The Advanced Computing Systems Association (USENIX) Technical Conference has been around for decades. Originally started in 1975 as the Unix Users Group, the 5,000-member-strong organization has evolved into a forum for operating system users and researchers, and the particularly strong influence of SAGE (the organization's special interest group for system administrators) gives the event the unique flavor of academics mingling with practitioners. Although the Unix and Unix-like roots of the organization are prominent, the large Microsoft Research contingent – and their sponsorship – illustrates the diversity of the event.

Starting on June 22, more than 600 attendees descended on the Boston Sheraton, right on the heels of the closing Red Hat Summit held next door at the Hynes Convention Center the previous week. Featuring 25 tutorials and nearly 100 sessions and presentations in a variety of formats, the conference shines in the high signal-to-noise ratio that characterizes it.

The initial volley of three days of highly specialized tutorials focused on the area of performance tuning – whether network, system, or virtualized – but was by no means limited to this topic. The "Lady of System Administration," Æleen Frisch, led a tutorial that focused on automation techniques and the latest tools in the area. Among other notable speakers, Perl evangelist Tom Christiansen and Shmoo Group founder Bruce Potter spoke on the subjects of the latest Perl 5.10 features and Botnets.

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