Sounds like a recipe for Witches Brew.  No, the title of this post refers to the last few talks to be announced for DCBSDCon 2009.  We have a lot of stuff to cover today, so I’ll cut to the chase and introduce our last group of speakers.

George Neville-Neil is the other half of the dynamic duo that brought us The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System and that will also be speaking at DCBSDCon.  George will be presenting his talk on FreeBSD’s Hardware Performance Monitoring Counters (HWPMC).

FreeBSD has included support for Hardware Performance Monitoring Counters for several years now.  The hwpmc system provides access to counters that are present in all modern Intel and AMD CPUs, as well as other chipsets, and which give the programmer the ability to understand the low level performance issues that may effect their code.  This talk will cover the motivation behind and basic usage of HWPMC.

I had the pleasure of meeting George in NYC this past year while we attempted to install PC-BSD on my MacBook Pro.  He’s quite a bit of fun and has a great wealth of FreeBSD knowledge.

Robert Luciani comes to us all the way from Sweden.  Robert is studying for his Masters degree in Algorithms and Logic at the University of Chalmers.  He’s been working actively with DragonFly BSD since 2006, and with BSD in general since 2001.  Robert’s research into M:N threading for DragonFly provides us with a unique look at the performance issues affecting SMP.

Ineffective concurrency mechanisms in an operating system can lead to low performance in both single and multiprocessor environments.  Practical setbacks involved with attempting overly invasive kernel changes have made it difficult in the past to implement new and innovative concurrency systems.  This paper describes the rationale behind interfaces in the DragonFly BSD operating system intended to provide high performance and scalability on multiprocessor architectures.  Using a lock-free processor centric approach, DragonFly BSD has developed a unique thread system with the potential for excellent scalability.

Last but not least, I mentioned weeks ago that we would have someone from ShmooCon speak at DCBSDCon.  Each year, organizers of the ShmooCon hacker conference recruit a team of volunteers to design and deploy their secure conference network.  The event is known as ShmooCon Labs.  Ken Caruso has kindly volunteered himself to sneak away for a few minutes this year to give us a short talk about how they utilize BSD in their conference infrastructure.  As a former volunteer from the 2006 ShmooCon Labs, I’m interested to see how their network has expanded in two years to support this year’s 1200 attendees.

This winds up the formal announcements for speakers and talks at DCBSDCon 2009.  Make sure to keep reading the blog as we will continue to have stories and announcements over the coming weeks.  If you missed the earlier post, make sure you make your hotel reservations very soon.  The group discount code expires this Friday!  And of course, don’t forget to register for the conference.

News DragonFlyBSD, FreeBSD, George Neville-Neil, HWPMC, Ken Caruso, ShmooCon

Online registration for DCBSDCon 2009 is officially open for business.  We’ve outsourced the registration process to EventBrite, which makes it really easy on us to focus on the important stuff.  Event fees are only $75 until the first day of the conference ($125 onsite).  But we’re limiting our attendance to 150, so get your tickets now!

The ShmooCon hacker conference has been like a “big brother” (or sister, as it were) to DCBSDCon with organizational guidance along the way.  Thanks to this affiliation, we benefit in a number of intangible ways.  Fortunately, we now have some tangible goodies thrown our way too.  DCBSDCon attendees get the same hotel discount that ShmooCon hackers enjoy.  Just use the code shoshoa when you book your room at the Marriott Wardman and bask in the inexpensivenessinity.

If I haven’t mentioned it already (and I think I have), we’re continuing to announce speakers and talks at a regular clip.  We introduced Chris Buechler just yesterday and will pace ourselves to reveal a new speaker every Monday and Thursday.  Subscribe to our RSS feed if you havent’ already.

See you in February!

News BSD, registration, ShmooCon

Now I understand why speaking and attending at conferences is so much fun.  Because I’ve never had to organize one.  Some of the drudgery of the daily organization is rewarded when the Call for Papers ends and you get to start voting on the speakers and talks that will comprise the conference agenda.  It’s not entirely dissimilar from choosing your best lineup for a fantasy sports league.

If I take the creator of FFS that leaves me weak at RAID Drivers and IPv6!  Can I trade down for more picks?

Thankfully we had a wealth of great submissions to choose from.  As a BSD user and advocate, I’m geeked out about the final lineup we have to offer.  I think you’ll be really pleased with the speakers and talks we’ll be presenting in February.  But it wouldn’t be any fun if I just announced the entire schedule Tout de suite, now would it?

We’re going to reveal a new speaker every few days, starting this Thursday.  Check back here for the formal announcement which will appear shortly thereafter on the official website.  If you haven’t already, take advantage of the RSS feed so you’ll be always be up-to-date on the latest conference tidbits.

We’ve had a lot of folks ask about the event registration.  This will be opening up very soon.  Please be patient while we iron out a few more details.  As always, it will be published here first.

I’m really looking forward to DCBSDCon 2009, and by the response we’ve been getting, a lot of you are too.  Don’t forget to register for ShmooCon if you’re planning to attend both (uber geek).  See you in February!

News BSD, DragonFlyBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, ShmooCon

Welcome to the official blog for DCBSDCon, the shiniest BSD conference in North America. We’re looking forward to our inaugural event and hope you can attend. We’ve got an incredible lineup of speakers for a first-year conference. Details about the speakers and their talks will be revealed in the coming weeks. Consider this blog your bendie-straw for slurping in the BSD conference goodness.

Besides all the brilliant talks you’ll find at DCBSDCon 2009, the BSD Certification Group will be in attendance to hold a pair of exams. The BSDA has made tremendous strides in putting together a professional certification that covers all of the major BSD projects. You can find more details at their FAQ or brush up on the exam criteria on the study page.

The 2009 Call for Papers ended this week with a flurry of last-minute submissions. We’ve already started stirring them up to see which topics rise to the top. Many of these are brand new talks from established developers, but we should have some fresh BSD talent to showcase as well. Keep an eye on this blog as we unveil the speakers and their topics.

If you’ve been to Washington D.C. before, you know what an exciting place it is. If you haven’t been, this is your chance to experience our nation’s capital city and BSD at the same time! On top of everything else, we’re kicking off a fun week that culminates in the annual ShmooCon hacker convention. Bruce Potter, founder of the Shmoo Group, is a big BSD fan and has offered up one of his own ShmooLabs team for sacrifice at the DCBSDCon altar! Attendees will be treated to an overview of the ShmooCon architecture and how BSD plays a critical role in their network infrastructure.

Oops, guess I just announced our first speaker!

Registration for DCBSDCon will open up very soon. We’re announcing it in a few very public places. If you’re a BSD fan it should be very hard to miss. But rest assured we’ll mention it here too. Mark it on your schedule now, see you all in February 2009!

News BSD, BSDA, FreeBSD, NetBSD, networks, OpenBSD, security, ShmooCon, sysadmin, unix