[ANNOUNCE] Minneapolis Cluster Summit, July 29-30

[Daniel Phillips <phillips@redhat.com>]

Red Hat and (the former) Sistina Software are pleased to announce that 
we will host a two day kickoff workshop on GFS and Cluster 
Infrastructure in Minneapolis, July 29 and 30, not too long after OLS.  
We call this the "Cluster Summit" because it goes well beyond GFS, and 
is really about building a comprehensive cluster infrastructure for 
Linux, which will hopefully be a reality by the time Linux 2.8 arrives.  
If we want that, we have to start now, and we have to work like fiends, 
time is short.  We offer as a starting point, functional code for a 
half-dozen major, generic cluster subsystems that Sistina has had under 
development for several years.

This means not just a cluster filesystem, but cluster logical volume 
management, generic distributed locking, cluster membership services, 
node fencing, user space utilities, graphical interfaces and more.  Of 
course, it's all up for peer review.  Everybody is invited, and yes, 
that includes OCFS and Lustre folks too. Speaking as an honorary 
OpenGFS team member, we will be there in force.

Tentative agenda items:

   - GFS walkthrough: let's get hacking
   - GULM, the Grand Unified Lock Manager
   - Sistina's brand new Distributed Lock Manager
   - Symmetric Cluster Architecture walkthrough
   - Are we there yet?  Infrastructure directions
   - GFS: Great, it works!  What next?

Further details, including information on travel and hotel arrangements, 
will be posted over the next few days on the Red Hat sponsored 
community cluster page:

   http://sources.redhat.com/cluster/

Unfortunately, space is limited.  We feel we can accommodate about fifty 
people comfortably.  Registration is first come, first served.  The 
price is: Free!  (Of course.)  If you're interested, please email me.

Let's set our sights on making Linux 2.8 a true cluster operating 
system.

Regards,

Daniel