Join longtime Drupal contributor and sometime Drupal trainer Dan Reif as he leads a whirlwind tour of the vagaries of DevOps, MySQL internals, APC's boneheaded cache mechanism (and Varnish's beautiful one), geopolitical implications of monetary policy, and/or why using every time you use the Boost module, a kitten dies. Audience suggestions delivered via Twitter and a dedicated Web application propel this unique presentation, which is based on one Dan gives once every few weeks at BlackMesh's corporate headquarters, wherein he stands up in front of the technical support team, gets a question from the audience, and gives a complete, in-depth answer.

Think of this like "/r/explainlikeimfive" for all the Drupal DevOps bits you've always wondered about.

This session will be entirely audience-driven; as long as Dan knows the answer, he will provide it. Audience members with relevant expertise are also encouraged to provide their own feedback and suggestions. Past topics on which Dan has led discussion have included:

• High-performance Drupal
• Techniques for horizontally scaling the Drupal files directory
• The OSI Model of networking (and how load balancers *really* work)
• VCL, the Varnish configuration language
• MySQL query analysis and tuning
• Scriptless my.cnf optimization—each common tuning option explained, in detail
• FUSE—Filesystem in USErspace
• OpenStack and the fundamental precepts of cloud computing
• Operating principles and relative merits of different paintball guns
• Military defense theory as applied to two-dimensional and three-dimensional battlefields
• Troubleshooting techniques for Web applications
• Fiscal and geopolitical benefits of the current debt, deficit, and budget of the United States
• APC—why it's necessary, and why it really, really sucks.
• Stupid Drush tricks
• Vi(m) vs. Emacs, the conclusive battle (takes less than 30 seconds)

Needless to say, this will be a rollicking good time; it's probably one of very few sessions that will be significantly enhanced by showing up with a beer (or two) in hand.

[Note: this is a Beginner-level session in the sense that no (or very little) previous knowledge is assumed. But it's appropriate for all skill levels, and we'll be delving into many Advanced-level topics. Show up with your thinking cap firmly affixed.]