The skies are clear and blue, and I am headed to Amsterdam for Puppet Camp. This is my second time organizing camp, and despite selling out of tickets a bit early things seem to be on track. I am looking forward to arriving and getting started—I’ve been so caught up in planning PuppetConf the last few weeks that I almost forgot about actually attending Camp.

I’ve received a lot of questions concerning Puppet Camp and PuppetCon, so I want to take a moment to clear up the differences. PuppetConf will be on September 22nd and 23rd in Portland, Oregon. It’s not meant to replace Camp. Instead, it’s a new event in our conference series. PuppetConf will be based in Portland and happen annually. This year we’re expecting around three hundred in attendance, doubling Puppet Camp’s numbers. We’re going to offer four tracks: Puppet 101, Developing Puppet, a Cloud topic, and a DevOps topic.

Puppet Camp will stick around, but will become a more regional one-day event occurring several times a year. I suspect we’ll offer one in the bay over the summer, and one in Boston after PuppetCon, but don’t hold me to that. In 2012 I want to aim for five camps—I’m thinking San Francisco, New York, Austin, Berlin, and London; if I feel really ambitious we might shoot for Bangalore. The goal is for these events to be community-focused. Camps will promote local user partnering and will continue to be unconferences.

Anyhow, this Camp is sure to be a righteous, good time. I am looking forward to meeting everyone. Be sure to chat with us during the conference on twitter using #puppetcamp.

As Puppet Camp draws closer, many of you are inevitably balancing the costs and benefits of attending camp. Perhaps you don’t want to lose a few days at the office, or maybe the flight and hotel fees have you worried. Here are some helpful points that will help alleviate any concerns you might have, and some tips to help you get the most out of your experience at Puppet Camp.

Facts about Puppet Camp

• Puppet Camp is an educational endeavor.

  You’ll learn more about Puppet in 2 days from other users that you could in a month by yourself. You’ll learn about our future goals for the product, trade-secret work-arounds, and a whole host of other information. No matter how active you are in the community there is really no equal to face-to-face education. The exchange of knowledge Puppet Camp facilitates is by far its most valuable aspect.

• Puppet Camp is an exercise in community outreach and discovery.

  Part of what has made Puppet successful, and why Puppet will continue to be successful, is the large group of Puppet users. However, we need to build off the existing community in order to grow. New and potential users flock to Puppet Camp, but without a large block of experienced users we’re unlikely to continue to see growth in bug reports, patches and information exchange through our IRC channel, mailing lists, and user groups.

• Puppet Camp has been coupled with Puppet training.

  Puppet Master Training, Developer Training, and MCollective Training are offered in the days before Puppet Camp, creating a unique opportunity for your entire staff to advance their Puppet IQ, meet the community, and return ready to create or improve your Puppet environment. Puppet Master training is offered frequently—and is the perfect way to ramp up a new member of your staff or to solidify best practices before building a Puppet environment—but Developer training is offered less often due to it’s advanced prerequisites. The Amsterdam MCollective Training is the first of it’s kind offered to the public. We encourage you to take this opportunity to attend one of these more infrequent courses—they’ll likely only be offered near you once a year.

Tips

• Know why you’re coming.

  Sit down for a minute and think about why you’re attending Puppet Camp. What do you hope to learn? What do you want to know? Are you coming to get a broad introduction to Puppet? Do you want to know more about managing desktops with Puppet? Do you want to know how to manage a Hadoop cluster with Puppet? Whatever your reason is, make sure you know it, so when you see a talk you have a clear plan to get the most out of the information (where to go, who to talk to, what questions to ask).

• Get involved!

  Our call for papers ends March 6th. Simply e-mail us or register as a speaker and submit your talk. We’ll get back in touch and let you know what to expect. Longer, 45 minute, main stage talks are available as are 20 minute group discussion lead talks. We also have space for volunteers to lead our code sprint room. Sponsorship opportunities are also available, offering a chance to combine supporting an open source project with a great marketing opportunity. Sponsorships help pay for the event and keep ticket prices down, help to compensate speakers, and expand the opportunities offered at Puppet Camp. We’re very grateful for our current sponsors: Redpill Linpro AS, Quanza Engineering BV, AmaziQSource, Camptocamp SA, and Netways.

• Read our other Puppet Camp Resources

  • Puppet Camp Home Page
  • Puppet Camp EU 2011
  • A Puppeteers Guide to Amsterdam
  • 5 Reasons to Attend Puppet Camp (from 2010)

  

  

  

  

  

I’ve reached in and plucked out the last men’s medium, the smalls have been gone for months, I overstocked on XXLs and there’s a rumor around these parts that they might get tied together to make a hammock. Yes folks, it’s true, we’re out of t-shirts. Like its predecessor “Because SSH and a ‘for’ loop doesn’t cut it”, “I pull the strings around here” has to be retired.

While we’re sad to retire such a well-branded tagline, we’re excited to announce the Second Annual Quest for Eternal Timé T-shirt Tagline Contest! (Timé in the Homeric sense, not time.)

How it works

1. Think of an awesome, Puppet-themed tagline.
2. Submit your awesome idea by February 25th (see below).
3. Our board of certified humor experts will review and pick out the top submissions.
4. Vote in our poll on February 28th March 4th for your favorite tagline.

This year we’ll likely select two winners, one for our Puppet shirts and one for our new Puppet Enterprise shirts, so be sure to test the enterprise installer to get some ideas bubbling.

The overall winner of the contest will receive a Parrot AR.Drone, a free ticket to Puppet Camp, and a limited edition t-shirt with their winning slogan. The runner-up enterprise winner will also receive a limited edition shirt and a free registration to Puppet Camp!

The Puppet Community has been churning with activity lately. If you’re new to the Puppet Community, take a minute to check out the list of appearances and events below. Additionally, check out the 2,600 participant Puppet User mailing list and the 575 participant Puppet Developer mailing list, join 400+ participants on IRC and take part in the conversation on Twitter by following @puppetlabs and utilizing the #puppet hashtag. 

If you’re already involved in the community take a minute and pat yourself on the back. You’re a part of a growing network of professionals utilizing open source technology.

Be sure to join us at an event near you and don’t forget to check out Puppet Camp in Amsterdam this April!

February

February 5th & 6th

February 8th, 9th & 10th

February 15th

February 15th, 16th & 17th

February 19th

February 24th

February 25th

March

March 1st, 2nd & 3rd

March 5th

March 7th & 8th

March 9th

March 10th

March 11th & 12th

March 14th

That is only the next 7 weeks of upcoming events! Are you interested in having Puppet Labs speak at your conference or event, starting a Puppet or DevOps group, or talking about Puppet at a conference? Email us!

See more opportunities to converse and talk about Puppet:

Puppet Camp Europe 2011 will be held in the capital of the Netherlands (also known as “the Venice of the North”): Amsterdam. A land where people eat cheese and wear clogs, and vehicles with more than two wheels are outlawed, right?

Amsterdam is a city with lots of things to see and do, but also perfect for a relaxing stroll. If you like exploring the unknown, it is well worth it to book a few extra nights before or after Puppet Camp to enjoy Amsterdam during springtime. We’ll try to showcase some of the highlights of the city to make the trip to Puppet Camp even more special.

An easy way to check out the city’s canals and unique architecture is by boat tour. The city has an extensive network of tram lines to take you anywhere you want. Either purchase one-trip tickets when entering a tram, or purchase a public transport chip card for your entire stay upon your arrival at Amsterdam central station. If you want to be more mobile, you can rent bikes and check out the city center at your own pace—but watch our for trams, because they have right of way.

If you’d rather experience the city through food and drink, check out the Heineken Experience for a tour through the old Heineken brewery, including a couple of refreshing beers afterward. If you want to taste more local beers, we recommend visiting Brouwerij ‘t IJ. Amsterdam has many fine dining establishments, where tipping is a compliment to the server and is not compulsory.

For those that want to learn more about Amsterdam’s history and culture, there are a number of interesting museums. The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam is dedicated to arts, crafts and history, while the Royal Palace is a piece of history itself. The Anne Frank House is the former home of Anne Frank, a well-known Jewish victim of World War II who has fascinated millions of people with her diary.

On Saturday, the day after Puppet Camp, Amsterdam will turn orange as the Dutch celebrate Queen’s Day, a typical Dutch holiday originally used to celebrate the monarch’s birthday. This large celebration includes live music, street theater, and flea markets. The streets will be crowded with partygoers on Friday and Saturday. If you intend on leaving on Saturday morning, please note that cabs will not be allowed in the city center and the city will become very crowded by mid-morning. We hope you’ll want to stick around and enjoy Amsterdam, but if you plan to leave Saturday, leave in the early morning or stay in a hotel outside of the city center.

We are looking forward to meeting you in Amsterdam. In the meantime, if you want to learn more about the Dutch and their habits, read The UnDutchables or Xenophobe’s guide to the Dutch.

Puppet Camp Eu 2011: Amsterdam is Sponsored by

A big thanks to Bart Feenstra for helping research and write for this blog post!

Whether you were able to join us at Puppet Camp last week or missed out, here is a quick recap:

Wednesday started off with simultaneously the best and most awkward dinner I’ve had in a while. While searching for a reservation for 20 people at 7pm in a city at near capacity I had the good fortune to trust Yelp recommendations which led me to take our group a small hole in the wall Pakistani restaurant. True to it’s roots, Shalimar offered a family style meal sans alcohol. Those opining for beer were silenced by the sharp flavors and spices the meal offered and the family style plate sharing bonded the Puppet team and some of our guests at the Serrano in unexpected ways.

Thursday hit like the first splash of water from the shower head: it’s sharp, cold, and confusing but you have to just wait it out. The crowed poured in and our speakers arrived. Breakfast was laid out and most importantly the wireless was working. Our MC Deepak opened with a little stand-up and tid-bits of information and before long Luke announced that Puppet Labs had acquired mCollective, a deal that literally occurred at the registration table mere minutes earlier. A huge thanks is owed to our presenters R.I. Pienaar, Jeff McCune, and Richard Crowley. Their slides and video presentations will be available soon. The night ended at Swig for a drink reception at which attendees consumed a copious amount of alcohol, the tab for which was graciously sponsored by Canonical & Puppet Labs, and then turned into a spread sheet for Friday morning.

A more sluggish crowd arrived Friday morning and proceeded to consume 180 cans of Red Bull. Big thanks to Paul Nasrat, Jason Wright, John Adams, and Alessandro Franceschi for their presentations. Our morning break was interrupted by a fire alarm and all 140 of us marched like ants down 11 flights of stairs but the rest of the day went relatively smooth. A beginners session was offered to participants by Puppet Lab’s own Dan Bode in the afternoon. If you were interested in Dan’s presentation and the “Puppet Newbies” breakout session on Thursday don’t forget to mark your calendars for the 3-day Puppet Master Training offered in the Bay Area on December 7th-9th. Puppet Camp closed with a panel discussion that allowed members from the Puppet Community to discuss the future of the project.

All in all I think Puppet Camp was a success but please provide any feedback you have on our Puppet Camp Survey. Again a big thanks to our sponsors RightScale, NetworkRedux, Canonical, and Red Bull. Also, thanks to Gary Larizza for all of the pictures.

Whether you were able to join us at Puppet Camp last week or missed out, here is a quick recap:

Wednesday started off with simultaneously the best and most awkward dinner I’ve had in a while. While searching for a reservation for 20 people at 7pm in a city at near capacity I had the good fortune to trust Yelp recommendations which led me to take our group to a small hole in the wall Pakistani restaurant. True to its roots, Shalimar offered a family style meal sans alcohol. Those opining for beer were silenced by the sharp flavors and spices the meal offered and the family style plate sharing bonded the Puppet team and some of our guests at the Serrano in unexpected ways.

Thursday hit like the first splash of water from the shower head: it’s sharp, cold, and confusing but you have to just wait it out. The crowed poured in and our speakers arrived. Breakfast was laid out and most importantly the wireless was working. Our MC Deepak opened with a little stand-up and tid-bits of information and before long Luke announced that Puppet Labs had acquired mCollective, a deal that literally occurred at the registration table mere minutes earlier. A huge thanks is owed to our presenters R.I. Pienaar, Jeff McCune, and Richard Crowley. Their slides and video presentations will be available soon. The night ended at Swig for a drink reception at which attendees consumed a copious amount of alcohol, the tab for which was graciously sponsored by Canonical & Puppet Labs, and then turned into a spread sheet for Friday morning.

A more sluggish crowd arrived Friday morning and proceeded to consume 180 cans of Red Bull. Big thanks to Paul Nasrat, Jason Wright, John Adams, and Alessandro Franceschi for their presentations. Our morning break was interrupted by a fire alarm and all 140 of us marched like ants down 11 flights of stairs but the rest of the day went relatively smooth. A beginners session was offered to participants by Puppet Lab’s own Dan Bode in the afternoon. If you were interested in Dan’s presentation and the “Puppet Newbies” breakout session on Thursday don’t forget to mark your calendars for the 3-day Puppet Master Training offered in the Bay Area on December 7th-9th. Puppet Camp closed with a panel discussion that allowed members from the Puppet Community to discuss the future of the project.

All in all I think Puppet Camp was a success but please provide any feedback you have on our Puppet Camp Survey. Again a big thanks to our sponsors RightScale, NetworkRedux, Canonical, and Red Bull. Also, thanks to Gary Larizza for all of the pictures.

Puppet Camp Schedule

We’re only a few short days away from Puppet Camp. Here is a solid line up of speakers and breaks. We look forward to seeing you in San Francisco. If you haven’t signed up yet, get your ticket now.

Thursday – October 7

• 8:00 am

  Breakfast

• 9:00 am

  Introduction

• 9:20 am

  Keynote by Luke Kanies, CEO of Puppet Labs

• 10:00 am

  Presentation by R.I Pienaar, Founder of mCollective

• 10:45 am

  Morning Tea

• 11:20 am

  Presentation by Digant Kasundra, Stanford University

• 12:10 pm

  Presentation by Richard Crowley, Founder of DevStructure

• 1:00 pm

  Lunch

• 2:00 pm

  Breakout Session

• 2:30 pm

  Breakout Session

• 3:10 pm

  Afternoon Tea

• 3:45 pm

  Breakout Session

• 4:20 pm

  Breakout Session

• 6:00pm

  Drink Reception at Swig

Friday – October 8

• 8:00 am

  Breakfast

• 9:00 am

  Introduction

• 9:20 am

  Presentation by John Adams, Operations Tech Lead at Twitter

• 10:10 am

  Presentation by Paul Nasrat, Google

• 11:00 am

  Morning Tea

• 11:30 am

  Presentation by Jason Wright, Google

• 12:20 pm

  Presentation by Alessandro Franceschi, Lab42

• 1:10 pm

  Lunch

• 2:15 pm

  Breakout Session

• 2:50 pm

  Breakout Session

• 3:30 pm

  Afternoon Tea

• 4:00 pm

  Breakout Session

• 4:35 pm

  Breakout Session

We’re happy to announce three more speakers for Puppet Camp:

Paul Nasrat works at Google, London as a Site Reliability Engineer. He has a background in both systems administration and development, having worked for an assortment of companies. He’s passionate about collaborative working between teams, automation and loves debugging gnarly problems. He will be presenting reFacter – Moving Facter Forward

Jason Wright works at Google and manages their Puppet deployment. Jason will be talking about Google’s load balancing rollout, how they monitor Puppet using the REST API to make catalog requests and will touch on the performance testing that he’s been doing recently.

Jason has been with Google for over seven years.  Prior to owning Puppet he worked their internal Ubuntu team providing Hardy based server, desktop and laptop distributions using Puppet and ran the corporate e-mail service for Google.com in the days before Gmail.

Lastly, Alessandro Franceschi will be presenting Re-Use Your Modules:
Techniques and Approaches to Modules Reusability. Alessandro started to use Puppet in 2007 deploying the webfarm of Banca d’Italia. In the following years he has been interested in developing reusable modules with support for different operating systems, the result of this effort is the Example42 modules collection, an ongoing work with particular focus on reusability, interoperability and multi OS support.

Alessandro will focus on some techniques and approaches that can be used to create reusable modules that adapt themselves to different operating systems and projects.

Puppet Camp features four short talks and four participant generated breakout sessions each day. We’re also really excited announce RightScale and Network Redux as our co-sponsors.

We’re pleased to announce a brief list of presenters and topics for Puppet Camp North America. We’ve got a couple of great talks to look forward to and are still looking for a presenter or two. If the talks listed below spark an idea for a talk please contact us. Also we would like to announce the launch of two new pages on our site that contain some useful information on Puppet Camp that will help you plan and prepare for your trip, Puppet Camp General Information and Puppet Camp FAQ. You can also register for the event at this page.

Up first each morning you’ll hear from our MC Deepak Giridharagopal. Deepak is a Systems Architect at Dell. He is an active member of the Puppet Community and has contributed code to Puppet core. You’ll also hear from Luke Kanies. He’ll deliver a short keynote that will shed light on Puppet’s past, present, and future; discuss the future and goals of Puppet Labs; and share new information about Puppet’s Roadmap, Forge and Facter.

Digant Kasundra leads Stanford’s Puppet implementation. His talk, Puppet in the IT Organization, will touch on the drivers Stanford had for deploying Puppet, and how Puppet helps manage infrastructure and users. In talking about drivers he plans to discuss how strict style guides and coding standards benefit Stanford’s implementation and how the Puppet Community could benefit if a standard is developed among systems administrators. Lastly, he will show you how Puppet can help keep upper management happy through integration with ITIL and a CMDB.

R.I. Pienaar will be delivering Introduction to The Marionette Collective. He will demonstrate how to use mCollective with Puppet and showcase some of it’s orchestration capabilities.

Jeff McCune is presenting Use Cases of the Puppet Ruby DSL. Using Puppet’s new Ruby domain specific language provides a number of interesting benefits but also presents some new hurdles. Jeff will examine interesting examples of effectively using the Ruby DSL and explore potential best practices when utilizing Ruby Puppet manifests.

You’ll also hear from John Adams. He will be presenting on how Twitter runs Puppet on a large scale (many thousands of servers). He will talk about the lessons learned during their use of Puppet, and how people should use start using configuration management early in startups. He’ll also discuss how Twitter manages users with Puppet, LDAP, and custom code.

Above is only a brief account of what is to come so keep checking back for more details.