Cheryl's Link
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- October 9, 1998
CMG, the Computer Measurement Group, is an excellent user group with a focus on capacity planning (CP) and performance management (PM) issues. I consider CMG to be the source of most of the definitive work in CP and PM today. CMG sponsors a yearly conference the second week of December and supports many regional and international groups who sponsor their own meetings. Papers to be presented at the national CMG conference are submitted in late spring and are refereed by peers and published in both hardcopy and CD-ROM. I really respect the CMG papers and think they are among the best available on capacity and performance topics.
The CMG home page gives you information on their upcoming conference. The next conference will be held December 6-11 in Anaheim, CA ($850 for members, $1050 for non-members). The conference also includes a technology fair where you can find some of the leading software and hardware vendors displaying their latest. It's really an excellent week for learning, exchanging information, and seeing the latest technology.
Clicking on CMG National gives you access to the following: What is CMG?, Membership (only $125), a Calendar of Events showing the regional meetings, CMG Bulletins (the CMG newsletter), Publications, CMG Conference (schedule for the next few years), other related Web sites, and names and contact information for CMG board members and headquarters staff. If you're interested in capacity and performance, I'd highly recommend that you consider getting the CMG proceedings each year. I wouldn't be without them. Conference proceedings contain the full, refereed papers: hardcopy: US$45-90 for members, $100 for non-members; CD-ROM: $50 for members, $100 for non-members.
If you look closely, you can find some excellent papers available for downloading from the CMG site. Go to CMG National, then click the CMG97 icon on the left side of the page. At the bottom of the selection, you'll find the best papers and papers from the most highly attended sessions from CMG 96. (My Quickstart Policy paper is there.) Then back to CMG National and click the CMG97 Handouts icon on the left of the page. You'll find presentation handouts such as Mullen winner Linwood Merritt's "Performance Data from the Server to the Intranet" and Bernie Domanski's "Capacity Planning in a Distributed Environment."
The CMG Discussion/Bulletin Board listed at the start of the home page is in its infancy with only a dozen entries, but it has potential. It's meant for discussion of capacity and performance issues. They have a lot of competition in the forum arena, so we'll have to see how it works out.
Spend some time browsing this site – it's definitely worth your time!
In a couple of weeks, I'll take you on a tour of another great user group, SHARE, which also provides much valuable information.