What is THWACKcamp?

THWACKcamp is a free, annual, two-day, digital IT learning event brought to you by SolarWinds. The event features expert speakers, interactive sessions, prizes, and more.

For over ten years, thousands of tech professionals have joined this lively, interactive event for industry insights and fresh perspectives on the ever-shifting IT landscape.

Day 1 Day 2

Decomplexify Your Everything

Chrystal Taylor and Jeff Stewart

The increasing complexity of IT means new skills are always needed to keep up and stay relevant, but acquiring new skills takes time. Having the right set of tools is essential for success. In this session, we'll break down how to decomplexify and what the heck that means. It's time to consolidate what can be consolidated, break down barriers, reduce waste, and manage the madness.

Silos are for Grain, Not IT

Cheryl Nomanson and Kevin M. Sparenberg

Previously, only managers, directors, and the CTO spoke beyond the traditional team boundaries. Those days are done. End users are more demanding than ever. Your IT infrastructure has expanded to keep up, but have your observability solutions kept pace? Reacting to customer incidents is the responsibility of all members of IT, from the service desk technician to the C-suite. We'll show you how to break down those silos.

Additional Resources

The Integration Equation

David Russell, Bryce Mata, and Chrystal Taylor

Resolving an incident before end users are impacted is the new standard, but managing separate observability and incident management solutions is tempting fate. You are at risk of an issue slipping through the cracks. It's time to consolidate, streamline, and decomplexify your operations. Hybrid Cloud Observability combined with SolarWinds Observability and SolarWinds Service Desk make all of this much, much easier.

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What To Do if Someone Drops a Database in Your Lap and Runs

Kevin Kline and Homer McEwin

The top query from database administrators is: what is this database for, and why do I care? The life of a DBA is one of infinite gifts, even if those gifts are unwanted. If you've ever had an application owner drop a database in your lap, then this session is for you. Hear from professionals who have dealt with this problem time and time again. Spoiler alert: better tooling gives you and the application owner the insight they need to make informed decisions.

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You're Only Half Done: Going Beyond IT

Gretchen Tubon, Jeremy Mayfield, and Sean Sebring

Using your service desk to only support your IT department is SO last year. If you want to keep up with the latest efficiency trends, you've got to include other departments. Learn more about how to keep up with the Joneses to optimize your support of other departments in this session.

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Playing 4D Chess: The Modern IT Story

Chrystal Taylor, Josh Vanhoose, and Noel Barbee

Knight to E-4. Security professionals consistently make moves to fend off attackers. Unlike chess, it takes a team effort to keep up against modern cybersecurity threats and implement changes company-wide. Two pros take you through a day in the life of the security team. Hear practical use cases to help you and your organization improve your security stance. Check and mate.

The Future Looks Bright with AIOps

Krishna Sai and Cullen Childress

Data science is an exciting field, but statistics aren't for everyone. Let SolarWinds do that work for you. We've been using machine learning to build recommendations for systems, databases, bandwidth, and more for years. But we're just getting started. Coupling ML with AIOps is the next great adventure in observability.

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OpenTelemetry for Non-Developers

Kevin M. Sparenberg

Join us as we explain why Observability Data > Monitoring Data in simple concepts. We'll cover the three pillars of observability data, what that means for anyone coming from traditional monitoring, and why you shouldn't be afraid of the shift towards OpenTelemetry (OTel). This session has no prerequisites, but you should understand how traditional monitoring platforms work to get the most out of this session.

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BLOOP. Oh Great, Another %$@!% Alert!

Martin Russell-Raymond, Chrystal Taylor, and Brian Radovich

Did you create a rule to send those email alerts into a subfolder so that you can "read them later?" It’s time to rethink how, why, and to whom you send alerts. We’ll show you new ways Hybrid Cloud Observability will get the right alerts at the right time to the right people, so you can stop lying to yourself and get your life back on track.

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Automate Your Way To Peace and Happiness

Sascha Giese and Michael Clark

What's the one thing that computers do better than humans? Making decisions based on given inputs. Let your service management solution automate that next step for you. What's the worst that could happen? Smaller ticket queues? More satisfied end users? Better uptime? More time with your loved ones? We think it's worth the risk.

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<SHIFT><LEFT> A Better Approach to DataOps

Kevin Kline and Kevin M. Sparenberg

You're familiar with DevOps, but have you thought about DataOps? Data Operations is all about breaking down barriers between data managers and data consumers. DevOps is centered on product development, while DataOps shortens the cycle time for analytics and align with organizational goals. In short, DataOps helps you make data-driven decisions.

Observability and monitoring are about protecting systems and mitigating risk. Maybe it's time to assess your products and strategies to give priorities and blockers higher priority in your planning. We'll help you understand how to identify these tasks that should "Shift Left" - thereby tackling these needs earlier in your Systems Development Life Cycle.

Take these lessons and your organization can shift database management and data integration from unreliable, inflexible, and riddled with problems to a stable, reliable, and scalable architecture you'll rely on for those data-driven decisions.

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It's a Beautiful Day in the SWOC-erhood: Real World Applications of SolarWinds Observability

Kevin M. Sparenberg, Howard Williams Jr., and Michael Sabrnak

Join the staff of the SolarWinds Operations Center (SWOC) as they explain how and why the shift from traditional monitoring to observability has enhanced SolarWinds' operations. We'll be on hand to answer questions and explain why SolarWinds embraced the "drink your own champagne" philosophy. In a rare opportunity, join us behind the doors of SolarWinds IT and understand how shifting towards observability has enhanced our internal and external IT operations.

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