syslog

A new membership organization has been formed to provide resources for professional systems administrators. LOPSA, which stands for League of Professional System Administrators, was formed last fall and states its mission as follows: to advance the practice of system administration; to support, recognize, educate, and encourage its practitioners; and to serve the public through education and outreach on system administration issues.

LOPSA is currently looking for volunteers in a variety of roles, including Web editors, writers, event coordinators, speakers, and membership support. For more information about LOPSA, including membership fees and benefits, see the Web site at: http://lopsa.org/.

Also of interest to sys admins are several excellent technical conferences and training opportunities. Here's a brief list of some upcoming events (by date). Please refer to the conferences' respective Web sites for program and registration details.

SANS Munich 2006
April 3-8, Munich, Germany
http://www.sans.org/munich06/

NSDI '06 (Networked Systems Design and Implementation)
May 8-10, San Jose, CA
http://www.usenix.org/events/nsdi06/

SANS Security 2006
May 11-16, San Diego, CA
http://www.sans.org/security06/

SANE 2006 (System Administration and Network Engineering Conference) May 15-19, Delft, The Netherlands
http://www.sane.nl/sane2006/

USENIX Annual Technical Conference
May 30-June 3, Boston, MA
http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix06/

CSI NetSec 06
June 12-14, Scottsdale, AZ
http://www.gocsi.com

Black Hat USA
July 29-August 3, Las Vegas, NV
http://www.blackhat.com/main.html

USENIX Security Symposium
July 31-August 4, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
http://www.usenix.org/events/sec06/

Sincerely yours,

Amber Ankerholz
Editor in Chief