As an introduction, let me start off by reminding everyone that the 2008 AFS and Kerberos Best Practices Workshop will be held this year at New Jersey Institute of Technology the week of May 19-23 in Newark NJ.

Everyone that works with AFS or Kerberos whether it be as an IT Manager,
a system Administrator, or a developer is urged to attend.  The format
of the week is:

 . a full day tutorial on AFS on Monday
 . a full day tutorial on Kerberos and related protocols on Tuesday
 . 2.5 days of workshop sessions

The talks from the prior four workshops are available from the web site

  http://workshop.openafs.org/

Reviewing the agendas will provide an indication of just how valuable this workshops are.

The Call for Participation is in progress through March 3rd. The strength of the workshops are the attendees who come to them and most importantly those who present.

A number of people have asked me to suggest topics that would make a good talk for this year's workshop. Here are a couple of topics that I would like to see. If you are interested in preparing a talk on one of this subjects sign up at

  http://workshop.openafs.org/afsbpw08/cfp.html

Some of my topic ideas include:

1. A review of Windows Anti-Virus Products and their Impact on the
   OpenAFS for Windows client.  Very simply put.  Not all anti-virus
   solutions are created equal and some work better with OpenAFS than
   others.  Test a half dozen or so and tell the world what the trade
   offs are.

2. Loading Windows Profiles from AFS on Windows XP, Server 2003, Vista,
   and Server 2008.  Rodney Dyer gave a wonderful talk in 2004
   describing the UNCC Mosaic environment which makes heavy use of
   Windows profiles but there have been dramatic changes in both the
   OpenAFS client and the Windows platforms since then.

3. An overview of Web Access technologies for AFS.  File Lockers, WebDAV
   front ends, etc.  Provide a cookbook for setting up authenticated
   access to AFS via HTTP.

4. AFS client performance tuning.  I would bet that 99% of AFS clients
   are deployed using the defaults.  However, these are not necessarily
   the best options for all environments.  Explain the various options
   that are available for tuning and how users can determine what they
   should be set to.  Separate talks for UNIX and Windows are probably
   in order.

5. Using MSI Transforms to customize the OAFW and KFW installation
   packages.  What is possible and how do you do it?

6. Making the transition to 64-bit Windows.  Understanding the
   behavioral differences between native 64-bit applications and
   the WOW64 environment in which 32-bit applications execute in.
   What are the consequences for OAFW and KFW deployments?

7. OpenAFS and the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet.  Build OpenAFS for
   this ARM based Linux platform and show the world what it can do.

8. Case Studies.  No two organizations use AFS and Kerberos in
   exactly the same way.  Submit a case study that can be put up
   on the OpenAFS.org web site, http://www.openafs.org/success.html,
   and if it is particularly interesting we might give you the
   opportunity to share it with the attendees as a talk.

Some other ideas that have been bouncing around for this year which I would like to get feedback on are:

1. A live debugging session.  Allocate a block of time perhaps two
   hours or so in which a panel of AFS and Kerberos experts will
   debug issues in your environment in front of all the attendees.
   There are a huge number of debugging tools and techniques that
   are available to help track down configuration and other issues
   that the vast majority of system administrators and users are
   unaware of.  By spending fifteen or twenty minutes on a problem
   not only might we make a variety of deployments more efficient
   but the attendees will gain a better understanding of what
   tools are at their disposal.

2. Panel discussions.  In previous years all of the talks have been
   30 minutes presentations focused on a narrow subject.  Perhaps
   there would be benefit to a longer time slot allocated to a
   panel of experts discussing the various approaches used within
   their institutions.  Followed by Q&A from the audience.

If you believe these ideas would be worth implementing for this year's workshop please let us know.

Also, if there are talks that you would like to see given that have not been given in the past or that you believe should be given again, please let the community know. In particular, if there is a talk that would ensure that you would attend, absolutely let us know that.

Registration and Hotel Information is available today. There is no need to rent a car, the hotel is 20 minutes from Manhattan by various trains (PATH, NJ Transit and Amtrak) and two stops on the light rail from NJIT, as well as accessible by train (NJ Transit and Amtrak) from Newark International Airport. The weather is beautiful in May. If you are in Europe take advantage of the declining U.S. dollar and bring the family. :-)

Hope to see you there.

Jeffrey Altman

   be benefit to

Attachment: smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature

Reply via email to