Serverless Days Milan 2025 Recap

I don’t really know why it took me so long to start writing this retrospective. In my defense, I was a little under the weather after returning from Italy 🇮🇹 and catching up with some long-overdue things. If you are reading this, I can safely assume you are not here for my “not-having-a-social-network-account” cope, so let’s move on to what is important. When I write these recaps, I try to offer a fresh perspective compared to what is already available on the official sites.

This is not the first time I have attended this conference. I was here last year at the same place, for the exact same reason. Honestly, I was not sure what to expect this time, as it is not easy to raise the bar given the speaker lineup and attendees from the previous year. Little did I know it was possible.

Message to the Organizers and the Community

I do not have a big reach, but I always raise awareness that behind the fancy lights, stages, and even simple perks like croissants and coffee stands a dedicated group making it all possible. This is a general note for all community efforts, not just Serverless Days. Organizing conferences and events is never easy, especially by volunteers. Thanks to their drive to learn and share, we get to hear first-hand insights from tech leaders and vendors.

So, a huge thank you to the organizers for your hard work gathering sponsors, speakers, and who knows how many other things that we take for granted. I know managing everything amid personal commitments was not simple, but you pulled it off! You are truly appreciated!

Yan Cui Keynote

After a few introductory words and a retrospective about previous conferences, looking back into the history of how we got here, the stage was set for Yan Cui’s keynote.

I can tell you straight away, it was a good one! You know you are listening to an expert when you hear things like “serverless is not easy,” “trade-offs,” “cost efficiency,” etc. The main takeaway for me was that we should stop treating serverless as a new thing or worrying about how we name things. We have mature technology that is evolving every day, and we need to follow the trends, learn new things, and keep pace. I could not agree more. The time of convincing people or gatekeepers that it works is long behind us. We should focus on what we deliver and make sure it is well-architected.

Friends, Colleagues and Networking

Personally, my favorite part. You should not forget that these meetups are always an opportunity to see former or current colleagues and have some great conversation with various people. It is fun, and often very useful, because the fresh perspective coming from the experts that are going or already went through the same issues you have on a project is sometimes priceless. Bonus points if your advice helps somebody else, then the satisfaction is even greater.

I met Marko ServerlessLife in person finally, former colleague that was also giving an interesting, yet scarry talk about how to lose data in 20 minutes. Personally, I preffer these kind of talks as they have a lot learning points which can prevent you falling into the same trap (remember what I said about “fresh perspective coming from the experts that are going or already went through the same issues”).

Among other people, it was a great pleasure to speak and have a good time with Marko and Vincenzo (Serverless Guru), who is also part of the organizers’ team. Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos from the dinner or with Vincenzo, but that did not stop him from taking a photo of me and Felipe Gené, whom I also had the opportunity to meet in person at this conference.

Speaking of which, you should definitely take a look at and try his open-source Gothic Framework project! Didn’t I tell you that the experts are all over the place?

I am really sad that I had to leave the conference earlier due to personal matters and the need to catch a plane. I am looking forward to the next opportunity to hang out more with these guys.

My Talk: “Advanced MSK Patterns - Living in Harmony with the Data”

Finally, I was very honored to have the opportunity to give a talk, which was basically a natural extension of my talk given at AWS Community Days Adria—or rather, another pattern to handle real-world scenarios and tackle common issues. Surprisingly enough, I came well prepared, with three different directions I could take in my speech if the audience started asking specific questions. Among other things, I talked about near-real-time data replication, evolving schemas without breaking contracts, and adding new services and data sources without downtime.

Apparently, topics such as:

• Canonical Model vs. Harmonized Schema
• AWS Database Migration Service
• Change Data Capture (CDC)
• Can we do it live at scale without breaking API contracts and downstream systems?
• Capacity and cost planning that stays predictable
• Heavy reads for analytics and reporting that do not affect the live system

were a sort of magnet for the audience, as the talk was very well attended. I attribute this to the fact that I try to provide real value to the community with topics that are not introductory. If that is the case, then I have fulfilled my goal!

When preparing these kinds of talks, you can never say everything you want due to time constraints and the complexity of the subject itself. I focused on what I considered the most important parts of the pattern and explained each individual component with some practical examples. It seems that I did well according to the feedback. Of course, it can always be better, and there’s always room for improvement.

I reflect and try to do better, as these opportunities to speak are also learning points for me. I need to revisit everything and be 100% sure that what I am talking about is correct and works. Sadly, I had to skip a demo because there was no time left except for a brief discussion and a few questions. Overall, I think it was a good talk, and I am happy with how it went.

Final Thoughts

Serverless Days Milan 2025 is behind us. From what I heard from the organizers, I am not sure if it is going to happen next year or if it will be in the same format. Nevertheless, if it does happen and I am alive and well, I will do my best to be there again, whether as an attendee or a speaker - it does not really matter. It’s worth it!

P.S.

I had a small side quest while I was there.

October 19, 2025. Milan - Fiorentina 2:1