INSIC DS2 Research Program

INFORMATION STORAGE INDUSTRY CONSORTIUM

Data Storage Devices & Systems

Data Storage Devices & Systems (DS2) is INSIC’s newest collaborative research program, aimed at advancing the state-of-the-art in information storage systems. During the last decade, advances in digital communications and in technologies for the storage of digital data have revolutionized the transaction of work in all facets of society: arts and entertainment, business, commerce, education, government, and law enforcement, as well as personal record keeping. The availability of low-cost devices that can store massive quantities of data is now creating renewed opportunities both in augmenting the usefulness of the devices themselves and in vastly enhancing the data storage system management functions.

Working with experts from industry and academia, INSIC is in the process of identifying the most promising topics of research and development in data storage systems and devices, with a time horizon of about five to ten years. The emphasis is in pre-competitive, cooperative research. Pre-competitive research describes work that is not presently subject to industrial competition towards commercialization of a product. This research should address goals that are beyond the immediate industrial roadmaps, and include high-risk/high-reward speculative ideas. In general, these represent subjects where cooperation among industrial partners and academics would enhance the research return-on-investment to the benefit of all partners and of the global data storage systems endeavor. Pre-competitive research is, essentially, research “co‑opetition.”

Areas for Pre-Competitive Research Efforts

Although much change in societal patterns has already occurred, it is recognized that progress in data storage devices and systems, and the networking of data repositories into real-time, immediately accessible reservoirs, offer a huge potential of further transforming and benefiting society.

Among the candidate topics of research that INSIC and its partners in the DS2 program are discussing: the management of data in terabyte-capacity devices; improved application interfaces; dynamic code execution in the device; data consistency for active storage devices; file system consistency; long-term storage; universal file locators; enduring file formats; hardware limited lifetime and data preservation, privacy and security; data dispersal and retrieval; and self-securing digital objects; as well as issues of pervasive storage created by the wider applicability and mobility of storage devices, consequences for file system consistency, and concepts of autonomic storage management and scalability.

The Case for Corporate Participation in INSIC’s DS2 Research Program

It is expected that the DS2 Research Program will provide a highly efficient, highly leveraged means of influencing and gaining early, real-time access to the best university-based research in the U.S., Europe and Asia. It will offer to the industrial sponsors the opportunity of directly guiding this research, in a coordinated way, onto pre-competitive problems of common interest to the digital data storage systems industry. In INSIC’s experience, this approach is efficient, in the sense that only projects of specific interest to a significant segment of the industry are supported, and these are supported in a cost-effective manner. It is highly leveraged, in the sense that project support costs are shared among the industrial sponsors of the program, adding to its cost-effectiveness, and thereby maximizing the number of research projects that can be collectively supported.

Sponsorship of the DS2 Research Program presents companies in the data storage devices and systems industry with a unique opportunity to participate in a well-focused, exceptionally cost-efficient approach to maximizing the value of a portion of their investment in long-range university research.

Membership in INSIC is a prerequisite for participation in any INSIC Research Program, including DS2.As always, INSIC also encourages its members to directly support the university research centers most closely related to their technology directions.

If your organization is interested in participating as a founding sponsor of the DS2 Research Program, or in obtaining additional information regarding the program, please contact either:

Giora J. Tarnopolsky
telephone: (650) 823-6852
gjtarno at tarnotek.com

Paul D. Frank
telephone: (858) 279-8259
e-mail: paul at insic.org