By jfranklin

Thank you to everyone who was able to attend LUG ‘14! A special thanks to all of our sponsors, especially Gold sponsors Cray, DDN, Intel, System Fabric Works, Warp Mechanics, and Xyratex. All the support, advice, and pats on the back were really appreciated.

The annual LUGs are truly a community effort.

We tracked quite a bit of information leading up to and during LUG and wanted to share some of that here, especially a breakdown of our LUG ’14 survey results. In general, we were extremely pleased at the range of responses and the overall very favorable results.

LUG 2014 had 196 attendees, making it our highest attended LUG to date. There were 127 OpenSFS members from 19 different companies. There were 39 speakers.

The “Most Enjoyed” aspects of LUG were:

— Networking and sharing user experiences
— In depth technical presentations
— Futures roadmap related to HPC
— Good schedule
— “LUG is just right. The Goldilocks Conference!”

The “Suggested Improvements” aspects of LUG were:

— Less vendor presentations desired
— Introductory session for new users/attendees
— Earlier availability of presentations
— Ensure readability of presentation materials
— Select hotel location in vibrant area
— Improved food selections for breakfast and availability of Coke products
— Dedicated poster session as part of LUG agenda

We were also interested in who was attending and what topics they were most interested in.

Self-descriptions of attendees shows that Admins and Users account for over 40% with Developers at about 22%. Clearly this is an event that focuses on people who really use and understand Lustre.

Which LUG topics are the most valuable had such a wide spread that it’s hard to come to an immediate conclusion of a main focus. Admin issues like stability, performance, security, tools and more are big. So were topics that point to where Lustre is going like the Lustre Roadmap Update and Future Parallel File Systems. LUG attendees have a wide range of interests!

Remember all 32 LUG presentations are available as PDFs and videos: https://opensfs.org/lug-2014-presos/

The entire event was productive and engaging, and we couldn’t have done it without you. Seeing the range of attendees and sponsors continues our excitement about the future of Lustre.

We look forward to seeing you at a coming Lustre event soon – and online!

By jfranklin

PDFs of the 32 presentations at this year’s Lustre User Group meeting are now available online at opensfs.org/lug-2014-presos/.  We also have links to the videos of the sessions provided by InsideHPC.

LUG 2014 was very successful and lots of fun! Thanks to everyone for participating. We hope to see you online and at our coming Lustre events around the world.

Here’s a time lapse video of LUG 14 produced by Rich Brueckner at InsideHPC –

By jfranklin

A continuing series from OpenSFS describing our work and efforts surrounding Lustre.

LUG 2014

The annual Lustre User Group (LUG) meeting takes place this spring, April 8-10 in Miami, Florida. Running a tech conference takes a lot of effort. There are details around logistics, deadlines, scheduling and lots more. Then from there is the core effort to decide what the conference will cover, who will present, and what is of highest priority.

Not so simple.

So OpenSFS decided to better organize these efforts by creating an LUG committee. With meetings that began in December, the LUG committee developed a timeline for soliciting and receiving proposals, and then worked through analyzing and voting on which talks would be accepted. Based on feedback from last year’s participants, it was important to make sure that the agenda this year was not too full. A really good event reserves time for “hallway meetings” and impromptu discussions.

We had 21 slots to fill and well over double that number of high quality proposals were submitted.

The LUG committee, made up of representatives from Bull, CEA, Intel, IU, LLNL, NetApp, ORNL, Sandia and Xyratex, meets weekly to discuss LUG priorities. Since the deadline for submissions was January 31^st, the bulk of the discussions were conducted in January and February, with committee members having to make hard decisions on specific topics and time slots. Weekly discussions focus on high level themes, followed by voting that was conducted through the LUG mailing list and blind “Doodle polls” to tally votes.

This year, since there were quite a few high quality submissions that would not make the cut, the LUG committee added poster sessions. These will be available throughout LUG with the presenters available to respond to questions.

The full agenda is available here: https://opensfs.org/lug-2014-agenda/

The Lustre User Group (LUG) 2014 takes place this spring, April 8-10 in Miami, Florida. Participation in LUG is open to all, and if you would like to attend or sponsor, please email us at [email protected].

LUG 2014 is coming soon! We’re looking forward to seeing you there. Your support and involvement in the Lustre community is key.

Our New Community Director

In another important piece of OpenSFS news, each year OpenSFS members elect a Community Representative Director to join the board in steering OpenSFS. The term runs from March to March annually. Tommy Minyard at TACC served the past term and deserves much credit for a job well done and building a real sense of momentum. Stephen Simms, from Indiana University (IU), has been reelected. Simms was Community Representative Director from 2011-2012. In his previous term, Simms spearheaded a wide range of initiatives within OpenSFS including significant expansion of participation in the annual Lustre User Group as program chair in 2012, encouraging IU engagement in supporting OpenSFS such as hosting of the OpenSFS testbed and development of OpenSFS promotional materials. He has slid seamlessly right back into the position, instantly becoming a critical part of LUG committee planning.

A big hearty welcome back to Simms. Or, in his terms, “Rock on!”

By jfranklin

On April 8-10^th, OpenSFS is hosting the 12th Annual Lustre® User Group (LUG) Conference at the Miami Marriott Biscayne Bay in Miami, Florida! LUG 2014 will bring together industry leaders, end-users, developers, and vendors to talk Lustre, contribute to the community, and move the technology forward.

Here are the top 5 reasons why you should attend LUG 2014:

5 – Technical Poster Exhibition so you can digest Lustre info on your own schedule
Includes posters on Lustre challenges, configurations, data movement between Lustre and enterprise storage, file system design, and many more.

4 – Located minutes from South Beach so you can work on your tan
The venue for LUG 2014 is the Miami Marriott Biscayne Bay which is located right on Biscayne Bay and just minutes from South Beach and other famous Miami attractions.

3 – Best place to hear about feature development so you can be ahead of the curve
Talks on Lustre roadmap, Lustre performance comparison and tuning, Exascale, proposed new features, Hadoop, log analysis, and much more. The full 2014 LUG agenda is now available online.

2 – First Lustre Annual Report so you can see how Lustre is doing in new markets
OpenSFS is sponsoring its first Lustre Annual Report that will examine the current status of Lustre in multiple vertical markets spanning high performance computing, Big Data, and enterprise computing markets, including the drivers and barriers for future adoption.

1 – Best event of the year to talk Lustre so you can be a true insider
Finally a place where everyone understands Lustre! In fact, they might know more than you. LUG is the best event of the year, not just for the presentations, but also for the hallway discussions and the evening get-togethers, too.

Register now to take advantage of the special early bird rate before March 17^th. The early bird registration price is $525.

Be sure to check back regularly, as speakers and session highlights will also be posted over the coming weeks.  In the meantime, the LUG 2014 agenda is available online.

Register today for LUG 2014! If you have any questions, please feel free to contact [email protected].