Shearwater Solutions and SANS Institute partner once again to bring seven outstanding courses to SANS Sydney 2008, 27 October -1 November. Enhance your skills by taking advantage of this hands-on training loaded with practical tools and cutting-edge information.

Trent Hunt of DND says, "SANS is so in-depth, has knowledgeable instructors, and provided an ideal environment for taking in up-to-date information and techniques!"

We'll be offering the following hands-on courses for security professionals at all levels. Take special note of SEC504, which sold out in Canberra. We know you won't want to miss that course or SEC 560, which has sold out in most of SANS' events this year.

* SEC401: SANS Security Essentials - 6 days with evening Bootcamp
* SEC502: Perimeter Protection In-Depth - 6 days
* SEC504: Hacker Techniques, Exploits, and Incident Handling - 6 days
* SEC560: Network Penetration Testing and Ethical Hacking - 6 days New Course
* AUD521: Meeting the Minimum: PCI/DSS 1.1: Becoming and Staying Compliant - 2 days
* SEC542: Web Application Pen Testing In-Depth - 4 days New Course
* SEC334: SANS Training for the CompTIA Security+ Certification

Open Query currently have the following course days for MySQL DBAs scheduled in Canberra:

• Monday 22 September: MySQL Installation, Security and User Management (AUD 475 + GST)
• Tuesday 23 September: MySQL Backup and Recovery (AUD 475 + GST)
• Wednesday 24 September: MySQL InnoDB Performance Tuning (AUD 575 + GST)

We offer very special pricing for students and educators.

All course participants receive a free copy of the "High Performance MySQL" (2nd ed.) O'Reilly book co-authored by Open Query's own Arjen Lentz.

Cisco Networkers is Cisco's annual IT and communications conference. Cisco Networkers, our premier education and training program, attracts thousands of technical innovators and purchasing decision makers.

Microsoft, in conjunction with Girl Geek Dinners Sydney is holding a Women in IT luncheon at Tech Ed 2008 in Sydney. Register now using the ticket code wit08, as places are limited. Ticket Code: wit08

Topic: Women in IT - an International Perspective (Keynote & Panel Discussion) Date: Wednesday 3rd September, 2008 Time: 1.15pm - 2.05pm (lunch available in foyer from 12.45pm

Cost: complimentary for Tech Ed Delegates and Geek Girl Dinner members (limited seats available)

The highlight will be a panel discussing women in IT in an international context.

Panelists include:

Attend this month's meeting for presentations and open discussion from AISA members on the following topics:

=> Current state of the entire security industry and where do information security professionals fit within it? (research courtesy of Australian Homeland Security Research Centre) - Matthew Hackling

=> (ISC)2 global information security workforce study- a summary of the results, what keeps CISSPs up at night, how old are they, what education/experience do they have, what are they earning?

=> Certification and education to consider in your professional development (training courses, undergraduate degrees, post graduate education, graduate certificates)

=> Strategies for keeping up to date when you are time poor (podcasts, RSS feeds, e-learning, e-books)

=> Experiences entering the information security profession in the 21st century - Mark Jones

=> Experiences entering the information security profession in the 20th century - Mark Ames

Is your MySQL database secure? Do your users have the correct privileges and access rights? Is your MySQL database operating at optimal efficiency?

The sixteenth annual Australian System Administrators' conference (SAGE-AU 2008) will be held in Adelaide, at the Holiday Inn Monday 11 - Friday 15th of August 2008.

Course Title: Information Security Incident Management (AUS-ISIM-01)

This month the SAGE-AU Victorian chapter meeting will feature Dougal Scott talking about large scale system administration, in particular using a suite of tools he has developed called HostInfo.

This months LUV meeting includes presentations on the Mercury programming language, Networking Linux.conf.au and the usual Linux news.