Ooi Beng Chin 黄铭钧

大规模数据分析是能体现云计算优越性的重要应用，它使得海量数据能够在大型集群中得到处理和分析。在目前的云计算环境中，MapReduce框架因其出色的可扩展性和较好的容错性而获得广泛的使用。由于它的普及，研

As the world is experiencing another difficult period of financial crisis, the world itself is facing many environmental challenges, such as climate change, industrial pollution, unsustainable mega cities and food supply.  Research scientists from various disciplines have embarked on research on sustainability, and IT is required to help enable the discovery of any fixes, if any.

Data analytics is not new, but is becoming a very hot topic/buzzword in recent years.  Data mining, which most database people are familiar with, has been around for years, and is used to discover patterns, features and trends from raw data.  Based on the knowledge discovered, conclusion and inference are made, and this has been recently termed as data analytics, and business

IT has been a change agent in  many business models and has transformed them in many ways. It has also transformed our life to some extent, such as we are spending more time on virtual social networking than networking in real life.  It no doubt also enhances the connection and the quality of life in many ways.  For every new application that is being used in

The advancement in hardware technology is most likely to cause some major re-designs of database systems. For examples:

1) What will the distributed data platform be like when the network speed breaks the current network speed limits by 10 times (eg. the break through in graphene based networking)?  

2) Will database archictecture remain the same when large scale PCM is commercially available?

      创业从很大程度上来说是系统研究员生活中不可或缺的一部分。我们关注整个系统的研发，而不仅仅是做局部的设计来支撑我们提出的理论。每当完成一个新的系统，我们希望看到它能够在人们的生活中投入使用。这不仅是对自我价值的实现，同时也是对应用驱动型(use-driven)研究的有力验证，以及对个人财富的再生。

我在1992/3年开始从事图像数据管理方面的研究。与我的两位同事一起，我们在1999年发布了用作照片共享的GeoFoto图像管理系统。那时web 2.0 应用和社交网络还尚未兴起。GeoFoto系统允许用户输入“关键词 -- keyword” (即现在大家所熟知的“标签 -- tagging”) 来对照片进行描述，并设定每张照片的访问权限，是否分享它，以及分享

Instead of having individual disks with each node in the cloud cluster, one alternative is to have a cluster file system that handles commodity disks.  An argument for such an architecture is that it reduces heat, while at the same time provides SAN-like capabilities. 

To be continued...

     尽管半导体技术促进了中央处理器领域突飞猛进的发展，但是存储器的发展却很滞后，直到今天，主存和硬盘所采用的技术和30年前依然基本相同。除了硬盘的容量大幅度提高之外，硬盘技术的基本原理几乎没有改变，静态随机存储器（SRAM）和动态随机存储器（DRAM）信息存储的主要介质仍然是电荷。值得注意的是，近年来一些新兴的存储技术可能带来一场革命性的变化。闪存技术正逐渐成熟，并且将成为硬盘的重要竞争者。放眼望去，相变存储器（PCM），磁阻式随机存储器（MRAM）和电阻式随机存储器（RRAM）等一系列技术也都相继走出实验阶段，进入产品开发阶段。我们把这一类存储技术称为存储级内存(SCM --Storage Class Memory)。SCM是可基于位访问的，速度堪比SRAM和DRAM，并且存储密度至少提升了一个数量级。此外，它们都是非挥发性的，耗能明显少于传统存储技术。毫不夸张地说，我们正处于信息存储变革的浪潮之巅。