T minus 15 days to Brian “Krow” Aker’s Astricon Keynote
Danny September 9th, 2008
With Astricon only 2 weeks away, the Digium team is in high gear working to make this year’s event the biggest and best Astricon yet. By all measures (attendees, exhibitors, speakers, hotel rooms, etc) we’re well on the way to doing just that. I’m sure a part of the increased interest and awareness of the event is in response to the growing momentum of Asterisk as an open source project, but I wouldn’t discount the draw associated with the pair of industry icons that have agreed to deliver each day’s keynote address.
Wednesday’s keynote speaker is Brian Aker. Brian, now the Director of Architecture at MySQL AB, describes himself as an open-source hacker. In the past Brian has worked at VA Linux, Andover.net, the Cobalt Group, and a few others places. Along the way he’s worked on some very innovative projects including Virtual Hospital, Slashdot, and MySQL. Some of the MySQL projects Brian has created include:
- The Drizzle Database server
- MySQL Archive Storage Engine
- MySQL Federated Storage Engine
- Memcached Storage Engine
- CSV Storage Engine
- Blackhole Storage Engine
- WebMethods (HTTP) Storage Engine
After graduating with triple majors in environmental science, computing and mathematics, from Antioch College, Aker contributed to his first open source project, the 386BSD operating system. He then moved to work on Slashdot, where his initial task was to rewrite the database back-end to use Oracle. However, he extended the system to ensure it allowed multiple database back-ends, and became a published author along the way, writing Running Weblogs with Slash (ISBN 978-0596001001) with chromatic and Dave Krieger. From 2001 to 2007 he posted stories on Slashdot under the Author name of “Krow”.
Aker first involved himself with the MySQL project in 1998. In 2001 he released an early prototype of MySQL with perl based functions and later went from VA Linux Systems to MySQL to lead development of the 4.1 and 5.0 versions of the MySQL Database Server. He has presented projects integrating MySQL with a number of technologies, including a working version of MySQL with Java based functions with Eric Herman in 2004. He is also the maintainer of the C client library for the Memcached server.
While not travelling or presenting at open source related conferences, he resides in Seattle, Washington. Some of the conferences where Aker has presented include OSCON, Linuxfest Northwest, and the MySQL Users Conference & Expo. For fun, Aker also hacks his home telephone system, to be powered by the Asterisk (PBX). His vast open source pedigree, Asterisk knowledge, and entertaining personality and style ensures that this will be one keynote you will not want to miss.
T minus 15 days and counting!
About the Author
Danny Windham joined Digium in February, 2007 as CEO. In this role, Windham is responsible for setting corporate strategy and executing day to day business operations. Prior to joining Digium, Windham served as president and chief operating officer of ADTRAN, a global provider of networking and communications equipment. Windham joined ADTRAN in… more about Danny
