Boston Scalability
User Group

Hello everyone,

I’m sure you’ve noticed we haven’t had a BostonSUG meeting in nearly a year.  In the time that we held meetings from 2008-2009 I received overwhelmingly positive feedback about the speakers we invited to our meetings and the technical ability level of our members.  That said, it’s time to restart our monthly meetings with a slightly different approach.

The meeting that we had the most vocal feedback about was our Scalability Roundtable meeting last March.  The feedback for this meeting was fantastic as far as experiments go.  We had a lot of people in attendance, both familiar and new faces.  Going forward, more of our meetings will be in the roundtable format with more lightning talks and shared experiences led by our members.  We’re still interested in having more speakers come in but those meetings would be less common than in the past.

Starting this month we will resume our monthly meetings on the fourth Wednesday of the month.  That means our next meeting is February 24 at 6 p.m., location TBD.  We still have our IBM Innovation Center meeting location available, though the only problem is that there is no internet connectivity available to user groups that meet there.  We’ve also had success meeting up at Bertucci’s, just a quick drive over 128 from IBM.

Sometimes we may not have a set agenda, like for our original roundtable last March.  However I strongly encourage you to send ideas and suggestions for topics along so we can do any research needed before the meeting.  I also invite any lightning talks you may want to present.  It doesn’t have to be a formal presentation or prepared slides or anything fancy.  If you want to talk about a particular topic for 10-20 minutes please let me know so I can put it on the agenda.

At our meeting on February 24 I will give a lightning talk on Redis, a data structures server implemented in C with client libraries in many popular languages.

Please send any suggestions or feedback to anthony@bostonsug.org.  Keep an eye on our web site bostonsug.org for more announcements.  I will send out more info on our next meeting as soon as I get a confirmed meeting location.  I’ll see everyone on the 24th!

Anthony Chaves

BostonSUG meets again next week at the IBM Innovation Center in Waltham, MA.  The meeting is on Wednesday March 25 at 6 p.m.

This month we’ll share our experience with building and deploying applications and making them scalable.  This is an open-ended discussion with no specific agenda or technology on the table.  Instead we’ll share what we’ve learned to build scalable software.

Of course specific software will come up during the discussion and we’ll delve into use-cases, advantages the software brings and also the debt we accrue because of it.  Topics here include anything from in-house data grids to memcached on EC2 and everything in between.

Not only should we look at the past and present, we’ll also discuss some interesting possibilities for future development projects.  Hadoop on EC2 is gaining popularity, Rails 3 is due sometime this year – how do these help us build scalable software?

Building scalable applications is one thing but how do we gain the popularity and usage patterns that require real scalability?  Share your opinions and experience at next week’s meeting!

Date: Wednesday March 25
Time: 6 p.m.
Location: IBM Innovation Center 404 Wyman St. (North Entrance) Waltham, MA 02451

If you think you will attend this meeting please register at our registration page.  Attendance is always free and you can attend even if you don’t register.

If you can’t make it to this meeting but want to find out about future meetings you can join our announcement list.

Please send any feedback to anthony@bostonsug.org.

See you next week!

Our next meeting is Wednesday March 25 at 6 p.m.

This will be an informal meeting without a set topic or presentation.  Instead I’d like to have the round-table discussion that was originally scheduled for January.

Do you have questions about the best use of Amazon Web Services?  What are the pros and cons of using an event-based architecture?  Have you got experience using memcached that you’d like to share?  Still unsure of why you’d want to use a data grid like Coherence or WebSphere eXtreme Scale?  This is the meeting you’ve been waiting for if you have these questions or answers to them.  Bring any questions or experience you have to the table and we’ll all come away from the meeting more knowledgeable and capable of building scalable applications.  Topics are not limited to those listed here.

We will also look ahead at what is to come in the rest of 2009.  Will Rails 3.0 be the platform of choice for building scalable apps?  How will Open Source Java projects like Hibernate Shards fair in ‘09?  Does Google AppEngine have what it takes to gain major marketshare?  What will define “Cloud Computing” this year and how will you use it in your projects?  When does it make sense to virtualize your infrastructure?

We’ll meet at the IBM Innovation Center.  404 Wyman St. North Entrance Waltham, MA 02451.  We’ll get started around 6 p.m.  Everyone is welcome and attendance is always free.

Please register for the meeting if you think you will attend.  Registering helps us make a guess about how much food to get.

Can’t make this meeting but want to find out about future meetings?  Sign up for our announcement list.

You can send questions, comments and feedback to anthony@bostonsug.org.

See you on the 25th at 6 p.m.!

Hello everyone,

The first BostonSUG meeting of 2009 is next Wednesday!  January 28 at 6 p.m. we meet at the IBM Innovation Center for our first technology round-table.  We’ll have snacks and water during the meeting. The IBM Innovation Center is located at 404 Wyman St. Waltham, MA 02451.  See the original meeting announcement for all the details.  Don’t forget to register if you plan to attend.  Of course you can attend even if you don’t register.  Attendance is always free.

Anthony

Hello everyone,

Right now I’m booking the next three meetings that will take place in January, February and March of 2009.  We’re taking a short break due to the holiday season, but I’ve got plenty of speakers and activities planned for the start of 2009.  Two of the potential speakers are Flickr’s John Allspaw and IBM/XIV’s Aviad Offer.  Additional topics include Right Scale, Microsoft’s Velocity and more.

As always please let me know if you’re interested in presenting or know someone that is interested in presenting.

Stay tuned for more info in the next week.

Anthony

Hello everyone,

Our next meeting is Wednesday September 24 at 6 p.m. at the IBM Innovation Center. This month we have Billy Newport coming in from Rochester, MN to talk about IBM Websphere eXtreme Scale, formerly known as Object Grid.

About WebSphere eXtreme Scale
WebSphere eXtreme Scale allows business applications to process massive volumes of transactions with extreme efficiency and linear scalability. WebSphere eXtreme Scale operates as an in-memory data grid that dynamically caches, partitions, replicates, and manages application data and business logic across multiple servers. It provides transactional integrity and transparent failover to ensure high availability, high reliability, and constant response times. WebSphere eXtreme Scale is an essential IBM software technology for conducting extreme transaction processing.

About Billy Newport
Billy Newport is a Distinguished Engineer working on WebSphere XD distributed caching technology (ObjectGrid) and on WebSphere high availability. He’s worked at IBM since Sept 2001. Besides his current activities, he helped add advanced APIs like the WorkManager APIs (JSR 236/237) and worked on the staff plugin architecture of WPS. Prior to IBM, he worked as an independant consultant at a variety of companies in investment banking, telcos, publishing, yellow pages over the previous 13 years in over 10 countries. He graduated from the Waterford Institute of Technology in Ireland with a Bachelors in Applied Computing in 1989.

We will have all the food and drinks you have come to expect from BostonSUG meetings as well as a couple of book give-a-ways sponsored by O’Reilly.

Please register for this meeting if you plan to attend.  It helps us order the right amount of food.  Of course registration and attendance are always free and you can still come to the meeting even if you don’t register.

If you can’t attend this meeting but want updates about future BostonSUG events you can sign up for our announcement list.

Food arrives at 5:45 and the meeting will begin shortly after 6.

The IBM Innovation Center is located at 404 Wyman St. (North Entrance) Waltham, MA 02451.

See you on Wednesday the 24th at 6 p.m.!

Anthony

I’ve got great news about our August meeting (which is just two short weeks away on August 27): Akamai member Rakesh Chaudhary will join Tom O’Hare in exploring digital media topics.

Rakesh Chaudhary – Akamai Technologies

Rakesh Chaudhary manages Akamai’s Media Solutions Team. Rakesh has spent 7 years at Akamai, architecting scalable fault-tolerant systems for large scale enterprises spanning media & entertainment, sports, b2c portal and telecom industries.

Topics:
• Evolution of online video + technology trends
• Overcoming Performance and Scalability challenges in delivering high
  quality video over the web
• Leveraging Akamai’s Open Developer Toolkit to rapidly build Video
  Player Applications

This will be an exciting meeting that will cover a lot of ground.  There is still room to register and there will be pizza!  Please head over to the meeting registration page and let us know if you will be attending on Wednesday August 27 at 6 p.m.

We meet at the IBM Innovation Center located at 404 Wyman St. Waltham, MA 02451.

View Larger Map

See you on the 27th!

Anthony

Hello everyone,

I’m very happy to announce our next meeting will take place on Wednesday August 27 at 6 p.m. in the IBM Innovation Center in Waltham, MA.

Delivering Highly Scalable Web Sites and Applications

Since 1999, Akamai has built a large-scale distributed system with
30,000+ servers spread across 1000+ networks and 70+ countries. Akamai’s
technology-at its core, applied mathematics and algorithms-manages the
distribution of large content libraries and intelligently optimizes
routes to accelerate dynamic sites and applications. “Cloud Computing”
may be the new buzzword in the industry, but Akamai has been managing
its service as a cloud since its introduction 10 years ago.

This talk will provide in-depth information about Akamai solutions and
technologies, focusing on strategies for scaling your Web
infrastructure. In addition, the following topics will also be covered
along with best practices with clear examples and real world results.

• A Behind the Scene view of how Caching Works
• Best Practices for Cache settings, HTML and AJAX Configurations for Optimum Site Performance
• Overcoming Performance and Reliability challenges for Dynamic Web and IP Based Enterprise Applications
• Leveraging Akamai’s Open Developer Toolkit to rapidly build Video Player Applications

Tom O’Hare – Akamai Technologies
Tom O’Hare is a Technical Manager in Global Services and Support at
Akamai. During Tom’s 8 years at Akamai, he’s led customer engagements on
many different types of online content including, dynamic
business-to-business portals, online retail sites, and next generation
social networks.

The Akamai Difference
Akamai(r) provides market-leading managed services for powering rich
media, dynamic transactions, and enterprise applications online. Having
pioneered the content delivery market one decade ago, Akamai’s services
have been adopted by the world’s most recognized brands across diverse
industries. The alternative to centralized Web infrastructure, Akamai’s
global network of tens of thousands of distributed servers provides the
scale, reliability, insight and performance for businesses to succeed
online. An S&P 500 and NASDAQ 100 company, Akamai has transformed the
Internet into a more viable place to inform, entertain, interact, and
collaborate. To experience The Akamai Difference, visit www.akamai.com.

There will be pizza and water/soda as usual.  Please register for the meeting to help us order enough!

Can’t make this meeting but want to find out about future BostonSUG events?  Sign up for our announcement list.

Coming September 24: Billy Newport from IBM to talk about WebSphere eXtreme Scale.  Abstract and announcement coming soon.

The IBM Innovation Center is located at 404 Wyman St. Waltham, MA 02451.  See you on August 27th!

Anthony

Hi everyone,

This is just a reminder that there will not be a BostonSUG meeting in July.  Get outside and enjoy the nice weather.  We’ll pick up again on August 27.

Also keep in mind that our user group is sponsored by O’Reilly.  This means that members get a discount on all O’Reilly books.  Please email me (see the signature for this post) for our discount code.  We also get free review books.  Let me know if you’d like to write a book review and I’ll get a copy of the book for you.  If you choose a book from the recent releases list you could be the first one to write a review for it!

Is there someone you’d like to see speak at an upcoming BostonSUG meeting?  If so please let me know!  I’ll do my very best to book them for an upcoming meeting.  I’m booking the August, September and October meetings so get your requests in now!

Anthony
- contact – >at< bostonsug |dot| org

Hello everyone,

Our next meeting is in just one week! On Wednesday June 18 at 6 p.m. Mike Culver from Amazon joins us to present “Cloud Computing: From Ideas to Innovation”. We will explore topics such as on-demand virtualized servers, data storage in the cloud and more. Of course there will be plenty of pizza and other refreshments. The pizza arrives at 5:45 and the meeting starts at 6 p.m.

This meeting will take place at the IBM Innovation Center located at 404 Wyman St. (North Entrance) Waltham, MA 02451. Directions to IBM and the rest of the meeting details are at the meeting announcement page. Please register for the meeting if you plan to attend so we can estimate how much pizza to order. Of course you can still attend if you don’t register.

See you next Wednesday!

Anthony