As the Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE) prepares to kick-off February 20 in Los Angeles, The VAR Guy did some preliminary poking around. He wanted to see if there were any key trends worth nothing for open source solutions providers. The result? Take a look at these three anticipated trends and themes from SCALE.

1. Canonical’s Relatively Low Profile: Community manager Jono Bacon is expected to attend, local Canonical employees may attend and Ubuntu fans will participate in an Ubuntu Bug Jam. But a Canonical spokesman says the company won’t likely announce any Ubuntu news at the event. Sources say the company is hard at work on a new server push as well as new initiatiaves involving Landscape — a remote management tool for Ubuntu desktops, laptops and servers. Over the long haul, Landscape could emerge as a tool for VARs and solutions providers to maintain and troubleshoot customers’ Ubuntu networks. Stay tuned for the server and Lanscape initiatives this spring.

2. Zenoss Community Day: The company, which makes open source network monitoring software, will host Zenoss Community Day as a precursor to SCALE on February 20. VARs and managed service providers should take note. Zenoss recently landed in The VAR Guy’s Open Source 50, which tracks the most promising open source partner programs. And the company’s network monitoring software, dubbed Zenoss Core, has attracted several dozen solutions providers and managed service providers, The VAR Guy hears.

3. Red Hat In Real Time: Red Hat will host three sessions at SCALE. The sessions focus on (1) Fedora Remix, (2) Introduction to Realtime Linux, and (3) Patents and Open Source After Bilski. Of the three, The VAR Guy thinks the realtime Linux session offers the most potential benefits to channel partners — especially those that are focused on grid computing, enterprise messaging and perhaps even cloud computing.

Of course, our resident blogger has just scratched the surface on SCALE. Stay tuned for more perspectives after the event wraps. Oh, and full disclosure: The VAR Guy is a media sponsor on SCALE.

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