Dru, Marty, and David attended LISA 2014 in Seattle, WA last week. Although Dru is a veteran of the conference, it was the first time at the show for both Marty and David.
“Having never attended a LISA conference, I was uncertain of what to expect. Of course, there are the normal booth duties, from setup to tear down. The long hours of standing, talking, skipping meals–these things happen at every show,” said David.
This year, the iXsystems and the FreeBSD booths were right next to each other, which was convenient because attendees were able to learn about FreeBSD and FreeBSD-based systems in the same area. We sent a box of our trademark daemon horns and other free schwag to both booths. The FreeBSD booth was staffed by Dru Lavigne, Deb Goodkin, and Anne Dickinson. On the first day, all 3 staff members were needed to keep up with all of the traffic and answer questions about FreeBSD, ZFS, and the new features in FreeBSD 10.1. By the end of the conference, the booth had raised $610 for the FreeBSD Foundation.
At the iX booth, Marty and David worked together to explain the benefits of FreeNAS/TrueNAS and the ZFS file system. They also showed off a TrueNAS system and had a FreeNAS Mini demo running. In addition, several of our customers stopped by to say hello.
“I was very pleasantly surprised to meet many of our current customers, including one of my most influential customers from MIT who has been referring me around campus,” remarked David. The event drew 1100 attendees from all walks of life. The attendees made up a very diverse demographic, representing a wide range of countries, industries, and ages. The iXsystems booth in particular drew a steady stream of curious sysadmins that started coming by before the booth opened and didn’t stop even through cleanup.
Overall, the general consensus from our team is that the show was a great success. We have plans to attend again next year. In the meantime, stay tuned for our recap of SuperComputing 2014!
