I am responsible for the Solaris Cluster product in Sun Microsystems.  I took over as the Director of the Cluster Engineering team in December 2007 and  started the planning of this release at that time. I am very happy that we got the release done today 27th January 2009, as we had planned! We ran into our fair share of issues along the way but got done with the release on schedule. You can get more details on the products and the features here. You can also read more on Oasis.

The Cluster Team is fantastic! The team has some of …

Today is a great day in the history of the United States and of the world! It was indeed wonderful to see Barack Obama sworn in as the President of the United States! I am really excited by the thought of having an intelligent, rational and progressive president in the USA. He has a very tough job ahead of him, cleaning up all the rubbish he has inherited. His speech was, as always, superbly delivered. He set the expectations, hinting at the issues facing the nation.

Obama has come a long way. My favourite picture of Obama and …

I read “The White Tiger”, the debut novel by Aravind Adiga. This book won the Booker prize in 2008.

This fast-moving novel is written as a seven-part letter to the Chinese prime minister who is to visit Bangalore. Adiga tells his gripping story in a narrative style. He does a good job of striking a balance between his wretched life and the privileged masters that he serves. The novel expresses deep anger and hatred at injustice, corruption and power of the new India. There is no subtlety in his message. This comes across very strongly.

Warning….this is a spoiler …

The Getty museum, atop a hill, looks majestic from the I405 freeway. Amit and I got to the Getty Museum in the evening on a Saturday. We took a tram to go to the top of the hill. The view from the top is spectacular, if you are lucky. Los Angeles can have very poor air quality. When I lived in Pasadena, it was sometimes impossible to see the Mt. Wilson, which was a mere mile away! But today was a beautiful night, with clear skies. The city lights were already twinkling like the stars in the …

My son and husband fancy the desert, while I prefer the mountains! We decided to retrace our path back to Joshua Tree National park, after a good 10 years, to the day, to discover a few more trails that we did not follow in December 1998. The memories of this otherworldly place were vivid but it was time to refresh them! This park located about 140 miles east of Los Angeles, in California, spans the Mojave and the Colorado (Sonoran) desert. Only a very small portion of this park is accessible by paved road.

Joshua tree is actually a …