InfluxData Blog - Thom Crowe235

Why I Joined InfluxData - Thom Crowe

Thom Crowe235 (InfluxData) — Tue, 11 Jun 2019 08:00:13 -0700

Hey there, I’m Thom Crowe, Community Manager here at InfluxData. I’m new to the team, and one thing new employees are asked to do is introduce themselves and share why they joined, so here goes.

I started working in digital marketing back in 2014 when I joined Compose (formerly MongoHQ), a DBaaS platform for open source databases. The good thing about joining smaller startups is that you get to wear a lot of hats. I learned to code and took on my first community role. I realized that talking to developers was something I really liked and what I wanted to do moving forward.

As I started looking for where I wanted to go next, a couple of friends mentioned InfluxData. I had known about InfluxDB from my days at a DBaaS company and always liked the folks I met at events, so I decided to go see what was going on. A friend of mine was working here, another friend was involved in the community, and both made it sound great.

Here’s where I’m going to get a little meta: I decided InfluxData was my number one choice for my next company because of the “Why I Joined InfluxData” articles. I read a few and they made it sound like a great place to be, especially Sonia Gupta’s article about company values. Every company talks about its core values and lists them on their website, right? Talking about values is easy. But here is a company who had employees telling the world how those values are ingrained in what the company is and does.

I decided to reach out to Chris Churilo, Director of Product Marketing here, and send her my resume. Serendipity was at play; Chris told me they just approved a Community Manager position, and we chatted the same day. We talked about the community, what the needs and vision of it were, and how I would fit in. We also hit on the company values. After our chat, I was excited about the position, working with the InfluxDB community, and the company’s values of respecting people and striving to create a healthy work environment for everyone, both in office and remote.

Since I’ve been here, I can say my initial thoughts about the company have only been confirmed. InfluxData provides a place for employees to innovate, try new things, and support new initiatives. In over 3 months, I haven’t heard “we can’t do that” once. I feel encouraged in everything I pitch. I get to work across all of our teams and find that each and every person here genuinely cares about our community members and is on board to do whatever we ask of them to make the community better.

That’s why I joined InfluxData; the enthusiasm and encouragement I get from my team, and the amazing people with their excitement and commitment from the community is why I stay.

Kicking Off InfluxDB Community Office Hours

Thom Crowe235 (InfluxData) — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 09:24:52 -0700

This is a pretty exciting week at InfluxData. We’re descending on London for InfluxDays on Thursday and Friday (if you’re not in Europe, don’t worry, we are livestreaming and recording the sessions). While here in London, a group of us are getting together to launch a new virtual program at InfluxDB to engage with our community that we’re calling Community Office Hours on Wednesday, June 12th at 4:00 pm London time, 8:00 am PST.

<figcaption> Register for InfluxDB Community Office Hours - Photo by Manny Pantoja</figcaption>

Our InfluxDB Community Office Hours will be a monthly live panel with Q&A where Influxers will be available to answer all of your questions about time series and InfluxDB. For the kickoff, we’ll have Michael Desa and Jacob Marble, two of our software engineers; David McKay, developer relations manager; and me, our community manager. We’re all here with one goal: to answer anything you want to know about!

We’ve spent some time looking over questions on our community site, Slack, Reddit, and talked to some of the support folks to find common questions being asked. We have those questions banked but would love to hear from you. During the panel, you can write in with your question, or ask on camera. Think of it like creating a watercolor for all of us to chat.

All of our Community Office Hours are being recorded, so if you can’t make it, you can catch up on what you missed. The downside to that is that you won’t be able to ask your questions. To join us for office hours and get a reminder before we start, click here.

We’re pretty excited about this new way of interacting with our community members and hope to see you on Wednesday.

Have You Registered for InfluxDays London Livestream?

Thom Crowe235 (InfluxData) — Fri, 07 Jun 2019 09:26:36 -0700

<figcaption> Watch the livestream of InfluxDays, the industry’s only event focused on the impact of time series data.</figcaption>

InfluxDays London is less than a week away. We have an amazing lineup of speakers and workshops lined up, making this one of the best European tech conferences of the year. One of the things about having such an active international community is that it’s nearly impossible to bring everyone together and we don’t want anyone to miss out, so we’re doing the next best thing: we’re livestreaming both days of the conference.

InfluxDays livestream

Just like InfluxDays New York earlier this year, you can sit back from the comfort of your own computer and tune into the conference. Everything kicks off on Thursday, June 13th at 9:30 am London time. Click here to register for the livestream and reserve your spot.

What to expect

Thursday morning will kick off with a welcome from InfluxData CEO Evan Kaplan followed by a look at the road ahead from our founder and CTO Paul Dix, a deep dive into Kubernetes monitoring with InfluxDB 2.0 and Flux with InfluxData SRE Gianluca Arbezzano, a talk on PromQL and Flux from Prometheus co-founder Julian Volz, and a look into how Playtech uses InfluxDB for observability on their Saas Platform with their technical architect Aleksandr Tavgen, all before lunch.

After the break, VP of Products at Influx, Tim Hall, kicks off the afternoon talking about dashboards as code, followed by David Kaltschmidt, director of UX at Grafana Labs, looking at mixing metrics and logs with Grafana and Influx, our Director of Product Management, Russ Savage, then leads a presentation on monitoring, alerting, and tasks as code, before Albert Zaragoza and Daniel Lázaro Iglesias from Worldsensing wrap up the day with their real-world use case for Flux.

On Friday, we’ll record the workshops and get those shared as quickly as possible.

Interact in real time with attendees

If you want to feel like you’re part of the action, we have the #influxdays-london channel on our Slack Workspace. Attendees, speakers, and Influxers will be in the channel discussing the talks and taking questions.

So go ahead and register to join the livestream — see you on Thursday!

Announcing Speakers and Agenda for InfluxDays London 2019

Thom Crowe235 (InfluxData) — Fri, 26 Apr 2019 09:00:12 -0700

<figcaption> InfluxDays is coming to London on 13 - 14 June</figcaption>

InfluxDays is coming to London on 13 - 14 June, and our speakers and agenda have been finalized. This year, we’re bringing in leaders from organizations like Worldsensing and Playtech for keynotes, giving insight into real-world time series and InfluxDB uses. InfluxData team members from around the globe will be on-site as well: hosting hands-on technical workshops, giving exclusive updates on the future of InfluxDB 2.0, highlighting advancements on Flux, and showing off new product features.

Attendees will get to see how other users are using time series data (the fastest-growing segment in the database market), learn how to use InfluxData to get the most out of their data, and learn best practices for optimizing DevOps infrastructure and application monitoring, real-time analytics, and IoT applications.

Attendees will hear from guest speakers Julius Volz, co-founder of Prometheus, presenting on Creating the PromQL Transpiler for Flux, Aleksandr Tavgen at Playtech on Using InfluxDB for Full Observability of a SaaS Platform, Albert Zaragoza from Worldsensing talking about a Real-World Use Case for Flux, and Jeroen Coussement from Factry.io on Using the Open Source OPC-UA Client and Server for Your IoT Solutions.

We’ll also have Influxers on-hand giving talks like:

Paul Dix, InfluxData Founder & CTO: InfluxDB 2.0 and Flux – The Road Ahead
Tim Hall, InfluxData VP of Products: Dashboards as Code
Sonia Gupta, InfluxData Developer Advocate: Introduction to InfluxDB 2.0 & Your First Flux Query
Nate Haugo, Director of Engineering: Kubernetes Monitoring with InfluxDB 2.0 and Flux

Plan on joining us at InfluxDays in London to meet other community members passionate about time series and learn how you can do more with InfluxData. We’ve got the full agenda here. Go ahead and register today to save your spot. Save 20% off your tickets with promo code BLOG. See you there!

Join Us at InfluxDays London 2019

Thom Crowe235 (InfluxData) — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 13:46:58 -0700

<figcaption> InfluxData CTO and Founder Paul Dix at InfluxDays NYC 2019</figcaption>

Hey European users, we’re coming to your side of the pond. Okay, I know, we’re a distributed team and we do have team members throughout Europe, but I mean we’re coming in force. InfluxDays London 2019 is going to be an event you won’t want to miss.

We just wrapped up InfluxDays 2019 NYC and you can get an idea of what to expect in our recap, but honestly, there’s so much more.

Meet Influxers

People from all over our company are going to be on-hand, giving talks, demonstrating cutting-edge time series technology, and leading interactive workshops for users of all experience levels. We’ve built time in the agenda to mingle, making sure you have a chance for some face-to-face time with some of the cool folks working on building out InfluxData.

See How Others are Using InfluxData

If you check out the agenda for the event, you’ll notice we’re bringing in some people from outside of InfluxData who are working with time series data in really interesting ways.

Be the First to Know

I’m sure you’ve heard we’ve been working hard on InfluxDB 2.0. It’s definitely the biggest enhancement to InfluxDB since 0.8 to 0.9 back in 2015. Throughout both days, you’re going to get an inside look into what’s new in 2.0, how it works, and what’s on the roadmap from the people who are actively leading development like Paul Dix, the creator of InfluxDB. Believe me — it’s exciting.

Get Involved in Our Community

You’re passionate about time series, right? Well, we love community and made sure to include some opportunity for you to meet and get to know others who share your passion. You’re sure to meet other people using time series in a space similar to you so you can share experiences. Plus, it’s a great opportunity to find others near you so you can create your own local time series events to have throughout the year!

Get Hands-On

We’ve got workshops planned all day on Friday, 14th June for you to get your hands dirty. There are two tracks, one for getting started and one that’s more advanced, so no matter how much you’ve used InfluxDB, there’s going to be something for you. All workshops are led by amazing Influxers who are there to help you get the most out of the workshop possible.

Space is limited, so register today to guarantee your spot. Right now and until May 3, you can get special Early Registration prices of only £199 and save 20% with promo code BLOG.

InfluxDays 2019 NYC, Another Hit!

Thom Crowe235 (InfluxData) — Mon, 08 Apr 2019 08:00:00 -0700

InfluxData CEO Evan Kaplan at InfluxDays NYC 2019

InfluxDays NYC was my first InfluxDays, and to say I was impressed would be an understatement. After spending two days with community members and hearing about how they’re using our products coupled with all the talks, I was even more energized and excited about what we’re building.

We had a great turnout for the event - plus, it was livestreamed, so people from around the world who weren’t in New York City were able to tune in as well.

Day 1 Recap

Paul Dix started the first day off on a high note, talking about the future and vision of the InfluxData platform, giving a roadmap for InfluxDB 2.0. Next up was community member and InfluxAce Matt Iverson from Optum, a division of UnitedHealth Group, discussing their monitoring journey and how Optum is reducing snowflakes with automatic deployment using their open source tool they call Lighthouse. Tim Hall, our VP of Products at InfluxData, wrapped up the morning by showcasing how to set up and use InfluxDB Cloud 2.0.

We came back after lunch and heard from Jacob Lisi, a Software Engineer at Grafana Labs, demonstrating Flux with Grafana, how Flux supercharges queries, discussing the features as well as moving parts for deployment, and how to use it with Grafana. Richard Laskey, Senior Software Engineer at Wayfair, took the stage next to share the monitoring best practices for InfluxDB Enterprise that they use to monitor their storefront. Next up, our Director of Engineering, Ryan Betts, talked about InfluxData internals, sharing lessons learned about scaling the platform across a large number of deployments.

Rounding out the day, we heard from Krisha Krishnaraju, Rajeev Tomer, and Karl Daman from Capital One about the need for architecting for disaster recovery for time series data as well as sharing their journey to plan and execute a disaster recovery plan. After wrapping up the talks, we had a cocktail happy hour, giving us a time to network with other attendees.

Day 2 Recap

On Day 2, we had workshops focusing on two tracks — v1 and v2, with talks covering topics like an in-depth intro to InfluxDB 2.0 and Flux queries, optimizing InfluxDB 1.0, building Telegraf plugins, architecting InfluxDB Enterprise, dashboarding, container monitoring, client libraries, and InfluxDB for IoT.

Thank You

Seriously, thank you to all of our users who came out from all over the continent to join us, and for the great speakers who shared their experiences and lessons learned. If you weren’t able to catch the event in NYC or on the livestream, or if you just want to see the talks again, we’ve got the videos, all of the slide decks from the speakers, and great photos. We also want to give a huge shoutout to Grafana Labs, AWS, and Google Cloud who sponsored this event!

InfluxDays 2019 London

If you missed InfluxDays NYC, no worries - InfluxDays 2019 London is only a few weeks away. We’ll be gathering on June 13-14, 2019 at The Brewery, 52 Chiswell Street, London, EC1Y 4SD. Like our NYC event, we’ll have talks on the first day with hands-on workshops on Day 2. The workshops will be on two tracks, a Getting Started Track and a More Advanced Track, guaranteeing that there really is something for everyone.

Registration is open and tickets are available from only £199. Use promo code BLOG to save 20%. See you in London!

Introducing Our New InfluxData Community Slack Workspace

Thom Crowe235 (InfluxData) — Wed, 03 Apr 2019 08:00:20 -0700

We’re thrilled to announce that, starting today, we have a public Influx Community Slack workspace to continue our commitment to building both great open source projects and a strong community. With the new Slack workspace comes yet another opportunity for our community members to become more engaged in what’s happening at InfluxData and to stay informed of ways that they can participate in projects and initiatives.

Getting started

We will continue to host our Community Forums, our Subreddit, and social media profiles; our Slack is not intended to do away with any of our community initiatives but to enhance what’s already happening. We’ve been working for a few weeks on the logistics of opening up the Slack workspace to the community to ensure that we’re creating a productive space. We’ve got channels set up for all of our open source projects like #influxdb, #telegraf, and #flux, #v2, #meetups, and #community-support.

Please just take a moment to check out the #code-of-conduct channel; we have an amazing community that is open and welcoming of everyone, but it’s a good refresher to understand what we’re building here.

How do I join?

We’ve got a public invite that you can fill out to join here, or you can email us at community@influxdata.com for an invite, to ask questions, or express any concerns.

How do I access the new Slack workspace?

After you’ve requested your invite, you’ll be able to sign in at influxcommunity.slack.com.

What if I need a new channel?

Don’t see a channel for what you need for a project or location-specific initiative? Just ask in our #ask-an-admin channel and post a request or DM someone with the admin star next to their name.

We’re excited about this next chapter in our InfluxData community and look forward to seeing you in our new workspace.

InfluxDays New York

Thom Crowe235 (InfluxData) — Mon, 11 Mar 2019 08:00:25 -0700

This week is InfluxDays New York 2019, and we’re bringing some of the best voices in the time series world to one stage. I’m looking forward to my first InfluxDays and to meeting folks from the community and InfluxData team. But let’s say you’re not in New York — how do you still get to watch these amazing talks live?

InfluxDays Livestream

This year, for the first time in InfluxDays history, we’re live streaming the conference on Wednesday, March 13th, which is action-packed. So, click over to our InfluxDays NYC livestream page to reserve your spot.

What to Expect

From the comfort of your home or office, you’ll be welcomed by InfluxData CEO Evan Kaplan. Then InfluxData Founder and CTO Paul Dix will share his vision for the platform and give you the latest updates on InfluxDB. Matt Iverson from UnitedHealth Group, Ian Van Hoven from Oracle, Jacob Lisi from Grafana Labs, Richard Laskey from Wayfair, Saravanan “Krisha” Krishnaraju, Rajeev Tomer, and Karl Daman from Capital One, and many more will cover a range of topics from disaster recovery to performance monitoring, Grafana, DevSecOps, and others. Honestly, there’s something for everyone, and you won’t want to miss it. So go ahead and register to join the livestream — see you on Wednesday!