News & Events

DB Seminar [Fall 2014]: Joy Arulraj

The advent of non-volatile memory (NVM) technologies will fundamentally change the dichotomy between transitory memory and durable storage in database management systems (DBMSs). These new NVM devices are almost as fast as DRAM but all writes are persistent even after power loss. Existing DBMSs are unable to take full advantage of this new technology because their internal architectures are predicated on the assumption that memory is volatile. With NVM, such legacy DBMS components are unnecessary and will degrade performance of Read More

Seven Databases in Seven Weeks – Seminar Series (Fall 2014)

The CMU Database group is holding a semester-long seminar series with the leading developers of NoSQL and NewSQL database management systems. Seven Databases in Seven Weeks is designed to showcase some of the newer technologies available for front-end application developers today. Each speaker will present the implementation details of their respective systems and examples of the technical challenges that they faced when working with real-world customers. The list of confirmed speakers are: Sep 11 - Ankur Goyal (Director of Engineering, Read More

Seth Proctor (NuoDB)

NuoDB is a relational, transactional database built around a fundamentally new architecture. The distributed nature of the system means that in addition to tackling traditional database problems it’s well-suited to support some new problems emerging in enterprise deployments. This talk will start with a short introduction to what makes NuoDB different, what the motivation was for the architecture and what that means you can do with it. From there the discussion will turn to a few next-generation problems, both specific Read More

Michael Zwilling (Microsoft Hekaton)

In-Memory OLTP (formerly known as Hekaton) is a key feature in the In-Memory offerings of Microsoft's SQL Server 2014 product. In this talk we will discuss the hardware trends, user scenarios, and history that prompted its key architectural pillars of main-memory optimization, lock/latch-free concurrency control and SQL compilation to native code, as well as how the technology is integrated into SQL Server. Along the way we will discuss some the myths around the technology, how customers are using it, and Read More

Ankur Goyal (MemSQL)

This talk will cover the major architectural design decisions with discussion on specific technical details as well as the motivation behind the big decisions. We will cover lockfree, code generation, durability/replication, distributed query execution, and clustering in MemSQL. We will then discuss some of the new directions for the product. Part of the "Seven Databases in Seven Weeks" Seminar Series: http://db.cs.cmu.edu/seminar2014 Read More

DB Seminar: First Meeting 2014

This is the first meeting of the CMU DB Group for the Fall 2014 semester. There will not be a speaker. Instead, we will discuss the following agenda: Introductions Assigning roles: Managing Twitter, Website, Weekly Meetings Fall DB/PDL/SDI Seminar Series Christos' bacchanalian trip to Las Vegas All are welcome. Read More

Danai invited to ‘2014 Rising Stars’ workshop!

Danai is invited to the 2014 Rising Stars in EECS: An Academic Career Workshop for Women, which will be hosted by UC Berkeley's EECS Department on November 3rd and 4th, 2014. This workshop will bring together approximately 40 outstanding EECS graduate and postdoctoral women, for two days of scientific/technical information exchange and career-oriented discussions on topics including the pros/cons of academia, finding a faculty position, and keys to success as a junior faculty member. Danai will have the opportunity to Read More

Alex and colleagues produce one of KDD ‘best 9 papers’

The paper CatchSync : Catching Synchronized Behavior in Large Directed Graphs, by Meng Jiang, Peng Cui, Alex Beutel, Christos Faloutsos and Shiqiang Yang, was selected for fast-track publication, as one of the 9 best papers that will appear in KDD'14. The paper describes a novel, automatic method to spot lock-step behavior in large social networks. Lockstep behavior is usually a sign of fraud. Meng was a post-doc visitor at CMU, working on anomaly detection in large graphs. Congratulations, Alex and Read More

Prof. Andy Pavlo wins SIGMOD Jim Gray Dissertation Award

Snowbird, Utah — When champions are made, it is a momentous occasion that is often heralded by the alignment of stars in the heavens. Notable events such as this are often marked by women becoming prone to weep with joy and children singing songs about it for years to come. In this vein, the CMU Database Group is proud to announce that their very own Prof. Andy Pavlo has won the 2014 SIGMOD Jim Gray Doctoral Dissertation award. This prestigious Read More

Danai in the news!

Danai and the Microsoft researchers Paul Bennett and Eric Horvitz studied information-seeking behavior and access to alternative versus reinforcing viewpoints for strongly polarizing topics. In particular, they analyzed the search and browsing behavior on the gun control debate following a shocking news event, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. The paper is at: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1405.1486v1.pdf The MIT Tech Review article is at: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/527311/sandy-hook-the-gun-control-debate-and-the-insidious-influence-of-the-filter-bubble/ Other press coverage includes: http://www.technology.org/2014/05/13/ideological-internet-bubbles-stay-strong-study-shows/# Read More