Members and friends of the Edmonton Area Local Users Group (EARLUG) met at the Alberta Research Council auditorium on April 25, 2007 to celebrate 30 years as a Canadian Local Users Group of Digital, Compaq and HP enterprise technology.

The day's festivities started off with a social meet-and-greet to renew old acquaintances and meet with representatives from the Alberta offices of HP (Canada): Glenn Bontje (Business Development Manager, High Performance Computing and Storage, and Ken LaBlanc, District Manager, Northern Alberta and the Prairies. HP (Canada).

The afternoon's agenda consisted of a technical session given by Glenn Bontje about the challenges of modern high-density computing facilities, especially those of supplying adequate power and cooling. In the presentation, Glenn showed us examples of multiple systems and storage components per rack both as individual units and as "blades."

The technical session was then followed by the presentation of a commemorative certificate to EARLUG from Encompass Canada and a screening of a short video containing photo images the Encompass Canada Heritage Archives.

The celebration then moved to EARLUG's usual watering hole and meeting place at Brewsters for an evening of great conversation, wrapping up a day of renewing old friendships and building new relationships. (more to come...)