Keep Alive ’26

An alert just fired. Checkout is failing. Can your team find out why before the clock runs out? KEEP ALIVE '26 is a national incident response championship for students who have been learning DevOps. You've practised Linux, Docker and Kubernetes. Now test it on the field: read the alerts, dashboards, logs and traces of a live microservices system, find what broke and why, and explain how you would fix it. It runs on the same incident platform as Panic at the Pod, the live Kubernetes incident challenge by CNCG Noida, our Community Partner. KEEP ALIVE takes that format nationwide, built and scaled for students. It is hosted by GDG on Campus IIIT Nagpur at TantraFiesta 2026, the national technical fest of IIIT Nagpur. Why take part ₹25,000 in cash prizes for the top three teams and the Sharpest RCA award Investigate real incidents on a real observability stack: Grafana dashboards, Prometheus metrics, logs and traces No production experience needed. A 30-minute hands-on session at the finale teaches every tool you will use After the finale, the platform team walks everyone through all 10 incidents and how they were solved Goodies and certificates for every finalist, and merit certificates for the winners Bring your senior: one recent graduate (2024 to 2026) of your college can join your team Round 1: The Night Shift (online, 11 to 18 October) One 30-minute assessment per team, taken once from the team leader's account Multiple-choice questions on DevOps and observability, one incident to investigate from screenshots of dashboards, logs and traces, and two short written answers Proctored and taken in full screen. No AI tools, no search and no second device The top 15 teams reach the finale. The next 10 teams form the waitlist Finale: KEEP ALIVE Live (on campus, 26 October, IIIT Nagpur) A hands-on session on the platform, Grafana and the report form, with one practice incident Phase 1, First Responder: 6 incidents in 90 minutes Phase 2, Deep Dive: 3 intermediate incidents and 1 critical, cascading incident in 90 minutes You never change the system. You read its signals and submit a short solution report for each incident: the root cause, the evidence and the fix Each team presents its findings to the judges in a 10-minute slot Who can join Teams of exactly 3, all from the same college UG, PG and diploma students from any branch or year Up to one alumnus per team, graduated in 2024, 2025 or 2026. Working alumni are welcome PhD students and research scholars are not eligible Made for students with atleast 6 to 12 months of DevOps learning: if you have used Linux and Docker, run kubectl and opened Grafana a few times, you are ready Important dates (IST) Registration closes: Sunday, 18 October, 11:29 PM Round 1 window: Sunday, 11 October, 9:00 AM to Sunday, 18 October, 11:59 PM Finalists and waitlist announced: Monday, 19 October, 6:00 AM Finalists confirm their seats: by Tuesday, 20 October, 11:59 PM Finale: Monday, 26 October, at IIIT Nagpur Prizes Winner: ₹12,000 1st runner-up: ₹7,000 2nd runner-up: ₹4,000 Sharpest RCA award: ₹2,000, for the most accurate root causes among teams outside the top 3 Good to know Travel and stay for the finale are arranged by each team. Every team brings at least 2 laptops AI tools, search and documentation are allowed in the finale, but every team must be able to explain what it submits