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Mass Storage Systems SIG report
MSS SIG sponsors nine presentations . . .
 Hartmut Fichtel, chair of the new Communications & Data Management SIG |
The annual 1998 CUG conference was jointly organized by the computer center of the University of Stuttgart (RUS) and the Debis Systemhaus (debis), the computer services company of the Daimler-Benz group. The conference took place in downtown Stuttgart, the capital of the federal state of Baden-Wuerttemberg -- also well known for its fine local red and white wines. (Formerly these state products used to be somewhat difficult to purchase outside the state, since the local people managed to drink them all by themselves; but recently this has changed to some extent. All the attendees I talked to survived this local specialty nicely!)
SGI, site reps give technical sessionsFor this conference, as usual, the Mass Storage Systems (MSS) Special Interest Group (SIG) sponsored nine presentations in three technical sessions during the parallel stream of the program. About half the talks were presented by SGI staff, and the other half by representatives from user sites.GigaRing IO considerations and DMF or other high-performance HSM systems dominated the subject matter of the talks. Attendance was typically so good that the rooms were filled to the limit of their capacity. A summary of titles and authors follows; for the complete paper, as always, please refer to the CUG Proceedings CD. Tuesday afternoon
Wednesday afternoon
Thursday afternoon
On behalf of the audience and the MSS SIG, I thank each of the authors and speakers for their excellent work.
Open meetings dominated by SIG restructuringAs usual, there were two open meetings of the MSS SIG during the conference: the first at the beginning of the conference (Monday) to survey possible problems and concerns in the area of mass storage, and the second towards the end (Thursday) to have these issues adressed by SGI staff and hopefully resolved. At least that was the plan!Actually, the major restructuring of the SIGs overwhelmed all specific MSS-related technical concerns. During the first business meeting slot on Monday, most of the time available was taken up by a general-session meeting with a discussion of these plans by the membership as a whole. After this general meeting, an ad-hoc MSS business meeting took place to discuss the specific MSS-related consequences of the proposed new structure. In general, members responded positively to the proposals. The second MSS business meeting on Thursday afternoon was similarly used up by a general-membership open meeting to present the decisions from the CUG Board of Directors on the proposed structure changes. (For details on the restructuring, see "CUG SIGs get a facelift" and A guide to the new CUG SIGs.") As part of the restructuring, the MSS SIG will now be called the MSS Focus Group and reside under the new Communications and Data Management "super" SIG.
Chair changesAfter mastering all the work to compile the technical presentations of the MSS SIG, Robert Silvia had to resign as chair due to changes in his job position at North Carolina Supercomputer Center. I would like to thank Rob for his support of CUG and all his work in setting up the technical program for this conference. I still look forward to seeing him at future CUGs.Jeff Terstriep has been selected and approved by the board as chair of the new MSS Focus Group.
Comments, participation welcomeIf you have comments and suggestions, and in particular if you are interested in participation in MSS activities within CUG, contact Jeff at jefft@ncsa.uiuc.edu or me at fichtel@dkrz.de. |
