Overview

The 9th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies (FAST '11) brings together storage system researchers and practitioners to explore new directions in the design, implementation, evaluation, and deployment of storage systems. "Storage systems" is interpreted broadly: everything from low-level storage-devices up to information management is of interest. The conference will consist of two and a half days of technical presentations, including refereed papers, Work-in-Progress (WiP) reports, and a poster session.

Topics

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

* Archival storage systems
* Auditability and provenance
* Caching, replication, and consistency
* Cloud storage
* Data-intensive applications
* Database storage
* Distributed I/O (wide-area, grid, peer-to-peer)
* Empirical evaluation of storage systems
* Experience with deployed systems
* File system design
* Mobile and personal storage
* Parallel I/O
* Power-aware storage architectures
* Reliability, availability, and disaster tolerance
* Search and data retrieval
* Solid state storage technologies and uses (e.g., SSD, PCM)
* Storage for virtualized environments
* Storage management
* Storage networking
* Storage performance and QoS
* Storage security

Submission Instructions

Please submit full papers (no extended abstracts) in PDF format via the Web form, which will be available here soon. Do not email submissions.

* The complete submission must be no longer than eleven (11) pages, excluding references. It should be typeset in two-column format in 10 point Times Roman type on 12 point leading (single-spaced), with the text block being no more than 6.5" wide by 9" deep. References should not be set in a smaller font. Submissions that violate any of these restrictions will not be reviewed. The limits will be interpreted strictly. No extensions will be given for reformatting.
* There are no formal restrictions on the use of color in graphs or charts, but please use them sparingly—not everybody has access to a color printer.
* Authors must not be identified in the submissions, either explicitly or by implication (e.g., through the references or acknowledgments).
* 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.
* If you are uncertain whether your submission meets USENIX's guidelines, please contact the program co-chairs, fast11chairs@usenix.org, or the USENIX office, submissionspolicy@usenix.org.
* Papers accompanied by nondisclosure agreement forms will not be considered.

Blind reviewing of full papers will be done by the program committee, assisted by outside referees. Accepted papers will be shepherded through an editorial review process by a member of the program committee.

All papers will be available online to registered attendees, no earlier than December 17, 2010. 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 conference, February 16, 2011. Accepted submissions will be treated as confidential prior to publication on the USENIX FAST '11 Web site; rejected submissions will be permanently treated as confidential.

By submitting a paper, you agree that at least one of the authors will attend the conference to present it. If the conference registration will pose a hardship for the presenter of the accepted paper, please contact conference@usenix.org.

Best Paper Awards

Awards will be given for the best paper(s) at the conference. A small, selected set of papers will be forwarded for publication in ACM Transactions on Storage (TOS) via a fast-path editorial process.

Work-in-Progress Reports and Poster Session

The FAST technical sessions will include a slot for short Work-in-Progress (WiP) reports presenting preliminary results and opinion statements. We are particularly interested in presentations of student work and ones that will provoke informative debate.

We will also hold a poster session, open to any submitter. WiP submissions will automatically be considered for a poster slot. Authors of all accepted full papers will be asked to present a poster on their paper.

Arrangements for submitting posters and WiPs will be announced later.

Birds-of-a-Feather Sessions

Birds-of-a-Feather sessions (BoFs) are informal gatherings organized by attendees interested in a particular topic; they are held in the evenings. BoFs may be scheduled in advance by emailing the Conference Department at bofs@usenix.org. BoFs may also be scheduled at the conference.

Tutorial Sessions

Tutorial sessions will be held before the main conference. Please send tutorial proposals to fasttutorials@usenix.org.