Call for Technical Presentations

17th Annual System Administrators' Conference (SAGE-AU 2009)
The System Administrators' Guild of Australia
10th - 14th August 2009

The Courtyard Marriott
Cnr Surfers Paradise Bvd and Hanlan St
Surfers Paradise

The SAGE-AU Annual Conference is the premier Systems Administration event in the Asia-Pacific region. The conference offers a premium educational forum for System Administrators of all platforms and levels of experience, and an excellent opportunity to meet, network and learn from acknowledged experts in the field.

This year's conference will start with three days of tutorials followed by the technical program. The technical program will run in two parallel streams covering a wide variety of system administration related talks.

Conference Dates and Location

Submission Dates

We may not be able to provide you with your speaker benefits where draft materials have not been submitted.

To submit your paper or tutorial please visit our conference management site.

Conference Theme: Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability (CIA model)

There are three main requirements on secure information systems, Confidentiality; Integrity and Availability. Information must only be accessible by those who are authorised to access it. Data must be accurate and must not change through storage or transfer to another system. Data must be available to authorised users upon demand.

These three requirements do not work in isolation. An authentication violation (integrity) can expose data to unauthorised parties (confidentiality) and those parties might then delete some of that information (availability).

The theme for this year's conference is based on the CIA model with a particular focus on the effects of internet content filtering. Talks or tutorials covering these or related fields are particularly welcomed.

Wishlist

Our members have expressed interest in a number of potential talk topics. If you know someone (possibly yourself) who might be able to provide a talk on one of these topics please send them a link to this page. This page will be updated as further suggestions are made. See our 2009 conference wishlist page for more information.

Paper Proposals

SAGE-AU'2009 is hereby calling for papers and topics relevant to the profession of System Administration. Papers should have a technical or managerial System Administration orientation, and should not contain advertising. Possible talks topics include:

• Selling yourself/your team
• Successful negotiation
• Disasters recovered
• Security issues
• Tools, tricks and tips
• Standards

For some examples, you may find it valuable to look at both last year's technical programme and [previous conferences]. There is also a 2009 conference wishlist.

We will accept the following types of presentation:

Lightning talks (5 minutes)

You don't need to submit a proposal for a lightning talk. These will be organised from sign-up sheets at the conference. Instructions will be given on the first day. Lightning talks are brief talks that focus on a single example, idea, project or technique. Lightning talks are not expected to cover all aspects of the subject. They're an excellent forum for first-time speakers.

Standard (30 minutes)

This is the preferred format. 20 minutes for talking and 5 minutes for questions (with 5 minutes spare for set-up and take-down). This is enough time to cover a few issues well and allows us to provide a good selection of talks throughout the day.

Extended (60 minutes)

Extended talks are ideal for experienced speakers who want to cover a large topic. 45 minutes for talking and 10 minutes for questions (with 5 minutes spare for set-up and take-down).

If you choose this longer time slot please include include a justification in your proposal. We reserve the right to ask you to change a long talk proposal to be a standard length instead.

Submitting a Technical Paper for Consideration

If you wish to present a paper, please submit your proposal to our conference management site by the closing date (3rd April).

Additional questions and inquiries should be directed to:

Paper Submission

All presenters are required to submit presentation materials by the specified dates. Failure to do so may result in loss of your speaking slot and speaker benefits.

The final paper submission is expected to be a "camera ready" paper for inclusion in the conference proceedings. This final copy must be submitted in an approved format (see "Author Guidelines"). Authors should note that at least a one page paper is required - submissions consisting solely of presentation slides are insufficient.

Authors may submit their content in HTML or PDF.

Please ensure that your final submission has had its grammar and spelling corrected and that examples work. Your paper allows attendees who attended your talk a chance to refresh their memories about your presentation, and gives attendees who missed your talk a chance to learn from you anyway. Make sure your paper includes - at the very least - a brief introduction to your subject material and a list of further resources.

Speaker Benefits

People presenting a technical paper (a 30 or 60 minute talk) will receive one full discount on the Technical Program (Thursday & Friday only). In the case of more than one author, only a single author will be afforded the discount. Only one discounted attendance is available per person. If a presenter is also presenting a tutorial, this discount is not applicable.

Note that you may lose both your speaker slot and benefits if you do not meet our due dates. If you find that you need more time, please contact the program coordinator to see if an extension is possible.

Practice

The Programme Committee will issue guidelines to assist authors in planning their papers and presentations. We strongly encourage those inexperienced in public speaking to trial their presentations at their local chapter's meetings.

Tutorial Proposals

SAGE-AU'2009 is hereby calling for tutorial presentations on topics relevant to the profession of System Administration.

Suggested topics include:

• Management practices for System Administrators
• Disaster recovery and high availability
• Computer and network security
• High performance
• Networking
• Cross platform interoperability

For some examples, you may find it valuable to look at both last year's tutorials and [previous conferences]. There is also a 2009 conference wishlist.

Submitting a Tutorial Presentation for Consideration

Tutorial sessions will be either 3 hours or 6 hours duration.

People wishing to present tutorials should submit a 1000 word abstract of the material they wish to present, who their intended audience is, and an indication of whether they require a 3 hour or 6 hour time slot.

Tutorial presenters are required to submit a tutorial draft to allow the committee to provide feedback and assist with the editorial process.

Tutorials should be run in lecture format.

As SAGE-AU Conferences typically receive a large number proposals for Tutorials, authors of tutorial proposals are requested to mention whether they would be able to provide a condensed version of their material in the technical programme instead.

If you wish to present a tutorial, please submit your proposal to our conference management site by the closing date (3rd April 2009).

Additional questions and inquiries should be directed to:

Author Guidelines

The Programme Committee will issue guidelines to assist authors in planning their presentations. We strongly encourage those inexperienced in public speaking to trial their presentations at their local chapter's meetings.

Authors are asked to provide their material in either PDF or HTML.

Tutorial Remuneration

Tutorial presenters will receive an honorarium of AUD$600 per 3 hour tutorial and AUD$1200 per 6 hour tutorial.

An additional "bonus" payment of AUD$75 per 3 hour tutorial and AUD$150 per 6 hour tutorial will be paid to presenters who submit camera-ready originals of handout material on-time in accordance with the published schedule.

Tutorial Presenter Benefits

People presenting a tutorial will receive free registration for the Technical Program (Thursday & Friday only) and the conference dinner. In the case of more than one presenter, only a single author will be afforded the discount. Only one discounted attendance is available per person.

SAGE-AU will reimburse tutorial presenters reasonable costs of producing handout materials; materials submitted on-time will be printed by SAGE-AU on the presenter's behalf.