MOBICENTS MEETING @ ANTALYA

I've got a wonderful story to tell. It all started around beginning of August when some discussions started about a Mobicents team meeting. The main criteria for the choice of the place where it would take was that Oleg, our Russian colleague that we have never met before for several reasons, would have to be present. At that time we didn't know if we would have budget to meet, because of the so called financial crises, so we decided to go for a location that would not be too expensive to stay and to travel to. The place chosen was Antalya, in Turkish riviera. Eduardo and his wife Diana made a terrific job on choosing the place. We stayed for a week in hotel Alva Donna in Belek, just outside Antalya, and it was superb. The budget was aprooved and we scheduled the meeting to take place in the last week of September, from Friday 24 to Thusrday 30.

I flew with the Portuguese team (Eduardo and Alexandre) from Lisbon to Antalya. It was a fast trip, as we haven't been together for a while and have lot's of stuff to discussed. When we arrived at the Antalya airport Bartosz and Vladimir were waiting for us. We went together to the resort were we met the rest of the team (they were waiting for us at the bar, of course). Something great about this meeting was the fact that everybody was able to come (even Tom came all the way from Australia), and even some members of our beloved community made it despite the short notice. There was no meeting on the first day, it was reserved for team building. We went rafting in the mountains nearby.

Sunday was the first day that we actually did some work. Those presentations were for Red Hat employees only and we discussed business strategies and the productization process. Although QA was not in the agenda, I did a brief 30 minutes presentation. The topics covered were the following:

• Achievemnts (This includes 10 JBCP releases during last year plus most of community releases, the work done in test tools like the report tools and smartfrog setups to test distributed scenarios)
• Mobicents on Hudson (What tests were added during last year, and what services are being provided by Hudson)
• Current Issues (Mostly the lack of resorts)
• Future work (JBCP5, improve HA tests, create an independent project to host the developed tools)

From there on, the presentations were shared with the members of the community present. They were kind to introduce us to their projects, and explain how they are using Mobicents to deliver new and innovative services. It was great for us to understand what are their needs and to know that our work is the foundation for what these guys do. The Mobicents team members were also able to present what was accomplished in the last year, and the list is big. Whenever we make such balances on what has been done in one year period, it always amazes me how such a small team can do so many great things. Just to name the most important, Jain-SLEE has gone HA, and with it most of it's resource adaptors. Media server was rewritten almost from scratch to deliver better quality and performance. Sip-Servlets has now many more features, especially in HA. Diameter project is now an important reality within Mobicents, and the most important diameter applications were developed. In SS7 the progress is also impressive, as several legacy protocols are now supported. If we look inside of each project the list goes on and on.

Although the presentations are the reason we meet, we try to spend most of the time with fun and games. Being in a 5 star resort was great for that. We never felt the need to leave the resort, so many were the activities that we could do. No time wasted driving around town. For instance, the launch break was always spent inside the gorgeous pool with just a quick meal in the buffet restaurant before going back. At night, after dinner, there was always a top notch show for the guests and from that on we just kept on partying until we can. I am really proud of not falling asleep during the presentations. I want to share with everybody some pictures that try to show a little bit of the good times we had. You can access them at http://picasaweb.google.pt/lbbbarreiro/MobicentsMeetingAntalya.

The usual suspects: Selah, Pavel, Eduardo, Raziya, Amit, Ivelin, Bartosz, Oleg, Luis, Jean, Alexandre
We searched for Vladimir but couldn't find him to take the picture with us.

Have fun,