Last week, eighty Prometheus users and developers from around the world came
together for two days in Berlin for the first-ever conference about the
Prometheus monitoring system: [PromCon 2016](https://promcon.io/). The goal of
this conference was to exchange knowledge, best practices, and experience
gained using Prometheus. We also wanted to grow the community and help people
build professional connections around service monitoring. Here are some
impressions from the first morning:
<!-- more -->
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet tw-align-center" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Just landed at <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/promcon?src=hash">#promcon</a>. This is gonna be an exciting conference. <a href="https://t.co/2hsFaS32IK">pic.twitter.com/2hsFaS32IK</a></p>— Till Backhaus (@backhaus) <a href="https://twitter.com/backhaus/status/768705298940956672">August 25, 2016</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet tw-align-center" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The foodening is over, so let's have some talks. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/promcon2016?src=hash">#promcon2016</a> <a href="https://t.co/GUGq8eLEdQ">pic.twitter.com/GUGq8eLEdQ</a></p>— Richard Hartmann (@TwitchiH) <a href="https://twitter.com/TwitchiH/status/769074566601777152">August 26, 2016</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet tw-align-center" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">.<a href="https://twitter.com/Carretops">@Carretops</a> from <a href="https://twitter.com/ShuttleCloud">@ShuttleCloud</a> is explaining how <a href="https://twitter.com/PrometheusIO">@PrometheusIO</a> works well for small companies <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/promcon2016?src=hash">#promcon2016</a> <a href="https://t.co/5ccvGY4fQy">pic.twitter.com/5ccvGY4fQy</a></p>— PrometheusMonitoring (@PrometheusIO) <a href="https://twitter.com/PrometheusIO/status/768724543062024192">August 25, 2016</a></blockquote>
Several Prometheus core developers also talked about the the design decisions
behind the monitoring system, presented upcoming features, or shared best
practices. On a lighter note, two lightning talks explained the correct plural
of Prometheus, as well as an implementation of [Conway's Game of Life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life)
in the Prometheus query language.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet tw-align-center" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Prometheus Design and Philosophy - Why It Is the Way It Is by <a href="https://twitter.com/juliusvolz">@juliusvolz</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/promcon2016?src=hash">#promcon2016</a> <a href="https://t.co/XrPhXasb9k">pic.twitter.com/XrPhXasb9k</a></p>— PrometheusMonitoring (@PrometheusIO) <a href="https://twitter.com/PrometheusIO/status/768715959926489088">August 25, 2016</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet tw-align-center" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">. <a href="https://twitter.com/fabxc">@fabxc</a>, one of our maintainer working at <a href="https://twitter.com/coreoslinux">@coreoslinux</a>, shows us the depth of alerts in <a href="https://twitter.com/PrometheusIO">@PrometheusIO</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/promcon2016?src=hash">#promcon2016</a> <a href="https://t.co/Wvuc8eUpwg">pic.twitter.com/Wvuc8eUpwg</a></p>— PrometheusMonitoring (@PrometheusIO) <a href="https://twitter.com/PrometheusIO/status/769138985432190976">August 26, 2016</a></blockquote>
Overall, we were blown away by the quality of talks, the wide diversity of use
cases, as well as the friendly community coming together in this way and
forming new connections!
## Talk recordings
At PromCon 2016, we made it a priority to record all talks professionally.
Especially for a small conference like this, recording and sharing talks was
important, as it dramatically increases the reach of the talks and helps
Prometheus users and developers around the world to participate and learn.
Today, we are pleased to announce that all talks are now publicly available on
YouTube:
TODO: include link to talk videos
## Reception
The feedback we got from speakers and attendees at PromCon 2016 was incredibly
encouraging and positive. A lot of people loved the friendly community feeling
of the conference, but also learned a lot from the focused talks and
interesting conversations. Here is what some attendees had to say:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet tw-align-center" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I had to admit as well - one of the best tech conf I have ever attended. <a href="https://twitter.com/PrometheusIO">@PrometheusIO</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Percona">@Percona</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/promcon2016?src=hash">#promcon2016</a> <a href="https://t.co/5HgKt0r9cu">pic.twitter.com/5HgKt0r9cu</a></p>— Roman Vynar (@rvynar) <a href="https://twitter.com/rvynar/status/769260722496954368">August 26, 2016</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet tw-align-center" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Sad that <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PromCon2016?src=hash">#PromCon2016</a> is over. Best tech conference I've been to yet!</p>— Nick Cabatoff (@NickCabatoff) <a href="https://twitter.com/NickCabatoff/status/769223981882900481">August 26, 2016</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet tw-align-center" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/PrometheusIO">@PrometheusIO</a> I can't remember the last time I learned so much(or laughed so much) at a tech conference Thanks to all! So glad I attended!</p>— cliff-ops (@cliff_ops) <a href="https://twitter.com/cliff_ops/status/769239347828822016">August 26, 2016</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet tw-align-center" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">For two days it was tangible that we already have something amazing and that many more, even greater things are still to come. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PromCon2016?src=hash">#PromCon2016</a></p>— Hynek Schlawack (@hynek) <a href="https://twitter.com/hynek/status/769245966847373312">August 26, 2016</a></blockquote>