Dutch Cloud Native & AI Community Group

The program will go as this:

• 17:00-18:00 Walk-in
• 18:00-18:05 Welcome
• 18:05-18:50 1st Talk: Jan Stomphorst (ACC-ICT)
• 18:50-19:30 Pizzas
• 19:30-20:15 2nd Talk: Benjamin Smeding & Merijn Stiekema (ProRail)
• 20:15 - 21:30 Networking & drinks
• 21:30 End

1st Talk:
Title: Kubernetes and the Answer is… 42!
The ultimate checklist for deploying your app without regrets.
You built the app. You wrote the Dockerfile. You pushed to your CI/CD pipeline.
But... is it really ready for Kubernetes?
This talk hands you the one thing every team needs but rarely has:
a no-fluff, field-tested, brutally honest checklist of 42 points to verify before you deploy. This is an interactive session from beginner to expert.
You’ll learn:
How to avoid the most common mistakes in Kubernetes deployments
What actually matters in production — and what doesn’t
How to think like a platform engineer, even if you're a developer
Why checklists save you from 3 AM incidents
Interactive, opinionated, and painfully relatable.
This is not another Kubernetes 101 — this is the list you wish you had a year ago.
Don’t panic. Just check it.
Speaker: Jan Stomphorst
Bio: Ik ben Jan Stomphorst, Solutions Architect van beroep. Ik werk al 25 jaar in de IT en ondersteun organisaties met hun applicatieontwikkeling met behulp van nieuwe technieken zoals Kubernetes. Samen met mijn team werk ik momenteel veel aan Kubernetes projecten, nieuwe implementaties en ben ik voortdurend bezig met het testen van nieuwe tools en technieken. In mijn vrije tijd kook ik graag en houd ik van bbq-en. Wat ik zo geweldig vind aan deze podcast is dat ik als IT'er mijn kennis kan en mag delen met andere IT'ers. Het voelt daardoor een beetje als een opensource project, waarbij ik hoop ook feedback van onze luisteraars te ontvangen.

2nd Talk:
Title: Getting ProRail on Track with Kafka on Kubernetes
Safety and reliability is of high importance to ProRail, which contradicts innovation. A new movement has however started to implement Kubernetes to allows teams to more easily build, host and manage their applications. During this talk we will talk about how the Integratie team uses this technology to provision Kafka (using Strimzi) for a new integration platform. This will be a tale that starts with ClickOps and abandons it all in favor of GitOps using Terraform, ArgoCD and other CNCF projects. We will also share our vision of the integration platform of the future.
abstract

Speakers: Benjamin Smeding & Merijn Stiekema
Benjamin: Solution Architect at ProRail with more than 10 years in the rail sector. My background is in rail design and embedded safety systems. At ProRail I work on event streaming and help promote cloud-native and open-source technologies.

Merijn: DevOps Engineer at ProRail. For the past 1.5 years, I have worked on cloud enablers like Kafka and API Management in Azure, provisioning platforms and building tools for health checking and self-service. I enjoy combining software engineering with DevOps and automating processes so teams can onboard and build faster. Outside of work, I have a passion for open source and love building things in my free time.

Photography/Video consent:
We will be taking photos and videos during the event and will use these photos and videos for social media and promotional materials. By coming to the meet-up, you give us your consent to take photos and videos of you.