Architecting Storage for the Cloud Computing Era

Rapid changes in hardware technology and system requirements are opening up a variety of exciting lines of research that could dramatically change the design of future computer systems. This article presents the first in a periodic series of prolegomena brief introductions to recent and exciting research topics, in which the main challenges and vision for future research are outlined. The goal of this feature is to facilitate discussion and collaboration. In this first prolegomenon, Sudhanva Gurumurthi, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Virginia, discusses the storage challenges posed by datacenter-scale workloads.