Choose your own Next '19 adventure: tips for scheduling sessions and other must-sees

T-minus three days until our annual cloud conference, Google Cloud Next ‘19, where people from all over the globe will gather in San Francisco, CA, to see what’s next in cloud technology. If you’re one of many attending next week, there are loads of bootcamps, interactive demos, and more than 300 deep-dive technical sessions on topics ranging from data analytics and machine learning to cloud security and productivity.

To make the most of your experience, here’s what you can expect (as well as tips to help you choose sessions to attend). Register soon—spots are filling up fast.

What’s happening at Cloud Next

Cloud Next ‘19 is a place to learn. If you’re eager for hands-on experience, our Showcase area in Moscone South is a great place to start, specifically the DevZone. In the DevZone, you can participate in Hands-on Labs and Spotlight Labs, or even join a two-hour, tournament-style Cloud Hero DevOps challenge. (Try to say that five times fast.)  

If you have more complex problems you want to solve, our Solutions Architects (SAs) will also be available on site for one-on-one coaching at the Whiteboard Booth. These experts can walk you through how to piece services together from Google Cloud Platform (GCP) to solve unique problems. For more information on specific solutions sessions to attend, check out this post.

While you’re on the Showcase floor, The New York Times and NASA Frontier Development Lab (FDL) experiences are must-sees. See how The Times is using machine learning (ML) to digitally catalog archived photos from the past century, or how NASA FDL is using ML to search for exoplanets that can viably host life (you know, in case you’re house hunting).

Last tip: be sure to add sessions or events on your calendar to hear from diverse perspectives (including Laverne Cox!). Stop by the inclusion lounge or any of the #IAmRemarkable workshops to meet with allies and learn how we can all work together to build a more inclusive cloud for everyone. Check out this blog post or  our website for specifics.

And now, Next ‘19 sessions

If you’re interested in attending deep-dive technical sessions and need help narrowing your list, here are a few of our picks to help you solidify your schedule. We’ve laid them out by topics to make it easier to browse options.

If you want to hear from customers firsthand how they’re using Google Cloud...

• How Twitter Is Migrating 300 PB of Hadoop Data to GCP
• Open Systems: Key to Unlocking Multi-Cloud and New Businesses With Lyft, Juniper, Google
• How Pandora is Migrating Its On-Premises BI & Analytics to GCP
• How Retailers Prepare for Black Friday on Google Cloud Platform
• Data for Good: Driving Social and Environmental Impact with Big Data Solutions
• Empowering Global Nonprofits to Drive Impact with G Suite
• Onramp to Istio: An Adoption Story
• Learn more about our work with the NCAA in this session or this session, or attend one of the customer innovation sessions (happening Tuesday and Wednesday).
• If these don’t fit your fancy, stop by the lounge area next to the Showcase on the lower level of Moscone South to connect with customers directly.

If you want to move workloads and apps to the cloud, but have some that need to stay on-prem...

• Bringing Your Kubernetes Clusters to GCP
• Managing Applications the Kubernetes Way
• Check out more options in this post, or tune into our weekly podcast after the event to stay up-to-date on the latest news.

If you’re eager to learn how to generate more insights from your data…

• Rethinking Business: Data Analytics With Google Cloud
• Modern Data Warehousing with BigQuery
• Check out more options in this post.

If security is your focus this year…

• Comprehensive Protection of PII in GCP
• Identifying and Protecting Sensitive Data in the Cloud: The Latest Innovations in Cloud DLP
• Minimizing Insider Risk From Cloud Provider Administrators
• Protections From Bleeding Edge Phishing, Malware Attacks
• Check out more options in this post.

If you’re trying to push the boundaries of your compute environment...

• Technical Deep Dive Into Storage for High Performance Computing
• How We Broke the World Record for Computing Digits of Pi (31.4 trillion!)
• Worried About Application Performance? Cache It!
• Check out more session options here or here, and learn more about GCP databases.

If you want to modernize how you move your data…

• Think Big, Think Global
• Traffic Director and Envoy-Based L7 ILB for Production-Grade Service Mesh and Istio
• Check out more session options in this post.

If you want to see practical applications of machine learning...

• Building In-Game AI to Help Users to Learn and Enjoy New Games
• Automating Visual Inspections in Energy and Manufacturing with AI
• Check out more options in this post.

If you want to see the latest in app dev (whether you develop on web or mobile, frontend or backend, etc.)...

• Large-Scale Multiplayer Gaming on Kubernetes
• Building Secure Mobile Apps With Firebase
• Serverless Payment Processing with Firebase
• Check out more options in this post.

Speaking of app dev, if you want to learn more about containers or serverless…

• Knative a Year Later: Serverless, Kubernetes and You
• Run Containers on GCP's Serverless Infrastructure
• Check out more options in this post.

If you want to brush up on cloud collaboration tools like G Suite, Chrome Enterprise and more…

• Rethinking the business value of G Suite
• Turn Your Frontline Workers Into Cloud Workers With Chrome Enterprise
• G Suite Migration: Success Factors for the Large Enterprise
• Bring your favorite enterprise apps to G Suite with new G Suite Add-ons
• Privacy & Wellbeing: A New Approach to Mobility
• Check out more options here, here or here.

With so many options, your schedule is sure to be chock-full of activity. If you’re unable to make a session, or it’s already at capacity, don’t worry; we have you covered. We’ll be posting full-length recordings of the sessions on YouTube so you can catch up on what you miss.

And for those who are unable to attend altogether, stay up-to-date from the comfort of your home or office by tuning into Next OnAir for keynotes, the latest news, customer stories and more.

See you next week!