Image of a datacenter at night. Credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arthur-caranta/ (external link)
CC BY 2.0 (external link)
May 27, 2010 -- The theme of the 26th IEEE Symposium on Massive Storage Systems and Technologies (external link) was "The Crisis in Massive Storage — Solutions or Calamities?" Speakers addressed ideas for bridging the gap between what computers can do and the ability to keep data available.
The conference was held in Lake Tahoe, NV, May 3-7, 2010.
Leslie Johnson from the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program presented a workshop tutorial on "New Initiatives in Cloud and Distributed Computing." Johnston discussed a number of NDIIPP-sponsored projects, including the DuraCloud Pilot, MetaArchive and LOCKSS.
The workshop also featured presentations touching on other NDIIPP projects. Reagan Moore from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – a key participant in the Chronopolis Project – presented on policy-based data management. Elizabeth A. Cohen, representing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and Ann Kerr talked about the final report of the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access (external link). Ms. Cohen also discussed the Digital Motion Picture Archive Framework Project.
The workshop provided an excellent opportunity for international representatives of cultural heritage organizations, research labs, universities and manufacturers to discuss issues including data use and rights, preservation needs, emerging technologies, management strategies and scale of operations.
Overall, MSST2010 offered a worthwhile forum to review new developments in storage technology, consider advances in data management techniques and discuss institutional requirements. There are perceivable gaps between the need for integrated storage solutions and the current state of development of new hardware technologies.
The high-performance computing community is looking at the need for dramatically larger storage environments in the very near future. Without such systems, researchers with growing needs to manage, share and use massive datasets face critical limitations.
