New England

Charter

 The New England OpenSolaris User Group has been established to connect members of the community interested in OpenSolaris and Solaris, and to grow the OpenSolaris community in the Greater Boston area. All are welcome - developers, open-source contributors, system administrators, architects, and any other interested parties.

Meetings

 NEOSUG holds its meetings bi-monthly at the Sun Microsystems Burlington Headquarters, 1 Network Drive, Burlington MA. Meetings are on the first Tuesday of every-other month and run from 6:00 to 9:00PM, with registration beginning at 6:00PM.

Discussions

NEOSUG has a forum for discussions at the NEOSUG forum.  You can subscribe to all postings at that forum via mailman .

Announcements

You Are Invited to the New England Open Solaris Users Group (NEOSUG) Ninth Meeting

Topic: DTrace Deep Dive and a short talk on LDOM Domains and ZFS

When:
Burlington MA Sun Campus – Feb 2, 2010 6:00PM to 9:00 PM
Boston MA – Boston University – Feb 3, 2010 6:00PM to 9:00 PM
(Note: The same content will be presented twice – once in Burlington and once in Boston. Pick the best location and date as convenient.)

Where:
Feb 2 - Sun Microsystems Burlington Campus; 1 Network Drive, Burlington, MA
Feb 3 - Boston University, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Photonics Center Building - Room PHO 339 (3rd floor), 8 Saint Mary's Street Boston, MA 02215 http://www.mapquest.com/maps?&city=boston&state=ma&address=8%20st.%20mary%27s%20street <http://
BU Parking: Street parking available on St. Mary's Street and Bay State Road. Metered parking spots do not require a fee after 6pm.

RSVP: To Linda Wendlandt: lwendlandt at cptech dot com

Registration Required! - so we can plan food and drink

Join Jim Mauro and Shannon Sylvia for how-to DTrace, and how to use LDOMs with ZFS.

For more details please see the discussion forum.

You Are Invited to the New England Open Solaris Users Group (NEOSUG) – Boston University Edition 

 Topic: An Introduction to OpenSolaris and its Uses

 When: November 11, 2009 6:00PM to 9:00 PM

 Where: Boston University, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Photonics Center Building - Room PHO 339 (3rd floor), 8 Saint Mary's Street Boston, MA 02215 http://www.mapquest.com/maps?&city=boston&state=ma&address=8%20st.%20mary%27s%20street

 Parking: Street parking available on St. Mary's Street and Bay State Road. Metered parking spots do not require a fee after 6pm.

 RSVP: To Ayse Kivilcim Coskun

 Registration Required! - so we can plan food and drink

 Join Brian Leonard, Bogdan Vasiliu, Ayse Coskun, and Peter Galvin for an overview of OpenSolaris and its uses.

 AGENDA:

 6:00-6:20: Registration, Pizza and Beverages

 6:20-6:30: Introductions: Peter Galvin, CTO, Corporate Technologies

 6:30-8:00: What’s So Cool About OpenSolaris Anyway - Brian Leonard, Technology Evangelist, Sun Microsystems

 8:00-8:30: OpenSolaris: Clusters and Clouds from your Laptop – Bogdan Vasiliu, Solaris HPC, Sun Microsystems,Inc.

 8:00-8:30: Presentation: Solaris containers – Peter Galvin, CTO – IT Architecture, Corporate Technologies

 8:30-8:45: OpenSolaris as a Research and Teaching Tool – Ayse K. Coskun, Assistant Professor Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Boston University

 8:45-9:00 Q&A and Discussion

• • • • Also we’ll be giving out official NEOSUG T-Shirts and other trinkets, and copies of the OpenSolaris CD and instruction manual.

 For more information please see the full announcement in the NEOSUG forum.

You are invited to: The New England Open Solaris User Group (NEOSUG) Meeting 

 Topic: All Virtualization all the Time

 When: October 6th, 2009 6:00PM to 9:00 PM

 Where: Sun Microsystems Burlington Campus; 1 Network Drive, Burlington, MA

 RSVP: To Linda Wendlandt: lwendlandt at cptech dot com lwendlandt@cptech.com

 Registration Required! - so we can plan food and drink

 Join Eric Sharakan, Kais Belgaied, and Peter Galvin in an update on LDOMs, Solaris on Xen, project Crossbow (network virtualization), and Solaris Containers.

 AGENDA:

 6:00-6:20: Registration, Pizza and Beverages

 6:20-6:30: Introductions: Peter Galvin, CTO, Corporate Technologies

 6:30-7:30: Presentation: Logical Domains & Solaris on Xen - Eric Sharakan, Senior Staff Engineer, Sun Microsystems

 7:30-8:00: Presentation: Crossbow - Kais Belgaied, Senior Staff Engineer, Sun Microsystems

 8:00-8:30: Presentation: Solaris containers – Peter Galvin, CTO – IT Architecture, Corporate Technologies

 8:30-9:00 Q&A and Discussion

• • • • Also we’ll be giving out official NEOSUG T-Shirts and other trinkets, and copies of the OpenSolaris CD and instruction manual.

 For more information please see the full announcement in the NEOSUG forum.

You are invited to: The New England Open Solaris User Group (NEOSUG) Meeting 

 When: June 23rd, 2009 6:00PM to 9:00 PM

 Where: Sun Microsystems Burlington Campus; 1 Network Drive, Burlington, MA

 RSVP: To Linda Wendlandt: lwendlandt at cptech dot com lwendlandt@cptech.com

 Registration Required! - so we can plan food and drink

 Join Jeff Victor for a tour of the new features of Solaris 10 5/09 and OpenSolaris 2008.06.

 Peter Galvin will feature two case studies of innovative use of Sun technologies.

 Joseph Yanushpolsky will discuss consolidating Windows, Linux and Solaris applications on Open Solaris.

 AGENDA:

 6:00-6:20: Registration, Pizza and Beverages

 6:20-6:30: Introductions: Peter Galvin, CTO, Corporate Technologies

 6:30-7:30: Presentation: New Features of Solaris 10 and Open Solaris

 Jeff Victor, Solaris Ambassador, Sun Microsystems

 7:30-8:30: Presentation: Sun Case Studies

 Peter Galvin, CTO, Corporate Technologies

 8:30-9:00: Consolidating Windows, Linux and Solaris applications on Open Solaris - Joseph Yanushpolsky

• • • • Also we’ll be giving out official NEOSUG T-Shirts and other trinkets, and copies of the OpenSolaris CD and instruction manual.

 The Talks

 --

 Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris Update - Jeff Victor It's 2009: What's New in Solaris and OpenSolaris" reviews the life cycles of Solaris and OpenSolaris, and describes the new features added to each of Solaris 10 5/09 and OpenSolaris 2008.06.

 Sun Case Studies - Peter Baer Galvin There are many innovative uses of Sun products being used in production environments. In this talk I'll detail two of them - a totally-virtualized financial services environment and a Sun-only HPC research environment

 Consolidating Windows, Linux and Solaris applications on Open Solaris - Joseph Yanushpolsky This talk will highlight how to deploy a "foreign" kernel, such as Microsoft Windows/Vista, RedHat/CentOS or Solaris 2.6/2.8, on Solaris 10 or Open Solaris. The approach is based on utilizing VirtualBox type 2 hypervisor in a Solaris container. This eliminates the many limitations of a BrandZ-based solution and it makes the facility more generic and robust. The talk will also cover typical use cases, business benefits, and will conclude with a brief demo.

 The Presenters

 --

 Jeff Victor Jeff has been using Unix systems since 1984. His two-decade career has included software design and development, network and telecomm administration, and eleven years as a Systems Engineer at Sun Microsystems. He currently serves as a Technical Specialist specializing in server virtualization technologies.

 Jeff authored the Sun Blueprint "Solaris Containers Technology Architecture Guide" and the "How to Move a Container" guide, both available at www.sun.com. His most recent publication is the Sun Blueprint "Understanding the Security Capabilities of Solaris Zones Software." Jeff also maintains the "Solaris Zones and Containers" FAQ at opensolaris.org. Jeff received a B.S. in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

 Peter Baer Galvin Peter Baer Galvin is the Chief Technologist for Corporate Technologies,Inc., an IT strategy consultancy, Systems integrator, and value-added reseller. Prior to joining Corporate Technologies, he was the Systems Manager for Brown University's Computer Science Department. He is the author of Pete's Wicked World, Pete's Super Systems columns at SunWorld Magazine, and a contributing columnist to various other magazines including Byte. He is currently contributing editor for SysAdmin magazine, where he manages the Solaris Corner. Peter is co-author of the Operating Systems Concepts and Applied Operating Systems Concepts textbooks. Peter blogs at ctistrategy.com and galvin.info.

 Joseph Yanushpolsky Joseph Yanushpolsky, aka "Joe Y.", is a Solutions Architect, formerly with Sun Microsystems. Joe has been involved with Solaris 10 and Open Solaris for about 6 years, helping New England-based Fortune 500 customers with platform migration, datacenter virtualization, application integration and performance tuning. When not skiing, cycling, or playing violin, Joe builds Solaris-based private PaaS and SaaS clouds that can rapidly serve up any development environment or an application. See Joe's profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/josephyanushpolsky or contact  him at josephy100@gmail.com.

You are invited to: The New England Open Solaris User Group (NEOSUG) Meeting 

 When: March 11, 2009 6:00PM to 9:00 PM

 Where: Sun Microsystems Burlington Campus

 RSVP: To Linda Wendlandt: lwendlandt@arrow.com - Registration Required!

 Join Dave Miner for a tour of the new features that were included in OpenSolaris 2008.11, and some of the new work already available in the development builds for the upcoming 2009.06 release. He will also sign any copies of OpenSolaris Bible that happen to appear!

 Peter Galvin will discuss the latest features in Solaris 10 10/08. This list will include 'ZFS Boot'- the ability to install Solaris using only ZFS file systems.

 AGENDA:

 6:00-6:20: Registration, Pizza and Beverages

 6:20-6:30: Introductions: Peter Galvin, CTO, Corporate Technologies

 6:30-7:30: Presentation: New Features OpenSolaris 2008.11 - Dave Miner, Senior Staff Engineer, Sun Microsystems

 7:30-8:30: Presentation : Solaris 10 Update - Peter Galvin, CTO, Corporate Technologies

 8:30-9:00: Q&A / Ask the Experts

• • • • Also we'll be giving out copies of the OpenSolaris CD and instruction manual.

 Reminder: EXCLUSIVE INVITATION TO" NEOSUG" Members:

 As a New England Open Solaris Users Group member you are also invited to this exclusive seminar with Bryan Cantrill, Sun Distinguished Engineer and one of the FishWorks lead engineers.

 Date: March 10th from 10-12.

 Register here: http://www.cptech.com/sun7000/

 This seminar overviews Sun’s revolutionary new storage platform by one of the co-founders of the Sun development team.

 NEOSUG BIOs

 Peter Galvin, Chief Technologist, Corporate Technologies , Inc.

 Peter Baer Galvin is the Chief Technologist for Corporate Technologies,Inc., an IT strategy consultancy, Systems integrator, and value-added reseller. Prior to joining Corporate Technologies, he was the Systems Manager for Brown University's Computer Science Department. He is the author of Pete's Wicked World, Pete's Super Systems columns at SunWorld Magazine, and a contributing columnist to various other magazines including Byte. He is currently contributing editor for SysAdmin magazine, where he manages the Solaris Corner. Peter is co-author of the Operating Systems Concepts and Applied Operating Systems Concepts textbooks.

 Dave Miner, Senior Staff Engineer, Sun Microsystems,Inc.

 Dave is an architect for the Installation technologies in addition to serving as the lead on multiple projects; OpenSolaris distribution, Project Indiana, the Approachability and Installation communities and the Caiman and Live Media projects on OpenSolaris. During his 18+ years at Sun, he was part of the team working on the original Solaris admintool and sysidtool, a product related to PC-NFS called SolarNet PC-Admin, the Solaris DHCP server and DHCP Manager management tool, and the Service Management Facility (SMF). Dave graduated from Michigan State University in 1987 with a degree in Computer Science. While there he worked as a system administrator and programmer for the College of Engineering computer facilities. His most recent accomplishment is to co-author of the forthcoming book, OpenSolaris Bible.

POSTPONED - Sixth NEOSUG Meeting 1/28/2009 -- Solaris 10 U6 Update and Sun Storage 7000 Overview and Demonstration

 When: January 28th, 2009 6:00PM to 9:00 PM

 Where: Sun Microsystems Burlington Campus

 RSVP: To Linda Wendlandt: lwendlandt@arrow.com

 Who should attend? : UNIX Developers, Solaris users, System Managers and System Administrators:

 Solaris Ambassador Jeff Victor will discuss the latest features in Solaris 10 10/08. This list will include 'ZFS Boot' - the ability to install Solaris using only ZFS file systems.

 Director of R & D, Corporate Technologies, Jesse St. Laurent will present the Sun 7000. Sun's latest storage offering. It is 100% homegrown and OpenSolaris is at the core of it all. This presentation will cover how OpenSolaris, zfs, Dtrace, and Solid State Disk technology come together to create this storage appliance. A demonstration will walk through the GUI and show how Solaris configuration and management has been 'appliancized.'

 AGENDA:

 5:30-6:20: Registration, Light Refreshments

 6:20-6:30: Introductions: Peter Galvin, CTO, Corporate Technologies

 6:30-7:30: Presentation Solaris 10 Update and live Demo ZFS Boot: Jeff Victor, Technical Specialist, Sun Microsystems

 7:30-8:30: Presentation and Demo, Amber Road, Jesse St. Laurent, Director of R&D, Corporate Technologies

 8:30-9:00: Q&A / Ask the Experts

 The meeting should run until 9:00 or so. There will be pizza and soda, plus a bunch of giveaways. Hope to see you there! See the full announcement and agenda

Fifth NEOSUG Meeting 9/10/2008 -- Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris Performance by Jim Mauro 

• • Note the new date - Sept 10th

 The slides from this talk are available at www.solarisinternals.com in the "New Items" area.

 Please RSVP at : https://www.suneventreg.com//cgi-bin/register.pl?EventID=2341

 What: New England OpenSolaris User Group Meeting (NEOSUG)

When: Sept 10,2008 6:30-9:30 pm (registration opens @5:30)

Where: Sun Microsystems Campus 1 Network Circle Burlington, MA

 Who should attend? : UNIX Developers, Solaris users, System Managers and System Administrators:

 AGENDA:

5:30-6:30: Registration, Refreshments

6:30-6:40: Introductions, Peter Galvin

6:40-8:30: Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris Performance, Jim Mauro, Sun Microsystems

8:30-9:00: Questions and Discussion

 The meeting should run until 9:00 or so. There will be pizza (or maybe a cookout) and soda, plus a bunch of giveaways. Hope to see you there! See the full announcement and agenda

Fourth NEOSUG Meeting 11/1-- Fourth NEOSUG Meeting : Indiana and Solaris 8 Migration Assistant 

 The Fourth NEOSUG meeting, will be on Nov 1 starting at 6:30 at the Sun campus in Burlington, MA. This time we have two talks on great topics. Project Indiana and the Solaris 8 Migration Assistant. We'll have an optional "install fest" after the talk where NEOSUG attendees can try out the Indiana distro of Solaris. Dave will have live CDs to allow exploration without installation. We are also planning on having VMware images, so VMware-happy laptops are welcome as well.

 The meeting should run until 9:30 or so. There will be pizza and soda, plus a bunch of giveaways. Hope to see you there! See the full announcement and agenda. Here are some useful links:

OpenSolaris Indiana project

NEOSUG discussion forum

NEOSUG homepage

Third NEOSUG Meeting 9/11--all about LDOMs 

 This meeting is scheduled to coincide with the Sun Tech Days event at the Boston Sheraton. The NEOSUG meeting will take place after the tech day. For a full day of Sun fun register for the tech days and then stay into the evening for NEOSUG. Stay tuned for more details.

Second NEOSUG Meeting 3/12--all about Open Solaris Virtualization Technologies

 Nils Nieuwejaar presented on Virtualization technologies in OpenSolaris, and we had a tour of Project BlackBox.

 See below for a light introduction to virtualization technologies in OpenSolaris...

OpenSolaris Virtualization Technologies

 Virtualization technologies enable host and service consolidation. They provide a flexible environment which increases CPU utilization, improves availability, reduces server sprawl, and saves on the costs associated with administration, power consumption, floor space, etc.

 OpenSolaris embraces virtualization through various projects such as Xen, Zones, and BrandZ.

 The OpenSolaris on Xen project focuses on the port of Xen, which was developed by the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, to OpenSolaris. Xen uses a paravirtualization approach, where the guest operating system being virtualized is made aware of the underlying hypervisor, which allows for higher performance and strong isolation between domains.

 Zones provide an operating system abstraction for partitioning systems, allowing multiple applications to run in isolation from each other on the same physical hardware, while sharing a single Solaris kernel. Zones can be complemented by resource management facilities to form Containers.

 Branded Zones extend the Zones model to support non-native Zones on a Solaris system. The Linux BrandZ Zone, for instance, allows existing Linux distributions to run unchanged within a Zone running on a Solaris Kernel, reducing the Linux barrier to exit.

 What: New England OpenSolaris User Group Meeting (NEOSUG)

 When: March 12, 2007 6:00-7:30 pm (registration 5:30)

 Where: Sun Microsystems Campus 1 Network Circle Burlington MA

# # #

First NEOSUG Meeting Report

 Just a quick note about the first NEOSUG meeting held on Jan 31st 2007.

 By all accounts it was a great success with more than 80 interested folks showing up. I asked a series of questions about what form NEOSUG should take and here are my notes on the topic. If you have input on any of these please feel free to get in touch with me at pbg at cptech.com.

 - Meetings will be after work hours

 - Burlington MA is good (other suggestions welcome)

 - Anywhere from 1.5 hours to 3 hours is good

 - Sun and Corporate Technologies will be the pizza / beverage sponsors for now

 - Laura Ramsey and I will coordinate the meetings for now, with help from other Sun folks

 - Sun / Solaris topics are interesting, as well as OpenSolaris topics

 - Meetings monthly or so

 - Each meeting should be part talk, part discussion / round table / help session

 Future topics of interest:

 - Installfest to get some Solaris release installed on each interested person’s computer

 - Operating system (Solaris and other) benchmarking and feature discussion

 - ZFS

 - DTrace intro, DTrace of Java, DTrace of Oracle

 - Multibooting Solaris 10+

 - How to write a device driver

 - S10 upgrade methodology, liveupgrade details and demo

 - Demo of an OpenSolaris OS release

 - How to build the OpenSolaris kernel

 - Seeing the BlackBox when it’s in town

 - Information on new Sun hardware as its released

 - Talks on the details of each of the OpenSolaris projects

 --Peter

 My blog: http://pbgalvin.wordpress.com/

Inaugral Meeting - Wednesday, January 31 2007

 The agenda for the evening will include an introduction to the OpenSolaris project, and a technical update on the most recent build of OpenSolaris Code.

 Agenda (which is improving daily)

 5:30-6:00 Registration, Refreshments

 6:00-6:45 Introduction to the OpenSolaris Project

 7:00-7:30 Technical overview --What's New in OpenSolaris

 7:30-8:00 What's next for NEOSUG/Q&A/ Ask the Experts

 Special Guests include:

 *Peter Galvin, Chief Technologist, Corporate Technologies, Inc.

 *Dave Miner, OpenSolaris Lead for Approachability and Installation communities and Senior Staff Engineer, Sun Microsystems