Inside the OSS Lab

SteveZ — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:13:00 GMT

To some folks outside of Microsoft, the Open-Source Software Lab has been a sort of mysterious place. A place where we study Linux and open-source software, cursing our enemies while brewing our malevolent plans to combat those nasty FOSS developers. Oh, and we also have a death ray on the roof of building 17. It's Linux-powered, of course, just to add a little irony.

As you probably have guessed, the reality is that the OSS Lab is just a room full of servers, used by engineers who just love to work with technology. Much of what we do is research, testing and of course there is an educational aspect as well. We all love Linux and open-source, and I almost never take my death-ray to work.

Currently, our lab houses about seven racks of servers. Unlike some of the build-labs on campus, the OSS Lab contains an eclectic variety of hardware. From older Pentium III Compaq blade servers, 8-way Xeon, Itanium and Opteron systems, to the latest POWER6. Most of the systems run some distribution of Linux, but we also have several BSD, AIX and Sun systems as well. And, naturally, we also have a good number of Windows systems (we are an interop lab, after all).

So now, to help cure your curiosity, the following is a short photo-tour of the actual Linux/OSS Lab at Microsoft. Enjoy!

We just had installed a new 12-ton cooling unit in the lab.
The OSS Lab has continued to grow over the years, and things were getting a bit too toasty in there.

A top view of our penguin-powered servers...

Here are a couple of our server racks. We have a fair number of blade systems now from HP, IBM and Dell.
In the background is the new IBM P570 (POWER6) system. It's basically totally sweet.

This is my favorite of them all, the ultra-small Gumstix Netstix.
We've had this little guy running Samba, Asterisk, Apache and various other things. It runs Windows CE now, too.

Two of the Penguins that work in the lab; Chris (left) and Christoph (right).

I'm not proud of this. We're typically much more organized....

I finally got our plasma screen remounted after the recent cooling upgrades.
Halo 3 looks pretty awesome, and we take our weekly UT3 tournaments very seriously.

The rest of the Penguins. From left: Christoph, Joel, Frank and Chris.

That's all for now!

Introduction: OSS Lab Manager Stephen Zarkos

SteveZ — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:17:00 GMT

As my first blog on Port25, I suppose it's appropriate to write a couple paragraphs about myself... so here it goes:

My name is Stephen Zarkos, and I am a Program Manager at the Open-Source Software Lab at Microsoft. I work directly with many of the other contributors whose blogs you've probably read on Port25, including Sam, Hank, Anandeep, Kishi and others.

I joined the Lab in September of 2005. Having a strong Linux background, the prospect of working at a Linux research lab, at Microsoft, seemed like a bit of a conflict of interest for me. But in the end it was simply raw curiosity that required me to take the job and discover what this place was all about. I can honestly say that I have not been disappointed.

I started life at Microsoft as a "Penguin", which is a term we lovingly use to describe our test engineers and Linux/OSS subject matter experts that work in the lab. It was just this last year that I moved into my current Program Manager position. Nonetheless, I still consider myself a Penguin, and much of my job still revolves around the same research, technical analysis and testing we've always done in the lab. And now as a PM, I also participate in the management and scoping of some of our research projects, as well as overall management of the lab facilities. In fact, many of my current responsibilies I inherited from Kishi, who some of you may know from his contributions to Port25.

Since my first days here I have not only had opportunities to work with many amazing people and unique technologies, I have also had a rare glimpse into the ever apparent change occurring within Microsoft and its relationship with the OSS world. I like to think that some of my blunt opinions and fanboy ranting played perhaps a small part. I used to joke that with my strong opinions about OSS, most software companies would have probably kicked me out within a few months. Sometimes, when I catch Hank on a bad day, I bet he wishes they had ;)

I think most readers of Port25 have a fair understanding of what the OSS Lab at Microsoft is all about. Part of my purpose of blogging on Port25 is to open the door a bit wider, and write about some of the inner workings of the lab itself. Be sure to watch this space in the coming weeks for more details about the OSS Lab, our projects and, of course, the Microsoft Penguins.

Port 25: The Open Source Community at Microsoft : Stephen Zarkos

Inside the OSS Lab

Introduction: OSS Lab Manager Stephen Zarkos