CNS Core:Small: Re-thinking the Design of Data Management Software Upon the Arrival of SSDs with Built-in Transparent Compression

该项目正在开发通过利用具有内置压缩的新数据存储硬件来提高数据管理软件(例如，数据库和文件系统)的效率的技术。这些磁盘在将数据写入磁盘时会自动压缩数据，在读取数据时会解压缩数据。由于压缩，这会使磁盘看起来比实际大。这种新的存储硬件首次将逻辑存储空间利用效率与物理存储空间利用效率解耦，为简化数据管理软件的设计和实现创造了一个巨大但完全未开发的空间。该项目涉及开发一套技术，以探索简化主流数据管理软件的新设计空间。为了演示和研究所涉及的设计权衡，该项目将实现原型键值存储和缓存软件，并增强现有的开源文件系统和关系数据库。通过开发在很大程度上简化数据管理软件的解决方案，该项目可大大有助于提高未来数据密集型计算基础设施的效率和成本效益。这项工作可以启发更广泛的研究，以充分挖掘利用具有内置计算能力的新存储硬件来创新计算系统软件堆栈的潜力。开发的源代码和实验结果将在网上公开并广泛使用，使工业界和学术界的研究人员都受益。对本科生和研究生的研究培训将解决IT和计算机行业缺乏跨硬件/软件专业知识的研究人员和工程师的担忧。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project is developing techniques that can improve the efficiency of data management software (e.g., database and filesystem) by leveraging new data storage hardware with built-in compression. These are disks that automatically compress data when it is written to the disk and decompresses data when it is read. This makes the disk appear larger than it really is because of the compression. For the first time, such new storage hardware decouples the logical storage space utilization efficiency from the physical storage space utilization efficiency, which creates a large but completely unexplored space for simplifying the design and implementation of data management software. This project involves developing a set of techniques to explore this new design space for simplifying mainstream data management software. In order to demonstrate and study the involved design trade-offs, this project will implement prototype key-value store and caching software, and enhance existing open-source filesystems and relational databases. By developing solutions to largely simplify data management software, this project could significantly contribute to improving the efficiency and cost effectiveness of future data-intensive computing infrastructure. This work can inspire broader research to fully explore the potential of leveraging new storage hardware with built-in computation capability to innovate computing system software stack. The developed source codes and experimental results will be available online for public and wide-range usage, benefiting both industrial and academic researchers. The research training to both undergraduate and graduate students will address the concerns of lacking researchers and engineers with cross-hardware/software expertise in IT and computer industries.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.