AN AGENDA FOR RESEARCH IN LARGE-SCALE DISTRIBUTED DATA REPOSITORIES

Access to shared data is provided today by distributed file systems and databases. In this paper, we explore certain usage and technological trends that will radically change the way shared data is used in the future. The usage trends include the growing need to access shared data from anywhere, increasing scale, and the increasing importance of efficient search. The technology trends include the advent of portable machines, the availability of software and hardware for using diverse types of data, and the growing diversity of network speeds and capabilities. These trends induce fundamental research problems in the areas of adaptive system behavior, secure remote execution and extensibility.