The next TCLUG meeting is tonight!

Virtualization was voted the most popular topic at the monthly meetings.  In 
response, we found a speaker that has an interesting take on virtualization: 
Mike Culver from Amazon.com will be visiting TCLUG to give a presentation on 
their scalable computing platform and web services!  

This includes a service called EC2.  EC2 allows you to upload a special Linux 
image (based on Xen I believe), and run it on a cluster.  You can rent the 
cluster by the boxen-hour, and the servers can dynamically allocate machines 
themselves (e.g. a webserver cluster can increase it's size to adapt to 
traffic).  

The presentation will also cover a storage clustering service, the Amazon 
Mechanical Turk, and other topics.  It should be very interesting.  The 
description below has full details.

 Date: Wed, Sept 5th
 Time: 6:30 - 8:00 pm
 University of Minnesota Minneapolis campus, EE/CSci Building , Room: 3-210
 200 Union St SE, Minneapolis 55455

 Topics:
        Intro 
        Main presentation
                Amazon Web Services (scalable computing)
                Mike Culver, Web Services Evangelist, Amazon.com (AWS)
        General Q&A and discussion
                As time may permit
        Adjourn to local restaurant or coffee shop

Links:
        aws.amazon.com/ec2
        aws.amazon.com/s3
        aws.amazon.com/mturk

-----------    Detailed Description   ------------
What's possible in a post Web 2.0 world? Innovation continues at a 
mind-bending pace, and this presentation will showcase some thought-provoking 
new directions that Web Services are headed in. The presentation will provide 
an overview of Amazon Web Services, including a Web Service named Mechanical 
Turk that allows computers to make requests of people, an online storage 
service, a Virtual Server service, and more.  There will also be a demo 
showing how to set up the virtual server. But mostly this will be an 
opportunity to have a discussion about innovation and entrepreneurial tools.

Amazon spent ten years developing a world-class technology and content 
platform that powers Amazon web sites for millions of customers every day. 
Most people think "Amazon.com" when they hear the word; however developers 
are excited to learn that there is a separate technology arm of the company, 
known as Amazon Web Services or AWS. Using AWS, developers can build software 
applications leveraging the same robust, scalable, and reliable technology 
that powers Amazon's retail business. AWS has now launched ten services with 
open APIs for developers to build applications, with the result that over 
265,000 developers have registered on Amazon's developer site to create 
applications based on these services..

About the Speaker
Mike Culver joined the Developer Relations Group of Amazon Web Services in 
May, 2006. Mike brings with him fifteen years of technology leadership 
experience, including at companies such as Microsoft. In addition Mr. Culver 
has a strong background running an IT organization, with over a decade of 
experience in the Electrical Wholesale Distribution industry. As a Web 
Services Evangelist at Amazon, he helps developers take advantage of 
disruptive technologies that are going to change the way we think about 
computer applications, and the way that businesses compete.