Call for Participation in PDF

LISA '09 Call for Participation

Conference Overview

Since 1987, the annual LISA conference has become the premier meeting place for professional system and network administrators. System administrators of all ranks, from novice to veteran, and of all specialties meet to exchange ideas, sharpen skills, learn new techniques, debate current issues, and mingle with colleagues and friends.

Attendees are diverse, a rich mix of nationalities and of educational, government, and industry backgrounds. We work in the full spectrum of computing environments (e.g., large corporations, small businesses, academic institutions, government agencies). We include full- and part-time student interns, as well as students and faculty deeply involved in system administration research. Whereas many attendees focus on practical system administration, others focus on speculative system administration research. We support a broad range of operating systems (e.g., Solaris, Windows, Mac OS X, HP-UX, AIX, BSD, Linux) and commercial and open source applications, and we run them on a variety of infrastructures.

The conference's diverse group of participants are matched by a broad spectrum of conference activities:

• A training program for both beginners and experienced attendees covers many administrative topics, ranging from basic procedures to using cutting-edge technologies.
  
  
• Refereed papers present the latest developments and ideas related to system and network administration.
  
  
• Workshops, invited talks, and panels discuss important and timely topics in depth and typically include lively and/or controversial debates and audience interaction.
  
  
• Poster sessions provide brief looks ahead to next year's innovations.

LISA also makes it easy for people to interact in more informal settings:

• Noted experts answer questions at Guru Is In sessions.
  
  
• Participants discuss/celebrate/commiserate about a shared interest at Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) sessions.
  
  
• Vendors answer questions and offer solutions at the Exhibition.

Finally, we strongly encourage informal discussions among participants on both technical and nontechnical topics in the famous "hallway track." LISA is a place to learn and to have fun!

Get Involved!

The theme for LISA '09 is "Putting Theory into Practice."

Experts and old-timers don't have all the good ideas. We welcome participants who will provide concrete ideas to implement immediately, as well as those whose research will forge tomorrow's computing infrastructures. We are particularly keen to showcase novel solutions or new applications of mature technologies. This is your conference and we want you to participate. Here are examples of ways to get involved in this 23rd LISA conference—or propose a new idea to the program chair by sending email to lisa09ideas@usenix.org:

• Refereed Papers: These are published papers, 8 to 18 pages long, describing work that advances the art or practice of system administration; refereed papers may also describe an implementation of a system administration solution and what was learned from that experience. Presentations are limited to 20 minutes. For more information see full details about refereed papers.
  
  
• Invited Talks: Invited Talks are one-hour presentations on a single topic of interest to system administrators. Talks may be historical or focus on the latest hot technology, serious or funny, cover a spectrum of related issues or dive deeply into one specific thing. To submit a proposal, please read the detailed description of Invited Talks.
  
  
• The Guru Is In Sessions: For the Guru, these sessions are a chance to share your expertise with your fellow system administrators; for the audience, these are a chance to get your questions on a specific topic or technology answered by an acknowledged expert. To share your expertise please check out the details about Guru sessions.
  
  
• Workshops: Workshops are half-day or full-day sessions for small groups (typically not more than 30 people) to share ideas and knowledge. Workshops are intended to be participatory, not instructional, and familiarity with the specific topic/area is expected of the attendees. Interested workshop leaders should read the workshop proposal information.
  
  
• Training Program: Tutorials are also half-day or full-day sessions but, unlike workshops, tutorials are intended for a single expert to share knowledge, not to be open discussions. Potential instructors should propose a tutorial.
  
  
• Posters: Posters are a chance to present work that either wasn't ready in time for this year's conference or isn't far along enough to warrant a formal refereed paper yet. Posters are a good way to make your first presentation at LISA.
  
  
• Birds-of-a-Feather Sessions (BoFs): Birds-of-a-Feather sessions are infomal gatherings held in the evenings. Topics range from use of a particular software package or product, through folks wanting to talk politics, to people interested in a particular aspect of computing.

Do you want help coming up with a topic? Here are timely topics to consider.

Take a look at the dates to keep in mind.

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