Kevin Nilson, MC and Program Chair, welcomes attendees to GRPC Conf, celebrating the project's 11th year of relevance and growth. The address highlights major updates, including the highly anticipated early access support for Rust and impressive polyglot adoption across various languages, with weekly downloads reaching millions across platforms like Python (43M), Maven Central (7M), and NPM (15M). A significant announcement is GRPC's pursuit of CNCF "Graduated" status, signaling top-tier maturity, supported by a recently overhauled governance structure and a new steering committee. Nilson also acknowledges key sponsors (Google Cloud, CNCF) and community contributors, and points to enhanced developer resources, underscoring GRPC's sustained evolution and impact in the cloud-native ecosystem.
GRPC Conf: Welcome and Key Updates
0:00 Welcome to GRPC Conf: Kevin Nilson, MC and Program Chair, opens the conference, introducing himself as a GRPC steering committee member and setting the stage for an event focused on GRPC's continued evolution.
0:26 Conference Legacy & Speakers: The event features talks from leading companies like Apple, Cloudflare, Mastercard, Netflix, and LinkedIn, celebrating GRPC's 11th year and its ongoing relevance in the tech landscape.
2:43 Expanding Language Support (Rust): A significant and highly anticipated development is the introduction of early access support for Rust, complete with previews and dedicated code labs, directly addressing a top community request.
3:36 High Polyglot Adoption: A large majority of attendees confirm they use GRPC in multiple programming languages (three or more for many), highlighting its versatility and widespread use in diverse, multi-language environments.
4:05 Key Sponsorships: Google Cloud is acknowledged as the diamond sponsor, generously providing the venue, food, t-shirts, and bags, while the CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation) is recognized for its substantial support of the GRPC project.
4:42 Pursuing CNCF Graduation: GRPC is in the final stages of applying for CNCF Graduation, which represents the highest level of maturity, adoption, and community support within the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. The application is planned for submission within the next week.
5:08 Governance Overhaul: With the assistance of CNCF, GRPC has completely rewritten its governance structure and established a new, elected steering committee to formally guide its future direction and strategy.
7:27 Notable Community Contributions: Individuals like Lucio Franco are specifically recognized for their significant contributions to the Rust implementation, and Antoine from Data Dog for major contributions to the Go codebase, earning him a promotion to maintainer.
8:10 Community Resources: Essential resources for engagement include grpc.io for documentation, the Google Group for user discussions, an actively updated YouTube Channel with new video content, various meetups (Sunnyvale, Bangalore, virtual), and announcements on X (formerly Twitter).
9:31 Enhanced Developer Guides: Significant improvements have been made to developer resources based on user feedback, including six new user guides, fresh examples, and new, easier-to-consume code labs, particularly for Rust.
10:32 Continuous Growth & Adoption: A growth chart of the main GRPC repository clearly demonstrates continuous growth in relevance and user base over its 11-year history, driven by maturity, bug fixes, and performance improvements.
11:14 Impressive Download Statistics: GRPC reports substantial and consistently growing weekly downloads across various platforms: 7 million on Maven Central, 43 million for Python, and 15 million for NPM.
11:50 Next Speaker: Rajie, a Senior Director at Google, is introduced as the next presenter, who will provide an update on the overall state of GRPC.