty ZenPack is critical for us because it dramatically reduces the signal-to-noise ratio, enabling our NOC teams to be far more efficient.”

So if you’re looking to reduce your alert noise and fatigue, reach out to us and schedule a demo of our integration with PagerDuty.

4. Climb Every Mountain: Summit Keynotes

Having attended many conferences, I was pleased with the balanced and relevant keynote lineup at PagerDuty Summit. It might be clear by now that the primary theme of Summit was taking on and conquering significant challenges individually and as a team, with PagerDuty and partners like Zenoss offering solutions to help you on your journey.

Keynotes from PagerDuty CEO Jennifer Tejada, GAP CTO Rathi Murthy, Box CEO and Co-founder Aaron Levie, and others were well balanced between thought leadership, sharing of professional and life experiences, and, of course, successful IT solutions. The conference theme, “From Ops to Opportunity,” was consistent throughout the keynote lineup, and every speaker led a thought-provoking discussion rather than a product pitch.

5. Meat ‘n Potatoes: Solid Offering of Sessions

PagerDuty Summit did not disappoint in the area of breakout sessions and offered technical, product, and business value tracks. Sessions were led by PagerDuty team members, partners, customers, and other industry thought leaders. The two sessions that stood out to me due to their transparent nature were “PagerDuty—Ask Us Anything!” and “PagerDuty on PagerDuty.”

6. Our Own Private Idaho: The Good Kind of Noise

As mentioned before, the joint integration between Zenoss and PagerDuty eliminates alert noise, delays, and errors by up to 99.9975 percent by leveraging model-informed machine learning—something that was a big point of interest and a source of many great discussions with attendees all week.

And while reducing unnecessary noise and alert fatigue were hot topics during the day, Tuesday evening was all about cranking up the good kind of noise. The world-famous B-52s took the stage and had the house rocking to classics such as “Rock Lobster,” “Roam,” “Love Shack,” and more. Those on the PagerDuty team responsible for choosing this band get major kudos. A great time was had by all!

7. Nom Noms: The Food!
Conference food and treats are always appreciated but never expected in my book. That said, when you attend a conference and the food is above and beyond instead of “for the dogs,” you take notice. PagerDuty Summit provided fantastic meals and snacks throughout the week (Italian, Japanese, Chinese). Some of our best conversations with other attendees occurred in the relaxed environment of the Partner Expo, where the meals were served. I will note that on the last day when barbecue was presented for lunch, attendees from Texas, the Carolinas, Kansas City, and other barbecue hubs across the country enjoyed exchanging opinions on their favorite barbecue establishments and techniques and clearing up any misconceptions about grilling being barbecue. Wunderbar!

8. Servant Leadership: Helping the Red Cross

At Zenoss, one of our five core values is “People Who Do,” which encompasses people with a can-do attitude, who take pride in delivering superior results, and who contribute to the communities where we live and work. (The latter being of huge importance to both team Zenoss and, as I discovered, our partners at PagerDuty.) While taking some time to check out the PagerDuty products and services, I made my way to the main ballroom where PagerDuty and the American Red Cross set up shop. Attendees were given the opportunity to assemble disaster supply bags for people impacted by such events as the recent hurricanes. It was wonderful to discover that a key tenet of PagerDuty’s company culture aligned closely with ours and that they prioritized giving back to the community through ongoing servant leadership. A large number of Summit 2018 attendees dove in to help and, in no time all, the bags were complete and ready to ship with personal notes of encouragement written by us to the recipients.

9. Location, Location, Location

Summit 2018 was held in beautiful downtown San Francisco, California, at the historic Westin St. Francis hotel, which was constructed 114 years ago in the image of grand hotels from Berlin, Paris, Monaco, and London.

PagerDuty Summit occupied the mezzanine floor and was a perfect space to accommodate all facets of the conference. Our team enjoyed hopping a cable car and hiring an Uber/Lyft during evening free time to Pier 39 and the Marina District—and the 76-degree sunny days was a welcome change from the Texas summer heat. PagerDuty is headquartered near downtown San Francisco, so while the choice of location was a logical one, the site of the conference itself got high marks from all attendees I spoke with.

10. Beyond the Bits and Bytes

Zenoss and PagerDuty have been working together for years as partners, and Zenoss is actually a customer of PagerDuty using the joint ZenPack integration. Summit 2018 was a great opportunity to chat face to face with our partners at PagerDuty. While we always discuss the bits and bytes of solutions in technology, I always maintain the people you work with is a big differentiator. And as I told PagerDuty CEO Jennifer Tejada (on the way out the door to catch my flight), everyone I work with at PagerDuty and met at Summit was awesome, and Zenoss is proud and excited to be a PagerDuty partner.

In summary, PagerDuty Summit 2018 was a great conference, and we look forward to Summit 2019. Until then, Zenoss would love to engage with you and learn more about what you are doing in IT, where you want to go, and how we can help you reach your summit.

Send us a quick message to set up time to chat. We would enjoy continuing the conversation!