HotStorage '16 will be co-located with the 2016 USENIX Annual Technical Conference (ATC '16) and will take place June 20–21, 2016.

Important Dates
Paper submissions due: Thursday, March 10, 2016
Notification to authors: Thursday, April 14, 2016
Final paper files due: Tuesday, May 17, 2016



Workshop Organizers

Program Co-Chairs:
* Nitin Agrawal, Samsung Research
* Sam H. Noh, UNIST (Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology)

Program Committee:
* Marcos Aguilera, VMware Research
* Mahesh Balakrishnan, Yale University
* William J. Bolosky, Microsoft
* Vijay Chidambaram, VMware and The University of Texas at Austin
* Fred Douglis, EMC
* Haryadi Gunawi, University of Chicago
* Song Jiang, Wayne State University
* Pallavi Joshi, Cloudera
* Taesoo Kim, Georgia Institute of Technology
* Xiasong Ma, Qatar Computing Research Institute
* Beomseok Nam, UNIST (Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology)
* Nohhyun Park, CloudPhysics
* Amar Phanishayee, Microsoft Research
* Raju Rangaswami, Florida International University
* Indrajit Roy, HP Labs
* Cindy Rubio Gonzalez, University of California, Davis
* Nisha Talagala, Parallel Machines
* Vasily Tarasov, IBM Almaden Research Center
* Devesh Tiwari, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
* Cristian Ungureanu, Google

Steering Committee:
* Irfan Ahmad, CloudPhysics
* Casey Henderson, USENIX Association
* Brian Noble, University of Michigan
* Raju Rangaswami, Florida International University
* Erik Riedel, EMC
* Ken Salem, University of Waterloo
* Jiri Schindler, Simplivity
* John Strunk, NetApp Inc.



Overview:
The purpose of the HotStorage workshop is to provide a forum for the cutting edge in storage research, where researchers can exchange ideas and engage in discussions with their colleagues. The workshop seeks submissions that explore longer-term challenges and opportunities for the storage research community. Submissions should propose new research directions, advocate non-traditional approaches, or report on noteworthy actual experience in an emerging area. We particularly value submissions that effectively advocate fresh, unorthodox, unexpected, controversial, or counterintuitive ideas for advancing the state of the art.

Submissions will be judged on their originality, technical merit, topical relevance, and likelihood of leading to insightful discussions that will influence future storage systems research. In keeping with the goals of the HotStorage workshop, the review process will heavily favor submissions that are forward looking and open ended, as opposed to those that summarize mature work or are intended as a stepping stone to a top-tier conference publication in the short term.

What's New At HotStorage?
HotStorage this year will place a strong(er) emphasis on early-stage ideas. As a workshop, our key role is to provide a place where novel ideas at their nascent stages can see the light of day long before they are ready for publication at the various "conferences of record." A good way to think about this is that if you are only a few months away from submitting to FAST, NSDI, EuroSys, VLDB, OSDI, SOSP, etc. you are probably already past the sweet spot for HotStorage.

The program committee also encourages more active participation from authors, presenters, and attendees. A key element of this is a moderated discussion on each presented paper where contributions from workshop participants are highly encouraged. We'd like to hear from people about additional context, issues and prior work—not just ask questions. These will be reported on at the end of the conference. To allow this level of engagement, the accepted papers will be available for download at least a week in advance so participants can come prepared. We will also add dedicated time for workshop participants to engage in break-out sessions and to exchange "elevator pitches."

Topics of Interest
HotStorage '16 welcomes submissions on any of the following general topics. Because of the nature of the workshop, this list is not exhaustive. We also welcome submissions on cross-disciplinary topics broadly related to storage systems, data management, and applications.

* Storage for sensors, home, and IoT
* Distributed storage architectures and data consistency
* Key-value and NoSQL storage
* Storage security
* Mobile storage
* New and complex memory hierarchies
* Energy-efficient storage
* Programming models for data management
* Solid-state storage
* Storage and server convergence
* Storage performance modeling and prediction
* Storage quality of service
* The challenges of "Big Data"
* Software-defined Storage
* Application-specific storage
* Archival storage
* Cloud storage
* Caching, tiering, and replication
* File system design

Workshop Details
HotStorage '16 will be a two-day workshop. At least one author of each accepted paper must attend the workshop to present the paper. Presentation details and guidelines will be communicated to the authors of the accepted papers. Authors of accepted papers will also be expected to prepare a poster summarizing their submission to be presented as part of a HotStorage '16 poster session.

Paper Submission Instructions
Papers submitted to HotStorage '16 must be no longer than five (5) two-column pages, including figures and references. Papers should be submitted electronically via the Web submission form, which will be available soon. Submissions should be PDF documents that are viewable by standard tools. Submissions must follow the USENIX formatting guidelines: 10-point type on 12-point (single-spaced) leading, with the text block being no more than 6.5" wide by 9" deep. See the detailed formatting requirements.

Submissions to HotStorage '16 may not be under consideration for any other venue. Simultaneous submission of the same work to multiple venues, submission of previously published work, or plagiarism constitutes dishonesty or fraud. USENIX, like other scientific and technical conferences and journals, prohibits these practices and may take action against authors who have committed them. See the USENIX Conference Submissions Policy for details. Questions? Contact your program co-chairs, hotstorage16chairs@usenix.org, or the USENIX office, submissionspolicy@usenix.org.

The review process is not blind. The names and affiliations of the authors should be included on the first page. The names of the reviewers, however, will remain anonymous. Papers accompanied by nondisclosure agreement forms will not be considered. Accepted submissions will be treated as confidential prior to publication on the USENIX HotStorage '16 Web site; rejected submissions will be permanently treated as confidential.

All papers will be available online to registered attendees before the workshop. If your accepted paper should not be published prior to the event, please notify production@usenix.org. The papers will be available online to everyone beginning on the first day of the workshop.