CS6204: File and Storage Systems
Fall 2007

Storage is quickly becoming ubiquitous, as evident by the prevalent use of disk
drives in a myriad of applications ranging from traditional computer systems to
consumer electronics, e.g., TiVo, gaming consoles, mp3 players, etc. At the same
time, the size of data processed and consumed by modern applications is growing
exponentially. Innovative applications are making us more and more reliant on
storage systems. Newer techniques are regularly developed to interface with the
storage systems, and new file system abstractions are being designed to promote
new interfaces through which users interact with their data. The storage system
is not limited to disks, but includes a complex hierarchy ranging from high
speed disks on one end, large client caches on another, and a high performance
interconnect between the two. It is important to understand all these levels of
the storage hierarchy when designing and deploying storage devices for
production environments. Further, while performance has traditionally been the
primary criterion for optimization, there are several other emerging metrics of
importance, including the power consumption, reliability, availability and
manageability. This course will cover all these aspects of file and storage
systems. The material will be mainly taken from research papers to cover the
fundamentals as well as state-of-art in file and storage system research. 

Instructor:  Dr. Ali Butt