LISA05 Tuesday

After the N1 Grid BoF session led by Eric Nielsen, Liane took the lead on a well attended BoF about Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris. (I missed the N1 BoF, enjoying a nice conversation with Bernd Haug, who has been architecting solutions using Solaris in various scenarios in Austria.)

As with any presentation, it takes some cable jujitsu to achive laptop/projector union:

Laptop harmony

The audience was definitely interested in Zones, and Dan fielded some of the more involved questions with gusto:

Dan on Zones

A particularly passionate point about the general performance issues around patching systems with zones was raised; one audience member noted that placing one’s zones explicitly in single user mode would speed zones patching.

Dan and Jan watch the questions come in:

Dan and Jan observe

Jan answered some questions regarding PXE and the new boot architecture on x86/x64 systems.

Frank Liborio came down to explain some of the finer points of the patching and update changes and their association with the Solaris support plans:

Frank Liborio on patching

There were some good questions about the new pricing for software in general; the main point, I thought, was to emphasize that the components are not crippled free variants, but the same enterprise version, just with no support.

At the end of the BoF, people moved purposefully to the room’s front, either to ask questions of the various experts, or perhaps to snag a free Solaris DVD kit:

Get those DVDs

John Groenveld stopped to say hello as David and I were milling near the doors; it’s nice to talk with other Solaris advocates (other than the bunch I lunch with every day, I mean).

Today, the vendor exhibits open, so there should be some technical discussions and demos at the Sun booth, and Dan will host a BoF of Solaris futures tonight. My plan is to listen to some of the interesting looking talks, and then get to the BoF.

I’m getting used to the behaviour of the camera, particularly at full telephoto. Being polite, I didn’t use the flash much—and I’m doubt it would matter at 60’—so these photos vary in quality. I was fiddling with adjusting for indoors, incandescent lighting, and longer exposures at different times.

[ T: Solaris OpenSolaris LISA05 ]