LinuxFailSafe Symposium

The first ever seminar on the open source LinuxFailSafe High-Availability project was held on March 31st in Westminster, Colorado.

Where:	College Hill Library 3705 W. 112th Street Westminster, Colorado 80030
When:	Friday, 31 March, 2000 9:30 AM to 4:30 PM

The LinuxFailSafe project was initiated by SuSE and SGI to make SGI's FailSafe product available for Linux as an open source community development project. This seminar has been scheduled on short notice to meet the Linux community's expressed interest in timely information on this important project. We don't yet have all the answers to all the questions at this point, but we want to get together early, introduce potential developers to FailSafe, begin building a team, let people know what we can, and get reactions to our ideas and plans in a face-to-face environment.

The intended audience for the seminar is people who wish to contribute to the LinuxFailSafe project over the next few months. It is not intended to be a user's meeting. It's a bit too soon for that :-).

The slides from the SGI speakers' presentations are below:

Speakers:

Alan Robertson, SuSE
Volker Wiegand, SuSE
Simon Patience, SGI - Director, Core Linux
Mayank Vasa, SGI - MTS and Linux FailSafe Gatekeeper
Rebecca Underwood, SGI - Manager Desktop and Systems Administration Software

Topics covered in the seminar included:

LinuxFailSafe capabilities
The Goals of Open Sourcing FailSafe
FailSafe Infrastructure and GUI
Future Work Items
Relationship to other Linux-HA projects
FailSafe as a community project

Copies of all documentation available as of the conference date were given to all participants. Circumstances permitting, a demonstration of a few FailSafe components was included.

Discussions of this seminar and changes in logistics took place on the LinuxFailSafe mailing list.

Registering

To register for this event, simply email alanr@suse.com. There is no charge to register for this event.

Other Events of Interest

This seminar is the day before the Colorado Linux Info Quest (CLIQ), a local Linux exposition. There was be a High-Availability BOF at the CLIQ. All seminar participants are encouraged to attend the CLIQ and especially this BOF session.

Logistics

This meeting was be held from 9:30 to 3:30 on Friday, March 31st at the College Hill Library in Westminster, Colorado (Westminster is a suburb of Denver). College Hill Library is at 3705 W 112th, Westminster, Colorado, 80030. Westminster provides a map of it's library locations. Here is a MapQuest map to the library as well.

We were in Room 211, marked Meeting Room 2 on the second floor map below. To reach the this room, just go in the main entrance on the lower level, up the stairs, and it's the large room in the corner. The stairway goes up the circular area in the center of the large box on the left end of the plan show below.

There are internet terminals found at various locations throughout the library.

Accommodations

Below is a listing of Hotels and Motels in Westminster taken from a City of Westminster web page. Of course, there are many good hotels and motels in other nearby cities (Northglenn, Broomfield, Thornton, Arvada, etc.), but those in Westminster are for the most part the closest. During Volker's last visit here he stayed at the new and very reasonable Hawthorn Inn & Suites, which is probably the closest hotel to the library. The Westin hotel listed is brand new and slightly nearer, and is open now, though their grand opening isn't officially until March 31st. Both are near the intersection of Church Ranch Blvd (104th avenue) and Route 36.

COMFORT SUITES DENVER NORTH 12085 DELAWARE ST WESTMINSTER CO 80234 (303)429-5500

DENVER NORTH SUPER 8 MOTEL 12055 MELODY DR WESTMINSTER CO 80234 (303)451-7200

DOUBLETREE HOTEL 8773 YATES DR WESTMINSTER CO 80031 (303)427-4000

EXTENDED STAY AMERICA #7527 1291 W 120TH AVE WESTMINSTER CO 80234 (303)280-0111

FAIRFIELD INN 12080 MELODY DR WESTMINSTER CO 80234 (303)255-3100

HAWTHORN INN & SUITES 10179 CHURCH RANCH WY WESTMINSTER CO 80021 (303)438-5800

HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS 8500 TURNPIKE DR WESTMINSTER CO 80031 (303)428-3333

LA QUINTA INN #653 8701 TURNPIKE DR WESTMINSTER CO 80031 (303)425-9099

LA QUINTA MOTOR INN #644 345 W 120TH AVE WESTMINSTER CO 80234 (303)252-9800

WESTIN WESTMINSTER HOTEL 10600 WESTMINSTER BLVD WESTMINSTER CO 80020 (303)410-5000 Reservations: (800) 325-3535

WESTMINSTER HAMPTON INN 5030 W 88TH PL WESTMINSTER CO 80031 (303)427-0700

WESTMINSTER RESIDENCE INN 5010 W 88TH PL WESTMINSTER CO 80031 (303)427-9500

Travel

Many of you travelled to the conference through Denver International Airport (DIA).

Current weather forecasts are available on the web. A more detailed forecast is also available.

If you wish to use buses to get around, Denver's bus system is run by the RTD, and includes special routes to and from DIA. The AB route runs through Westminster, and is likely the one you want (note that the schedule is different on Saturday and Sunday).

Questions?

Contact the mailing list, or Alan Robertson, if you're not a member of the list.