The time has come to start thinking about this year's CIFS Conference and Plugfest. The website (http://www.cifs2005.org/) is now up and has lots of good information on the event. Those interested in attending can find information on registration. Many of us on the Samba Team will attend, as the conference is a great chance for those interested in CIFS compatibility and interoperability to get together.

This year marks the 9th Annual CIFS Conference and Plugfest, which will take place August 1-5, 2005 at the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose, California. To be co-located at this event, the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) proudly announces the inaugural Developer Solutions Conference and Showcase. Together these events hope to bring to you industry breaking knowledge in a vendor neutral forum of education and technical development.

With the contributions of speakers and attendees, the result of this industry effort is that it helps ensure product compatibility and interoperability for both current and future CIFS implementations and also assists in decreased time-to-market for new products and improved interoperability in the market place.

Along with the conference, the Plugfest allows vendors to bring their client and server implementations of CIFS to test, identify and fix bugs in a collaborative setting. The goal is to provide a forum where companies can develop compatible CIFS products.

To get involved or to register for the conference, please see http://www.cifs2005.org/.