Energy-Efficient and Reliability-Aware Data Management in Mobile Storage
                                   Systems

                                   Tao Xie
                       Department of Computer Science
                         San Diego State University

                         February 26, 2010 (Friday)
                    10:00AM  Donuts; 10:15 -11:30 AM Talk
                    First floor auditorium, EC&S Building


Highly reliable, high performance and energy-efficient storage  systems  are
essential for mobile data-intensive applications such as remote surgery  and
mobile data center. Existing mobile storage systems generally consist of  an
array of independent small form factor hard disks connected to a host  by  a
storage interface in a mobile computing  environment.  Although  hard  disks
are cost-effective and can provide huge capacity and  high-throughput,  they
have some intrinsic limitations such as long access latencies,  high  annual
disk  replacement  rates,  fragile  physical  characteristics,  and  energy-
inefficiency. Compared with hard disk drives, NAND flash based  solid  state
disks (SSD) are much more robust and energy-efficient, and  can  offer  much
faster  access  times.  A  major  concern  on  current  flash  disk  is  its
relatively higher price and poor  random  write  performance.  This  project
develops a hybrid disk array system, which integrates small  capacity  flash
disks with high capacity hard disk drives  to  form  a  robust  and  energy-
efficient  storage  system  for  mobile  data-intensive   applications.   In
particular, an array of new data  management  techniques  including  energy-
efficient  data  placement,   self-adaptive   and   reliability-aware   data
redistribution,  and  self-triggered  data  replication  for  data-intensive
mobile applications built  on  the  hybrid  disk  array  framework  will  be
developed. In addition, this project implements a simulation toolkit,  which
will be  designed  specifically  to  study  a  variety  of  data  management
techniques on top of the hybrid disk array architecture. This  project  will
also promote teaching,  learning,  and  training  by  exposing  students  to
technological and scientific underpinnings in the field of  energy-efficient
storage systems.



Bio: Dr. Tao Xie received the PhD degree in computer science  from  the  New
Mexico Institute of Mining and  Technology  in  2006.  He  is  currently  an
assistant professor in the Department  of  Computer  Science  at  San  Diego
State  University,  San  Diego,  California.  His  research  interests   are
computer systems, high performance computing, cluster  and  Grid  computing,
parallel  and   distributed   systems,   real-time/embedded   systems,   and
information security. He is a member of the IEEE and the USENIX.