Whether you are a developer building with NATS, an architect designing distributed systems, or if you are an operator managing NATS, you’re in the right place
Justyna Bak kicked off RethinkConn 2025 by celebrating the explosive growth and innovation of the NATS community, unveiling how NATS has evolved from a lightweight messaging system into a full edge-native tech stack for AI and IoT.
Whether you’re a seasoned architect or new to NATS, if you’re interested in the future of distributed systems—built for scale, resilience, and the edge—RethinkConn 2025 has something for you
“Most recently, we added a workload layer that solves the problem of distributed compute. So now we have a complete tech stack that provides AI applications everything they need to thrive at the edge.”
— Justyna Bak, VP Marketing, Synadia
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Full Transcript
Justyna Bak:
Thanks, Nate. Hi everyone, and welcome to RethinkConn 2025, the biggest NATS event of the year. My name is Justyna, and I'm so happy you are joining us today. This is the third year we are gathering virtually to celebrate the incredible innovations built by our community using the NATS Open Source Project, Synadia Cloud, and Synadia Platform. You came to the right place, whether you are a developer building with NATS, an architect designing distributed systems, or if you are an IT operator managing NATS clusters in heterogeneous environments.
And a special welcome to those of you who are new to NATS. You're about to find out what all the excitement is about. The theme of this year's event is Rethinking Connectivity for the Era of Edge Computing, IoT and AI. The NATS project started over a decade ago, and its goal was simple: to create a messaging system that is lightweight, versatile, and timeless. And once Derek Collison, the creator of NATS, accomplished the challenge of connecting all the components of any distributed system of any scale in a manner that's both resilient, high performing, and secure, it was only a matter of time for him and his team to go up the stack.
And so first, Derek added a data layer with Jetstream that provides features such as key value store and data streaming. And most recently, we added a workload layer that solves the problem of distributed compute. So now we have a complete tech stack that provides AI applications everything they need to thrive at the edge. Today, we have an exciting day ahead of us. You'll hear from Derek about the future of NATS and the Synadia edge-native tech stack.
You'll hear from NATS and Synadia users who are building incredible things with these technologies. And finally, you'll hear from the Synadia product and engineering teams, and they will share all about the newest features, and they will also showcase their demos. Now, 2024 was a pretty incredible year for the NATS project. We surpassed 10,000 members in our NATS community Slack channel, which is the best place to get support, expert advice, and connect with fellow NATS enthusiasts. If you're not a member yet, sign up today.
2024 was also a great year for Synadia. We've had the privilege of partnering with both Fortune 500 companies and some of the most innovative startups. You'll see some of the logos on the screen right now. And if you'd like to see the logo of your company up there and next year, please reach out to me directly. So whether you are a long time NATS user or you're just getting started, this is your community, and together, we'll be shaping the future of distributed systems for the years to come.
So sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.
