Birds-of-a-Feather Sessions

Lead or attend a BoF! Meet with your peers! Present new work! Don't miss these special activities designed to maximize the value of your time at the conference. The always popular evening Birds-of-a-Feather sessions are very informal gatherings of persons interested in a particular topic.

Vendor BoFs
Want to demonstrate a new product or discuss your company's latest technologies with LISA '12 attendees? Host a Vendor BoF! These sponsored one-hour sessions give companies a chance to talk about products and proprietary technology—and they include promotional benefits. Email sponsorship@usenix.org if you're interested in sponsoring a Vendor BoF. Click here for more information about sponsorship opportunities.

Scheduling a BoF

To schedule a BoF, simply write the BoF title as well as your name and affiliation on one of the BoF Boards located in the registration area. If you have a description of your BoF you'd like posted on this Web page, please schedule your BoF on the BoF board, then send its title, the organizer's name and affiliation, and the date, time, and location of the BoF to bofs@usenix.org with "LISA '12 BoF" in the subject line.

BoF Schedule (A/V provided in all rooms, unless otherwise noted).

BoF Descriptions

Women in Advanced Computing (WiAC) BoF
Carolyn Rowland; Nicole Forsgren Velasquez, Utah State University;
Tuesday, December 11, 7:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., Nautilus 1

All attendees who are interested in advancing women in system administration are welcome to attend. We would love to hear about the current state of women in the sysadmin profession and how to combat any issues we may currently face. Men welcome (in case we didn't make that clear enough).

Cambridge Computer Vendor BoF
Cambridge Computer
Tuesday, December 11, 7:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., Nautilus 2

Want free beer? Want free ice cream? Want a sneak peek at the hottest topics in storage and data protection? If you answered "yes" to at least one of these questions, then plan to join Cambridge Computer and its selected storage technology showcase partners at this BoF. To show our thanks and appreciation to the USENIX and LISA community, we invite all LISA attendees to join us for an informal evening of beer, ice cream, and a little bit of storage sprinkled on top.

How to Cost-Effectively Retain Reference Data for Analytics and Big Data BoF
Molly Rector, Spectra Logic/Active Archive Alliance; Rich Gadomski, Fujifilm/Active Archive Alliance
Tuesday, December 11, 7:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., Nautilus 3

The need to store critical digital content at the petabyte level and beyond is quickly moving outside the capabilities of traditional storage solutions. In addition, the complexity of many of today’s storage solutions can prohibit companies from migrating to a solution that best fits their needs.

Many companies are turning to active archives, an approach that is quickly gaining traction for companies that regularly manage high-volume reference data or face exponential data growth associated with Data Analytics and Big Data. Software, tape and disk vendors alike are combining the best of these technologies to provide more efficient and functional solutions. And, according to InterSect360, 35% of Big Data users are already using tape to help access and retain the data necessary for long-term analytics.

This presentation will examine considerations for implementing an active archive and how it can provide high reliability and accessibility for data storage and analytics in a cost-effective manner. Specific use cases will be looked at to provide real world examples of configurations and results analysis.

PostgreSQL 9.2 BoF
Josh Berkus, PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
Tuesday, December 11, 7:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., Nautilus 4

PostgreSQL 9.2 is here, and it's faster and more exciting than ever before. Come down to the track and join us for a high-speed tour of a database which is faster than ever before!
Starting at pole position, we will whip around the features of version 9.2, speeding through one demo after another, including: cascading replication, enhanced vertical scalability, improved performance, index-only access, range types, JSON support, better live DDL deployments, and new administrative views.

Cdist - Next Generation Configuration Management BoF
Nico Schottelius, Author of Cdist
Tuesday, December 11, 7:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., Nautilus 5

Cdist is a simple, push based configuration management system using Shell script as its DSL. It is considered to be a "zero dependency configuration management system", as it requires only SSH and a Shell on the target systems.
In this BoFs you will hear about the features of cdist and get an introduction on how to use it. Furthermore, I will show some real world examples.
Cdist is FOSS and was presented the first time at LISA'10 in a BoFs as an idea. It has grown into a software for small and enterprise businesses since then. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Users BoF
Joshua Jensen, Cisco Systems Inc.
Tuesday, December 11, 7:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., Marina 2

Join the informal meeting for those of us interested in, or currently using Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Come with questions, experiences, and needed solutions to share with fellow attendees. 

Email Administrators BoF
Steve Shipway, The University of Auckland
Tuesday, December 11, 8:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., Nautilus 1

This is an informal get-together for all people with responsibility for their organisation’s email systems.  Discuss with your peers your choice of anti-spam or anti-virus solution,  whether you use a mail appliance or external service provider, or how you manage your mailing lists.  Compare your requirements with others’ and get tips, advice and suggestions. Are you using S/MIME, DKIM or SPF?  Do you protect against data leakage?  Are you a target for phishing?  

Alternatively, just let off some steam about how annoying spammers are.  We all understand.

OpenAFS Community BoF
Brian Sebby, Argonne National Laboratory
Tuesday, December 11, 8:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., Nautilus 3

AFS is a distributed file system that is available on a broad range of platforms and provides global access to a unified namespace providing location independence, scalability, security, and transparent migration capabilities.  <a href="http://www.openafs.org">OpenAFS</a> is the open source, community maintained branch of the AFS software originally developed by IBM/Transarc.  This BoF is intended for AFS administrators at LISA to meet and discuss any issues they may be having, and for people interested in AFS to find out more information. 

Taos Vendor BoF
Taos
Tuesday, December 11, 8:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., Marina 2

Devops met the Enterprise - What's Next?
DevOps / Operations Engineering is moving past the startup. We're looking forward to an exciting discussion about where things are headed in this industry. Is Puppet the answer or are new tools taking over? Are the current business models sustainable? If not, what might the new ones look like? How are we going to pull legacy systems into the modern era? Will PaaS replace IaaS for more workloads? Is everybody going to build their own PaaS? With hundreds of client engagements per year, Taos consultants and practice leaders have a leg up on seeing emerging trends and standards.

GPG Key Signing BoF
Ken Schumacher, Fermi National Accelerator Lab
Tuesday, December 11, 8:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., Marina 3

There has been a key signing BOF at many of the LISA conferences (all of the one's I've attended) in the past. This year, our gathering is scheduled for 8:00 Tues evening in the Marina 3 room. Those of you attending this GPG key signing BOF might also be interested in the CAcert BoF starting at 9:00 in the same room.

If you are interested in attending this meeting, please e-mail your key to me. I will add your key to a keyring specific to this event. I will use this keyring to generate the key/fingerprint list we will use at the keysigning.

For more information on Key Signing Parties, I recommend the "GnuPG Keysigning Party HOWTO" document. Our format will follow the suggestions there, specifically the List Based party format. I will bring a printout of the submitted keys. Please submit your keys at least 12 hours in advance of the party to ensure your key fingerprint is on the list.

Please bring multiple forms of ID, at least one being a photo ID. Other attendees (such as those coming from over seas) may not be familiar with the format of your ID. By having multiple IDs, you should have at least one that others will find acceptable. I'm bringing my passport, my Illinois Drivers License and my Fermilab (US Dept. of Energy) photo ID card.

PLEASE NOTE: If you don't submit your key in advance, we will have to go through the awkward process of you reading your key aloud so that everyone attending can write down your fingerprint. This can be a bother and not everyone may be willing to go to that extra effort. Please submit your key in advance or bring some handout with your Key ID and the key fingerprint. Printing this info on the back of business cards is probably acceptable. We will complete authentication of keys submitted in advance before we do any "walk-in" keys.

Becoming Linux Certified BoF
Bo Rothwell, One Course Source
Tuesday, December 11, 8:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., Nautilus 4

What is the value of Linux certification and how do you become certified?  Which Linux certification holds the most value?  These topics, as well as others related to Linux certification, will be explored during this discussion. 

LOPSA Mentorship Program BoF
LOPSA Mentorship Team
Tuesday, December 11, 8:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., Nautilus 5

The goal of LOPSA Mentorship Program is to help people to further their technical, personal and career development by providing them with knowledgeable mentors in the field of system administration. The relationships between proteges and mentors shall be mutually beneficial and long term oriented. Join us for some exciting news, insights into the program and discussions. We are looking forward to meeting you. 

LGBT & Friends
Tom Limoncelli
Tuesday, December 11, 9:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m., Nautilus 1 

Small Infrastructures
Matt Simmons
Tuesday, December 11, 9:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m., Nautilus 2

Amateur Astronomers BoF
Paul Krizak, Qualcomm
Tuesday, December 11, 9:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m., Nautilus 3  

BOSH
Tuesday, December 11, 9:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m., Nautilus 4

Verbal Judo: Be Like Water
George Marselis
Tuesday, December 11, 9:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m., Nautilus 5

Why are you beating yourself over the conversation you had with your boss? Why did you agree doing someone else's work? Why are you passed over for promotion/raise, when you busted your a** for the past three years? Why does it seem that you are the only person talking the $local_language and everybody else is talking something else?

Soft skills do not come easy to system administrators. The bread and butter of our work has to do with the absolutes of zeros and ones. Businesses function in the grey areas of human scape and human unlogic.

You are smart, you can do hard work. Why should you be run over in  any conversation?  

 "Verbal Judo" is the name of a book by George Thompson

Geocachers BoF
Steve Shipway, The University of Auckland
Tuesday, December 11, 9:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m., Marina 2

Geocaching – An international game which uses billion-dollar GPS satellites to hunt for Tupperware in the woods.
Meet up with other geocachers, to share stories and ideas, or to plan LISA12 caching trips.

CAcert Assurance BoF
Ken Schumacher, Fermi National Accelerator Lab
Tuesday, December 11, 9:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m., Marina 3

The goal of this event is to inform attendees how the CAcert assurance process works. CAcert has developed new policies and procedures over the last several years. The presentation will introduce the CAcert Community Agreement and describe the audit as it relates to getting our CAcert ROOT certificate included with distributions. The primary purpose is to bring together qualified assurers in order to help those interested in attaining the points needed to start assuring others. By helping new assurers qualify, we will help make CAcert free digital certificates available to more people.

For a more details, I recommend that you review the complete event description on the CAcert Wiki site. There are instructions there for preparations you can accomplish in advance of the BoF session. Make sure you bring more than one government issued photo ID to the event.

If you are a qualified CAcert Assurer, please consider attending this session and helping us get a pool of new assurers started with their first 100 points. Please contact Ken Schumacher to discuss your availability.

Improv Open Mic BoF
Tuesday, December 12, 10:00 p.m.-11:00 p.m., Nautilus 3 

The CFEngine Vendor BoF
CFEngine
Wednesday, December 12, 7:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., Nautilus 1

Are you a CFEngine user? Are you not using CFEngine, but interested in it, or in configuration management in general? If so, please join us to learn more about recent developments in CFEngine, to see some nice demos of the most advanced configuration management system, and to chat or ask questions from CFEngine developers and experts. The list of topics will include the latest news from the most recent CFEngine releases, the CFEngine Design Center, and some demos of the latest, coolest stuff under development in our top-secret CFEngine labs.

University Educators meet the Community BoF
Carolyn Rowland
Wednesday, December 12, 7:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., Nautilus 2

Formal education programs for sysadmins has been a fairly hot topic at recent conferences. How do these programs turn a regular mortal into a real sysadmin? In this meetup, we are bringing together University educators and the community to raise questions and issues and build a relationship between these two important groups. University degrees prepare students to join our professional ranks. How do Universities teach analytical troubleshooting? What technologies are the focus within the degree program? How do students get real-world experience to prepare them for work in an enterprise environment? Are there mentoring opportunities, apprenticeships? What does the community need from these programs? How can the community help? Bring your questions, your curiosity, and your thoughts on educating the next generation.

Juju Vendor BoF: Cloning Sysadmins with the Cloud
Clint Byrum, Juju
Wednesday, December 12, 7:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., Marina 2

The cloud makes it real easy to scale deployments, but people can't scale as easily. In this BoF we'll discuss how Ubuntu is tackling the problem of service orchestration in the cloud by moving from a more specific set of individually crafted solutions to a more "mass produced" approach that is reusable and shareable by anyone.

Clonezilla BoF:
NCHC, Taiwan
Wednesday, December 12, 7:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., Marina 3

Clonezilla is an open source solution for disk imaging and cloning. For system administrators, if massive or unattended deployment is required, Clonezilla is one of the choices. It supports a variety of file system types, including that of GNU/Linux, Mac OS, MS Windows, FreeBSD, and VMWare ESX. Two types of Clonezilla are available, Clonezilla live and Clonezilla SE (server edition). Clonezilla live is suitable for single machine backup and restore. While Clonezilla SE is for massive deployment, this BoF is intended for system administrators at LISA to meet and discuss any ideas and issues about Clonezilla they might have.

What the Heck is Openshift
Mark Hama
Wednesday, December 12, 7:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., Marina 4 

Puppet Lab Vendor BoF:
Puppet Lab
Wednesday, December 12, 7:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., Nautilus 3

Pluribus Networks Vendor BoF: Fully Virtualized Server-Switch Intro & Beer
Robert Drost, Pluribus Networks; Sunay Tripathi, Pluribus Networks; Ken Yang, Pluribus Networks;
Thursday, December 12, 7:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., Nautilus 4

Pluribus Networks just launched our first product, the F64 Series intelligent Top-of-Rack Server-Switch. It combines ultra-low latency L2/L3 switching with network virtualization and security features that scale to large network fabrics without requiring rip-and-replace of existing infrastructure. The Server-Switch with its distributed Netvisor operating system allows the F64 to behave like a server, run network-centric apps in the network (directly on the Server-Switch) and has the programmability of UNIX. A simple CLI and programmable API helps you handle the networking, server, and on-box storage (including option Fusion-io PCI cards for outstanding performance). The F64 is also openflow compatible. Stop by, have a beverage, and learn about our industry-leading product.

NFSv4.1 and pNFS Ready for Prime Time Deployment BoF
Alex McDonald, NetApp
Wednesday, December 12, 7:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., Marina 6

NFSv4.1 and pNFS is entering the implementation and deployment phase as it is now available in many Linux distributions. Many early adapters are already using NFSv4.1 and pNFS file, block and object layouts. This BOF will offer current information on the availability of NFSv4.1 implementations now reaching the market, and attendees will have the opportunity to provide direct feedback to major vendors on user requirements.

The Assimilation Monitoring Project: Discovery-Driven Hyperscale Monitoring
Alan Robertson
Wednesday, December 12, 8:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., Nautilus 2 

VMWare Vendor BoF
VMWare
Wednesday, December 12, 8:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m., Nautilus 3

Bcfg2 BoF
Chris St. Pierre, Wireless Generation; Narayan Desai, Argonne National Lab; Sol Jerome
Wednesday, December 12, 8:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., Nautilus 4

Opscode Vendor BoF
Opscode
Wednesday, December 12, 8:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., Marina 2

This BoF will run like an "open space" meeting. Attendees will be encouraged to generate the topics for discussion. We may talk about patterns for automating infrastructure, why automate, cultural and procedural shifts that are symbiotic with infrastructure automation, and/or specific Chef-related workflows, testing strategies, and cookbooks.

Ubuntu Vendor BoF: Ubuntu Management at Scale with Landscape
Canonical
Wednesday, December 12, 8:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., Marina 3

Landscape (http://ubuntu.com/landscape/) is Canonical's comprehensive systems management tooling for Ubuntu in the enterprise. Available both in the Software as a Service format, and as a dedicated on-premise server, Landscape provides an intuitive environment that is both easy to learn and compatible with a system administrator's frequent use of the shell.  Landscape aims to make managing fleets of Ubuntu machines as easy to accomplish as managing a handful, and to provide a conveniently extensible building block for automation and infrastructure integration, thanks to its comprehensive API.  Landscape can also assist companies with the gathering of Compliance reporting information, helping to minimize a tediously repetitive task. 
Join the Landscape team for a hands-on demonstration of what Landscape can accomplish managing Ubuntu at scale, and learn how it can help you cut cost and complexity in your organization while at the same time improving results and compliance.

HP ProLiant Users' BoF
Wednesday, December 12, 8:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., Marina 4

The Road to RRDtool 2.x BoF
Tobi Oetiker, OETIKER+PARTNER AG
Wednesday, December 12, 8:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., Marina 6

Since its initial release in 1999, RRDtool has become an integral part of many monitoring applications.  Continuous development has ensured that many new features could be added to the system overtime.  Some issues though, can not be addressed incrementally. Therefore it is time to re-engineer RRDtool for the next 15 Years.

Apache Cloudstack Vendor BoF: Building the Open Source Cloud with Apache CloudStack
David Nalley, Apache Cloudstack
Wednesday, December 12, 8:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., Nautilus 1

This BoF will discuss the Apache CloudStack project and the complimentary technologies for deploying and managing cloud infrastructure primarily using open source software. This sessions will be led by David Nalley a recovering sysadmin who now works as an evangelist and committer for CloudStack. Attendees should expect to discuss virtualization, networking and storage options as they relate to geographically disbursed cloud computing deployments.

Zenoss Vendor BoF
Zenoss
Wednesday, December 12, 9:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m., Nautilus 1

#monitoringsucks why?
Wednesday, December 12, 9:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m., Nautilus 2

Ideas for OS Patching and Lifecycle Management

Wednesday, December 12, 9:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m., Nautilus 4

LOPSA Annual Meeting and Town Hall BoF
Ski Kacoroski, LOPSA
Wednesday, December 12, 9:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m., Marina 2

Join us for the League of Professional System Administrators (LOPSA) Annual Meeting and Town Hall to meet fellow system administrators, hear the latest news about LOPSA, and ask questions or give feedback about our profession or LOPSA itself.

BIND10 Beta!

Wednesday, December 12, 9:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m., Marina 3 

WordPress SysAdmins Networking/Discussion
Wednesday, December 12, 9:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m., Marina 4

Gluster Community BoF
Wednesday, December 12, 9:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m., Marina 6 

CEPH BoF

Wednesday, December 12, 10:00 p.m.-11:00 p.m., Nautilus 1

New Sites Hosting News/Media?

Wednesday, December 12, 10:00 p.m.-11:00 p.m., Nautilus 4

Large Scale Email Senders

Wednesday, December 12, 10:00 p.m.-11:00 p.m., Marina 3 

Software in the Public Interest BoF
Jimmy Kaplowitz, Board of Directors - Software in the Public Interest
Wednesday, December 12, 10:00 p.m.-11:00 p.m., Marina 4

Ever wondered how projects such as Debian, PostgreSQL, Drizzle, and Jenkins handle their money? Why OFTC is safe from the insider domain hijacking that just happened to CyanogenMod? How a tiny effort like GNU TeXmacs can give donors a tax deduction? Software in the Public Interest, Inc. (SPI) is a US charitable nonprofit that offer those services and more to a growing list of over 30 large and small free software projects.
Come learn how a small team of volunteers runs a successful umbrella organization that lets the free software community spend less time on paperwork and more time on their mission with the resources they need. Maybe you'll even get involved - membership is free and we always welcome both volunteers and projects!

Google
Thursday, December 13, 9:30 p.m.-11:00 p.m., Nautilus 1

OpenStack
Thursday, December 13, 9:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m., Nautilus 2

Practical ITiL Getting Benefits Without all the Cost
Thursday, December 13, 9:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m., Marina 2

Project Management Tales from the Trenches and Tools That Help
Thursday, December 13, 10:00 p.m.-11:00 p.m., Marina 2