From: herschel@cme.nist.gov (Gus Herschel)
Newsgroups: comp.org.usenix
Subject: Re: System Administration, Networking, and Security (SANS II)
Keywords: USENIX Association, SAGE
Date: 28 Jan 93 04:19:34 GMT
Organization: National Institute of Standards & Technology, Gaithersburg, MD

In article <1993Jan25.171350.21094@erg.sri.com> bigmac@erg.sri.com (Bryan McDonald) writes:
>In article <1jn79pINN4uh@network.ucsd.edu> middleto@poincare.ucsd.edu (Tom Middleton ; System Manager) writes:
>>1) What is the relationship between SANS, SAGE and LISA?

>LISA is the System Administration conference for USENIX. SAGE is the
>System Adminstrators' Guild, a STG (Special Technical Group) of USENIX.
>SAGE's mission is to advance/promote the profession of systems' adminstration,
>looking at and beyond the scope of a technical conference like LISA to
>issues like careers, management, education, certification, ethics, etc.
>SAGE will probably be very involved in attempting to maintain the high
>quality of the LISA conferences and any other efforts of a similar nature.
>
>SANS (System Adminstration, Networking, and Security) is the renamed
>World Conference on System Administration and Security
>from last July.  It is principly sponsored by FedUNIX, a Washington, D.C.,
>based group.
>
>SAGE is also co-sponsoring SANS this year, working with the World Conference
>group to promote cooperation and interchange between their group and USENIX,
>and to bring together two groups aiming at different segments of the
>system adminstration profession.
>
>I went to both conferences last year, and was a member of the interim board
>of SAGE.  Each has its benefits.  
>SANS and LISA are differnet on focus and other mundane things, like time
>and location, and which one you attend, if you can only attend one, depends
>a lot on what you want out of the conference.

Despite the length of your answer, it didn't answer the question:
"What is the difference between LISA and SANS?"

You say "different in focus" but how?  Can't you be even a teeny bit
more specific?  Frankly, they sound the same to me.  The tutorials
were almost identical, and the program committees looked pretty
similar too.

Of course, the technical papers were different, but then they're
different from one LISA to the next LISA anyway.

I suspect the real reason for these conferences is that they are
lucrative to the people who run them; this includes the people who
give the tutorials.  Oh, sure, the people who attend the tutorials
become educated, but how about the technical papers?  Are the people
who submit to SANS those that were rejected from LISA (or vice versa)?

If there were really so many good papers, then they should've been
accepted (by whomever) in the first place.  I'd rather go to a
multi-track conference than two single track conferences each year.
Frankly, I can't afford the time or money to go to two conferences.

Is the result two lower (or at least one lower) quality conferences
instead of one high quality conference?  Heck, I don't want to go to
the inferior conference.  Which is the better of the two?

It would be interesting if someone on the program committee from one
of these conferences could look at the paper titles that were
rejected and compare these to the subsequent conference.

I'm surprised the original poster didn't also ask about USENIX's
Security symposium.  This also has a significant overlap with LISA and
SANS.  Just look at the paper titles.  Almost all of them are directly
relevant to system administration.  All the tutorials appear to be
geared to the system administrator.

Can we be honest?  If there's no difference but for geography, let's
say so.  All these different names for conferences seem like a ruse.
("yeah, that SA+Networking conference is entirely different than this
SA+Security conference!")  Oh, and I love these names: "World
Conference?" "SysAdmin+NW+Security?"  Sheesh, who thinks of these things?

And what did we ever decide about USENIX?  Does the USENIX conference
suck off the very best of the SA/security/networking papers or not?
What's this year's theory?

-Gus Herschel
Newsgroups: comp.org.usenix