[Speakers] RE: Don Becker

[Virginia Cartwright]

Bill,
Sorry for the delay. Will this work for you?:

Bio:
Donald Becker
Chief Scientist, Scyld Software and Chief Technology Officer, Penguin
Computing
Donald is an internationally recognized operating system developer and the
original inventor of Beowulf. In 1999 he founded Scyld Computing and led the
development of the next-generation Beowulf cluster operating system, which
is the cornerstone for commodity-based high-performance cluster computing.
Prior to founding Scyld, Don started the Beowulf Parallel Workstation
project at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Don's work in parallel and
distributed computing began in1983 at MIT's Real Time Systems group. He is
known throughout the international community of operating system developers
for his contributions to networking software and as the driving force behind
beowulf.org.  He is the co-author of How to Build a Beowulf: A Guide to the
Implementation and Application of PC Clusters. With colleagues from the
California Institute of Technology and the Los Alamos National Laboratory,
he was the recipient of the IEEE Computer Society 1997 Gordon Bell Prize for
Price/Performance. Don holds a B.S. from Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.

Topic/Abstract:

Donald Becker, Chief Scientist of Scyld Software and CTO of Penguin
Computing, has consistently challenged conventional wisdom - from the early
days of his Beowulf Project at NASA through to the creation of Scyld as a
commercial entity and the introduction of the Scyld Beowulf distribution.
By upsetting expected beliefs, Donald has maintained a continuum of
innovation in the Linux arena that continues to address unmet needs today.
Ten years ago, it was widely believed that only custom designed vector
architectures could solve supercomputing problems.... Along came Beowulf
which solved such problems using a connected cluster of commodity systems,
based on Linux - at a time when many who had not explored Linux, either
ignored it or grouped it with other 'toy' systems.  In fact at the first
cluster systems conference in 1997 the widely held belief was that Microsoft
held the future of all software in its hands. Fast forward to 2000 when
Scyld introduced a prototype of a Unified Cluster System which completely
changed the approach to building clusters by using a full installation only
on a master node, with compute nodes running only applications. Donald's
talk will look back on this history of challenging conventional wisdom and
how it has contributed to the startling growth in Linux clustering; and
he'll also offer a glimpse of a future where, he believes, clustering will
be the natural evolution of the computing ecosystem.

About Penguin Computing & Scyld Software:

Penguin Computing is the leading innovator of highly scalable Linux cluster,
server and workstation platforms based on open standards hardware and
software. Scyld Software, a subsidiary of Penguin Computing, provides the
industry leading Linux clustering software, Scyld Beowulf. The company's
extensive customer base includes Fortune 1000 companies, government agencies
and educational institutions. Founded in 1998, Penguin Computing is
headquartered in San Francisco, California. For more information, please
visit Penguin Computing at http://www.penguincomputing.com and Scyld
Software at http://www.scyld.com.


Virginia Cartwright
VP, Corporate Marketing
Penguin Computing
www.penguincomputing.com

300 California St, suite 600
San Francisco
CA 94104

tel: 415 954 2800

-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Kendrick [mailto:nbs at sonic.net]
Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2004 5:29 PM
To: Virginia Cartwright; SVLUG Speakers List
Cc: Donald Becker; suzie at scyld.com; ockman at penguincomputing.com;
webmaster at svlug.org
Subject: Re: Don Becker

On Thu, Dec 30, 2004 at 11:53:14AM -0800, Virginia Cartwright wrote:
> Bill - I wanted to confirm that April 6th would be great for Don and he
has
> it on his calendar. What do you need from our end and by when?

Hi Virigina (and everyone else).  Thanks for the confirmation!

Would it be possible to get a more thorough description of what Mr. Becker
will be speaking about?  Right now, we don't have an exact topic listed,
and simply have the following for the description:

  Penguin Computing [link] is a leading provider of high-performance
  Linux-based computer systems, system management software, and
  integration services.  Penguin's extensive customer base includes
  Fortune 1000 companies, educational institutions, and government
  agencies.

And a small bio under "About the Speaker":

  Donald Becker is Penguin Computing's Chief Technology Officer, and
  was co-founder of the original Beowulf project, which is the
  cornerstone for commodity-based high-performance cluster
  computing. Don's work in parallel and distributed computing began in
  1983 at MIT's Real Time Systems group. He is known throughout the
  international community of operating system developers for his
  contributions to networking software and as the driving force behind
  beowulf.org.


I'm fairly sure that's all we need, but I'm Cc'ing the SVLUG Speaker Coord'n
list and webmaster, just in case.

Thanks again, and happy new year to you, too!

-bill!
http://www.svlug.org/