CNCF-hosted Co-located Events North America 2024

Project Calico is a widely adopted open-source solution known for its flexible architecture, providing robust networking and security across most cloud providers. Feature flagging is a critical step in every release for Project Calico, allowing Tigera engineers to deploy our solution without breaking the Internet. This talk will explore the importance of feature flagging within Project Calico, highlighted by the real-world case study of the Reddit Pi Day incident. We will discuss how this incident underscored the necessity of feature flagging and led to its extensive adoption in our project. Attendees will gain insights into the underlying problems that feature flagging solves on a big scale and the relevance of these practices in maintaining seamless, secure operations in diverse cloud environments. Join us to learn how Project Calico leverages feature flagging, which allows you to scroll through your favourite social services, such as Reddit!

eBay, a seasoned 20+ year big-tech with ~4000 engineers adopted OpenFeature on its large scale decision making platform. This success story is more than simply a feature flag enablement, it's about simplifying a complex onboarding process, enabling flags and offering a 5-star developer experience! This 2023 highlight took two partners with complimenting skill-sets, a lot of trust and continuous iterations. We'll walk through the state of the world before the introduction of Open Feature, how we built an internal community around the mission and practical techniques that were used to establish leadership buy-in and accelerate momentum in such a large complex organization.

Feature flags offer powerful control over software releases, but they introduce hidden complexities in version management and user adoption that can catch development teams off guard. As application states multiply and the definition of a "version" blurs, teams struggle with maintaining compatibility and ensuring smooth updates across diverse platforms and user segments. To address these challenges, we propose a strategy of treating feature flag rollouts as code changes, favoring smaller, more frequent updates over large-scale alterations. This talk will unveil the often-overlooked costs of feature flags, explore their impact on versioning and user experience, and provide attendees with practical strategies for mitigating these issues. By the end, you'll have a clearer understanding of how to navigate the complex landscape of feature flag implementation, balancing the benefits of flexibility with the need for manageable, user-friendly software evolution.