Key-value and NoSQL storage systems are growing and predicted to become a multi-billion dollar industry sector within a few years. This project targets global reconfiguration operations in this new generation of storage systems. Today such operations largely involve exporting and then re-importing entire databases, thus making data unavailable for long periods of time. The project will first design efficient online algorithms for a variety of global reconfiguration operations, with the twin goals of making such operations efficient, while continuing to support fast read and write actions on the data at all times. We will then implement and build our solutions into real production code, with a focus on existing and widely-used open-source systems software. This work requires a carefully orchestrated mix of algorithmics with systems design and implementation. Our systems will be evaluated using industry benchmarks and traces, and in production clusters.
The project will augment existing widely-used key-value and NoSQL storage systems software with the much-needed ability to support online reconfiguration operations. Our work will produce open software and meaningful datasets. Thus our innovations and systems will be directly available to, and impact positively, both providers of key-value and NoSQL stores as well as a variety of customers ranging from small to large companies. On the educational front, the project will address the dearth today of learning materials for key-value and NoSQL stores by developing and disseminating course materials for this area. Additionally, we will incentivize entrepreneurial activities centered around key-value and NoSQL technologies.
