CS 137, Spring 2014
File Systems

Quick index:

CS137 is a course in file systems, with an emphasis on current research directions. It will be taught in the manner of a graduate seminar, with much of the material selected by and presented by the students. There will be relatively little emphasis on homework and programming, although you will be implementing a simple file system of your own.

Resources

There are many places to find papers on file systems. This list highlights a few sources, but is hardly exhaustive.

Conferences

A quick directory of conferences useful in finding file-system papers:

FAST (File and Storage Technologies) 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002.
SOSP (Symposium on Operating Systems Principles): 2013, 2011, 2009, 2007, 2005, 2003, 2001, 1999, 1997.
OSDI (Operating Systems Design and Implementation): 2012, 2010, 2008, 2006, 2004, 2002, 2000, 1999, 1996, 1994.
Usenix (Usenix Annual Technical Conference) (search for "Usenix Annual Technical Conference" or "Usenix ATC" and a year).
IEEE Conference on Mass Storage Systems and Technologies (MassStor)
Eurosys (European Conference on Computer Systems) 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006.
SYSTOR (International Systems and Storage Conference) 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2007
ACM SIGMOD
VLDB

There are many more conferences than these, so feel free to look more broadly. In particular, ASPLOS, NSDI, and PODC can be fruitful. A good way to find other conferences is to look at the bibliography of papers you have already found.

Journals

Journals that have file systems papers:

ACM Transactions on Storage (TOS)
ACM Transactions on Computer Systems (TOCS)
Communications of the ACM
IEEE Computer
IEEE Transactions on Computers (sometimes)
Software—Practice and Experience

Bibliographies

A number of people have created bibliographies of file-system-related papers. Some of them are even fairly up to date.

CiteseerX and Google Scholar are two of the best places to search out CS papers.
The DBLP Computer Science Bibliography also tries to be comprehensive.
Large archive storage systems bibliography (getting old).

Grading Criteria

NOTE: The following grading proportions are tentative. In particular, the homework portion of the grade may change.

The class grading will be based on participation (10%), homework (20%), and a final project (70%). The project grading will be broken down as follows:

Project proposal: 5% of course grade. Criteria are completeness of the proposal and general writing quality.
Preliminary report: 10%. Criteria are writing quality, completeness of the report, and progress toward the goal.
Draft of final report: 10%. Criteria are completeness and writing quality.
In-class presentation: 10%. Criteria are completeness and quality.
Final report: 35%. Criteria are overall project quality and writing quality.

You will note that writing quality is a huge part of your grade. Use the Writing Center for optimal results!