Thursday, November 3, 12:00pm-1:15pm

 

What is GameDay?

GameDay is an interactive team-based learning exercise for all levels, from beginner to expert. It's designed to give players a chance to put their AWS skills to the test in a real-world, gamified, risk-free environment. Most importantly, it is an extremely fun way to learn collaboratively. We step outside the boundaries of typical workshops through open-endedness & ambiguity.

What can I expect?

Players are broken up into teams of all levels, & given a starting architecture that they will then need to evolve throughout the day in response to internal & external events. There is no one right answer; the path that GameDay participants take is up to them. Don't worry if you are a beginner, Cloud Academy will provide training in advance so everyone can participate and have fun! This is a completely hands-on opportunity to learn about AWS best practices, new AWS services, & AWS architecture patterns. "Chaotic Commencement"

Overview

In this game, we introduce players to the Legendary Animal Rental Market (LARM) as part of one of its most well know Silicon Valley start-ups: Unicorn Rentals. Players are asked to support a sub-optimal application architecture, built & maintained by a team that recently (and abruptly) departed the company. Through the game's narrative, players learn that there is minimal information regarding previous design decisions, & in fact, the current leadership is almost totally unaware of how their services function. To top things off, the only documentation left behind is a run-book that doesn't appear to reflect any semblance of reality, & seems to be filled with half-truth training & lies (to be honest, it's made to reflect the kind of documentation that many of us have become all too familiar with in our careers!). It's up to each team to understand what's really happening in their AWS Account, & decide on a path forward to ensure they have a robust & scalable application.

Who should attend

The Chaotic Commencement version of GameDay is focused on participants debugging & operating EC2 infrastructure, so it's more directed at operations teams and people that are newer to AWS. It was designed for participants to play without having any coding or development experience, though developers or more recently formed DevOps teams will likely find it a challenge & useful. Teams are also not limited to EC2, so more advanced players can flex their muscles, & have been known to find some creative solutions (including containerization, DDoSing other teams, & disassembly of binaries!)

Prerequisites

Cloud Academy will be up and be ready to have fun! No need for AWS accounts as those will be provided to teams. We will form teams the day of, before we kick off the GameDay.

Cloud Academy will be providing a License to their training platform for attendees of the University of Illinois IT ProForum. If you have registered to participate in the AWS GameDay, a Custom Cloud Path from Cloud Academy has been created to prepare participants for an optimal experience.

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