LISA09 #2
LISA is for sure is sort of event where every geek will find himself like home. It is really good feeling to be surrounded by people who know stuff and enjoy technology everyday.
So LISA09 took place between 1 and 6th of November, 2009 in lovely Baltimore, MD. I chose to follow more the tutorials (trainings) path. Got five tutorials – one bad, two medium and two nice ones. The problem with tutorials is that sometimes they are very basic which I really didn’t expect to be a case on such event.
So a quick summary on the thing that got my attention.
A non-technical tutorial about management skills. Looked like regular project/team management training but with special attention to the idea of geeks being managed by geeks. So no suits in the area. As we all know it is not easy to manage highly skilled individuals or being a “proxy” between business and the geeks. One of the big issues – managing people way older and more experienced than you are – was also covered. Unfortunately it was just confirmed to be not that easy to do..
Lot of noise around ZFS. Nice training about the file system internals. Also other trainings given by James Mauro and Richard Elling were very interesting – DTrace, Solaris 10 performance tuning etc. SUN (probably as always at LISA) was very noticeable at the conference. Evening sessions kind of Schuberg Philis’ style although they still need some practice in that area 
cfengnine3 vs. puppet – unfortunately didn’t attend to any of those workshops but you could smell a gun powder in the air
XEN – as great it is everyone knows but they really should spend some effort in doing a good presentation/training because the one which took place in Baltimore wasn’t the best way to get on board with it.
Google was giving away a free stuff, it was very popular..
Over the Edge System Administration – nice one, basically non standard system administration procedures (behavior). Stuff that happens for everyone from time to time. Do something not very common which works and sometimes stays in production for years.. Kind of BOFHish too..
Maybe some tips for people who will attend in LISA in future:
- Avoid trainings unless you’re really sure that level/scope will really suits you
- Wear black clothes – people will like you more
- Grow a beard – you will be respected more
