LISA '11: AEleen Frisch on 25 Years of LISA

Æleen Frisch has worked as a sys admin for more than 20 years and is the author of Essential System Administration (now in its 3rd edition from O'Reilly). Currently, Frisch looks after a pathologically heterogeneous network of UNIX and Windows systems. Frisch was the program committee chair for LISA '03 and is a frequent presenter at USENIX events, as well as presenting classes for universities and corporations worldwide.

At LISA '11, Frisch will be leading the Thursday, December 8 full-day tutorial, Administering Linux in Production Environments. If you currently are a Linux sys admin or an admin from an organization considering moving to or adding Linux to your systems, this is your tutorial.

Although Frisch doesn't remember the first LISA she attended back in the mid-late '90s, she says that she hasn't missed one since then. "When I started going, Linux was still fighting its way into respectability, and there was a spectrum of UNIX flavors," Frisch says. "Now it's pretty much all Linux, all the time. LISA has always been on the forefront of emerging technology and system administration practice. It's the place where you can learn about whatever will be the mainstream in 2-3 years. The conference itself got bigger, then smaller, and lately a bit bigger again."

Like Amy Rich, Frisch remembers Bill LeFebvre’s keynote address (available as an MP3 on our site) on how CNN handled the load put on their servers on 9/11/2001 as her favorite talk over the years.

In addition to the LISA sessions that stand out for her, Frisch remembers the people. "I've met many, many people at LISA that I really like and respect," she says. "It's really nice to have a group of friends that you get to spend time with every year. It was also fun and cool to meet some of the people I admired as I was starting out, such as Eric Allman."

"For me, LISA is a time that I set aside to learn new things, both by listening to presentations and by talking with excellent peers," Frisch explains. "This is something that there is seldom enough time for during normal work days, so having a large block of time once a year is really important."