khc@sun.com (Kelly Chang) (07/14/90)
Here is the final agenda of the 2nd Western Regional SUG Conference.
July 19-20, 1990
Sunnyvale Hilton, Sunnyvale, California
Except vendor presentations which may contain marketing pitches, all
sessions are technically oriented talks, including the keynote speeches on
both days.
Registration form and agenda with abstracts:
--------------------- REGISTRATION FORM --------------------------------------
Name:
Title:
Company:
Address:
City:
State:
Zip:
Telephone:
Email:
FAX:
Current SUG member: $85 (non-SUG member add $30 for membership fees)
** Call, email, or FAX in your registration and charge to Visa/MasterCard. ***
Registration fee includes lunch and refreshments on both days.
Make your payment payable to:
Sun User Group, Inc.
2550 Garcia Avenue, M/S PAL1-504
Mountain View, Ca 94043-1100
Check, VISA, and MasterCard accepted.
Refund cancellation policy: If you must CANCEL, all refund requests must
be in writing and postmarked no later than July 10, 1990.
Attendees are offered a discounted room rate of $101/night at the
Sunnyvale Hilton. Phone Rosenbluth Travel at 800-222-1035 for travel and
hotel arrangements.
For more information, contact SUG Office :
Phone: 415-336-0564, or 415-336-4341.
Email: users@Sun.COM or sun!users
FAX: 415-969-9131 (Indicate SUG, M/S PAL1-504
on cover sheet)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time Session # Presentation Speaker
+++ THURSDAY JULY 19 +++
9:00-10:00am T1 Prescient Agents Scott McGregor/
Atherton Technology
T2 The Automounter: Brent Callaghan/Sun
Using it effectively
10:15-11:30am T3 Software Backplane Bill Paseman/
Atherton Technology
T4 Sun Widearea Network Mike Martinz/Sun
11:45-1:30pm T5 Keynote/Case in the 90's Tony Wasserman/IDE
Lunch
1:45-2:45pm Vendor Presentations
T6 Apriori Answer Computer
T7 Integrated Project Atherton Technology
Support Environment
T8 CMC's FDDI Fiber CMC-Rockwell Int'l
T9 Enhanced X Serial Connectivity NCD
3:10-4:45pm T10 Sun Sysadmin Panel Sun's USAC/SE/Devel.
Rob Gingell, S. Baker,
R. Galperin, L. Edards
J. Litchfield
5:00-6:00pm T11 NFS and You BOF Brent Callaghan/Sun
John Corbin/Sun
Mark Stein/Sun
**Sun Customer Comment Area**
Sun representatives will be on-site to take your comments
Hours: 10:00am - 10:20am, 2:30pm - 3:30pm
+++ FRIDAY July 20 +++
9:00-10:00am F1 Network Administration Robert Harker/Motorola
F2 CAD Framework Tools Tim Barnes/Cadence
10:15-11:30am F3 NSF Performance Bob Lyon/Legato
F4 Use of the CAD tools Craig Forrest/Sun
in the design of the
SparcStation
11:45-1:30pm F5 Unix in the 90's: Death, Michael Powell/Sun
Rebirth or Metamorphosis ?
1:45-2:45pm Vendor Presentation
F6 4GL for Application Develop. Information Builders
Decision Support
F7 X-Window Application Develop. Saber Software
F8 Island Graphics
F9 TBA
3:15-4:15pm F10 Introduction to UUCP and Robert Harker/Motorola
USENET Systems Administration
F11 CD-ROM & Unix:the implementing Thomas Wong/Sun
of a CD-ROM disc format & file
systems for SunOS
F12 SunOS Performance Visualization Jon Livesey/Sun
F13 Computer Animation at Pixar Craig Good/Pixar
4:30-5:30pm F14 An Extent Based High Larry McVoy/Sun
Performance UFS for SunOS
F15 BOF
F16 BOF
F17 X on Sun & Beyond BOF Issac Salzman/
Integrity Software
**Sun Customer Comment Area**
Sun representatives will be on-site to take your comments
Hours: 8:15am - 9:00am, 2:45pm - 3:15pm
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
T1: Prescient Agents Scott McGregor, Atherton Technology
CASE is a hot topic these days, but what is it and what can it do for you?
There are many improved tools for drawing design diagrams, for checking
syntax, for debugging and for testing. But these tools only help you in a
small part of the lifecycle, and many are only useful for the most
technical (and most trained) programmers. This talk is about more
accessible cross-lifecycle support tools which I call prescient agents.
These agents neither require, nor interfere with, other CASE tools, but
rather they make whatever CASE tools you have, even your own internal
tools, easier to access and organize. These tools help manage complexity
which is really one of the most troubling aspects of software development.
We will look into how one benefits by having such agents at one's
disposal, how we were able to build prototypes of such agents, and what
one must do in order to purchase such support systems in the future.
==============================================================================
T2: The Automounter: Using It Effectively Brent Callaghan, Sun
Since its introduction in SunOS 4.0 the automounter has been successful at
making NFS access more convenient while providing powerful alternatives in
the administration of large networks of servers. With the advent of the
automounter the use of the mount command to access NFS filesystems has
become a rare event. The creation an maintenance of automounter maps,
however, can be challenging. Brent will present some examples of
automounter configurations as well as examining potential problems.
=============================================================================
T3: Software BackPlane William G. Paseman, Atherton Technology
Atherton Technology develops and markets the first U.S. Commercially
available Integrated Project Support Environment (IPSE). The company's
IPSE consists of 2 complimentary product lines for managing complex
software development environments: Software BackPlane, a framework for
linking CASE tools, data, and methodologies and the the SoftBoard Series,
a suite of applications that assist in the development and management of
the environment. Together, these products automate many of the underlying
control and coordination functions essential to managing software
projects.
=============================================================================
T4: The Sun Network - Sun's uses of it's network to meet business needs
Mike Martinz, Sun Microsystems
This talk will focus on how Sun uses it's internal network to meet it's
buisness needs. The areas covered will be Sun's approach to campus and
wide-area networking. How Sun uses it's own product (e.g. IR, HSI,
Channel, X.25/X.29, X.400 and EDI ) in it's day to day buisness.
Will also discuss how Sun's structured it's internal E-Mail system.
==============================================================================
T5: (lunch keynote) CASE in the 90's Anthony I. Wasserman, IDE
Modern CASE tools have now been commercially available for about five
years, and have shown to improve the quality of software projects and the
productivity of software designers. Most of these tools address a
specific task within the software development life cycle, without giving
significant attention to how they fit into a suite of integrated tools in
a comprehensive software development environment. As the next generation
of CASE tools emerges over the next couple of years, integration of tools
will be a central issue.
This talk addresses some of the characteristics of these forthcoming CASE
environments, including:
1) integrated life cycle support;
2) emerging standards;
3) tool integration;
4) distributed CASE;
5) software reengineering;
6) object orientation and reusability.
Examples are taken from various products, research projects, and
standardization efforts to present the likely future direction in CASE
environments.
This presentation emphasizes the above technical issues, giving secondary
attention to organizational and managerial issues associated with the
introduction and successful use of CASE within organizations.
=============================================================================
T6: (Vendor Presentation) Apriori Answer Computer, Inc.
Apriori is an easy-to-use software tool designed to improve the quality
and productivity of organizations whose purpose is to respond to
inquiries. Such organizations include customer support, internal help
desks, and product or service information hotlines. Apriori uses unique
experience-based technology to build and maintain a central, adaptive
information source of known issues and responses.
=============================================================================
T7: (Vendor Presentation) IPSE Atherton Technology
Atherton Technology develops and markets the first U.S. Commercially
available Integrated Project Support Environment (IPSE). The company's
IPSE consists of 2 complimentary product lines for managing complex
software development environments: Software BackPlane, a framework for
linking CASE tools, data, and methodologies and the the SoftBoard Series,
a suite of applications that assist in the development and management of
the environment. Together, these products automate many of the underlying
control and coordination functions essential to managing software
projects.
=============================================================================
T8: (Vendor Presentation) FDDI Fiber CMC-Rockwell International
CMC's FDDI Adapter for VMEbus systems utilizes CMC's FXP Full Throughput
architecture which supports single and dual attached ring connectivity and
compliant version 6.1 SMT software.
==============================================================================
T9: (Vendor Presenation) Enhanced X Serial Connectivity NCD
XRemote- X Displays over Serial Lines. This protocol offers better
performance than SLIP and compressed TCP headers in using X in remote
locations.
==============================================================================
T11: NFS and You (BOF)
The panel will comprise three engineers from the NFS group at Sun.
Following some short presentations the BOF will be thrown open to discuss
general NFS issues.
Brent Callaghan will describe some new features in the SunOs 4.1 NFS
implementation and present some issues that the NFS group are working on
now: improved authentication, improved scalability through disk caching,
improved availability through filesystem replication and dynamic failover.
John Corbin will discuss issues associated with NFS Dynamic Retransmission
in SunOS 4.1.
Mark Stein will describe what's happening in the network authentication
arena and how NFS will be affected. Kerberos will be the major topic.
=============================================================================
F1: Network Administration Robert Harker, Motorola
This talk describes how to administer networks of Sun workstations and
serves as a single homogeneous network. This network administration model
can be extended to include multiple servers and stand alone workstations.
The talk describes tools and procedures that were developed to manage the
workstations and servers on the network
==============================================================================
F2: CAD Framework Tools Tim Barnes, Cadence Design Systems
Design Framework II: Core Technology and Meta-Tools for Electronic Design
Automation. Design Framework II provides a set of foundation services upon
which Cadence's Opus toolset is based. In addition, the Framework includes
a set of meta-tools, or tool and design management tools which support
high-level design functions. This talk outlines the Opus system structure,
and describes the role of the framework in the architecture of a large
Unix-based software system.
==============================================================================
F3: NFS Performance Robert B. Lyon, Legato Systems, Inc.
Robust network applications like NFS continue to function when faced with
overloaded or flaky hardware. The robustness is perceived by users in the
form of poor performance. This talk will cover all areas of the NFS
environment is free from bottleneck and hardware problems. Specific
examples and solutions will be presented along with software tools that
can assist the administrators in detecting, correcting low performance
situations.
============================================================================
F4: Use of CAD Tools in the Design of the SparcStation Craig Forrest,
Sun
In order to bring high-performance workstation quickly to market, Sun
continues to aggressively pursue and incorporate leading edge CAD
technology into its hardware design methodology. These new tools and
techniques are rapidly changing the way in which new machines are being
designed. I will be giving a snapshot of Sun's hardware design
methodology, our simulation strategies, and the commercial CAD technology
that we use.
=============================================================================
F5: (lunch keynote) Unix in the 90's: Death, Rebirth, or Metamorphosis?
Michael L. Powell, Sun Microsystems
After two decades of invention, pretension, and convention, Unix has
reached a crossroads. Some people say that Unix has completed its purpose
by forcing the development of standards for operating systems, and it can
now be put to rest, to be replaced by various implementations of those
standards. Other people say that Unix has finally grown up, now
supporting stable binary interfaces, a graphical user interface, real
networking, and an awesome range of applications. This talk will explain
why each group is partially right but partially wrong, and discuss a
vision of Unix through the 90's.
==============================================================================
F6: (Vendor Presentation) 4GL/DBMS Information Builders
FOCUS is the leading 4GL/DBMS for application development and decision
support. FOCUS' full-featured database supports shared relational and
traditional data structures. FOCUS is available on all Sun platforms,
providing applications and data portability between versions of FOCUS
available for all major proprietary operating systems and Unix
implementations. FOCUS features a robust selection of point and click
window-based tools for application development and report writing.
==============================================================================
F10: Introduction to UUCP and USENET Robert Harker, Motorola
This is a tutorial on how to set-up electronic mail connectivity to the
USENET/Internet electronic mail community. It covers all the steps for
setting up email with the outside world, from setting up the modem and
UUCP connection, to changing your sendmail.cf file and registering your
company domain name with the Internet. An introduction to what USENET
network news is and the public domain software that implements network
news is also covered.
==============================================================================
F11: CD-ROM and UNIX: The implementation of a CD-ROM disc
format and file system Thomas Wong, Sun Microsystems
This talk first gives a quick overview of the CD-ROM support in the SunOS
4.1 release. It then explains the problems of using CD-ROM as a release
medium for distributing UNIX system software, and describes a prototype
implementation that overcomes these problems. Techniques to address the
slow access time and low data transfer rate of the CD-ROM drives will also
be covered.
==============================================================================
F12: Performance Visualization in SunOS Jon Livesey, Sun Mircosystems
Performance is often measured statistically. That is, a benchmark is
run, and measurements are taken. Then comparisons are made from one run
to another, or anomalous results are identified.
This effort takes a slightly different approach. An attempt is made to
present the results of a run visually, so that the trace of execution
through the kernel is shown on the screen in a form that a developer can
look at, and directly see how fast the kernel executes known control
paths, and how different kernel activities interact with one another.
==============================================================================
F13: Computer Animation at Pixar Craig Good, Pixar
RenderMan is a standardized technology for creating high-quality
3-dimensional synthetic images. Animation is one of the smallest parts of
Pixar's business, but a large art of RenderMan's visibility. As computer
graphics production companies enter the third generation, merely providing
computer graphics is no longer enough. The newsness has worn off, and an
increasingly perceptive audience demands high-quality images. Today's
viewers also demand a return to some of the time-honored skill considered
new by many outside the traditional animation world. Today's production
techniques benefits from the use of workstations rather than big
computers. Sun workstations have been part of the environment at Pixar
since its days as Lucasfilm's Computer Division, when it became Sun's
largest customer by ordering of a whole 12 machines at once. Pixar has
attempted to benefit from the rich history of animation while working to
advance the state of what is still a very new art.
=============================================================================
F14: An extent based high performance UFS for SunOS Larry McVoy,
Sun Microsystems
The standard Unix file system, UFS, has been modified to use ``extents''
when possible. The file system format and interfaces (calling and called)
were not changed. Performance of sequential I/O improved by 200-400%.
Performance of random I/O was not changed. We depend on the existing
Berkeley Fast File System allocator code in order to build the extents.
The performance is gained by modifying the file system to use the extents
to do large (56-120 KB) I/O requests instead of the usual 8 KB.
=============================================================================
F17: X on Sun and beyond (BOF) Issac Salzman, Integrity Software
This session will concentrate on OpenWindows, Sun's new window system
which includes the X11/NeWS server, XView OPEN LOOK toolkit, OPEN LOOK
Window Manager, DeskSet and more. Topics to be discussed include: what's
new in OpenWindows 2.0, converting SunView applications to XView, methods
for supporting multiple window systems (SunView, X11R4 and OpenWindows),
using other X toolkits (e.g. Motif), and NeWS. This will be a good
opportunity for people to share their thoughts on these topics and find
out what other people are doing.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kelly Chang
OS Development 1-415-336-6118 (Phone)
Sun Microsystems, Inc. sun!khc (Uucp)