© 2009 AG DBIS

ADBIS2009

Academic and Industrial Interactions:Models and Experiences

Some Long-term Observations on Successful Industry Projects

Academic and Industrial Interactions:Models and Experiences

Some Long-term Observations on Successful Industry Projects

Theo Härder

haerder@cs.uni-kl.de

© 2009 AG DBIS

ADBIS2009

Ideal Cooperations

Ideal Cooperations

Middle Ages and NowadaysMiddle Ages

and Nowadays

A New ApproachA New

Approach

The AncientTimes

The AncientTimes

2

5 consecutive research projects• DBMS Measurement Techniques• Fault Tolerance and Recovery Issues in DB/DC Systems• Multiprocessor Database Systems• High Performance Transaction Systems• Integrity Control in Relational DBMS

Model• Generous funding:

2 scientific staff members and several student researchers (70% from BMFT, later larger share from Siemens)

• Long-term research problems (5 years ahead of development)

• Loosely coupled cooperation• Distant partner (Munich 400 km away)• 2 workshops/year in Munich/KL• Donation for AG DBIS: a mid-range computer

The Ancient Times: 1977 - 1994The Ancient Times: 1977 - 1994

© 2009 AG DBIS

ADBIS2009

Ideal Cooperations

Ideal Cooperations

Middle Ages and NowadaysMiddle Ages

and Nowadays

A New ApproachA New

Approach

The AncientTimes

The AncientTimes

33

The First Project: 1977 - 1981The First Project: 1977 - 1981

Start conditions: little/no experience, knowledge, competence on both sides

Overall goals: no specific wishes: do something that is useful for us

Funding: generous funding

Research project: DBMS measurement techniques

Partner support: system documentation, internals, page reference strings

Tool development: analysis tools, identification of bottlenecks, measurements

Own experience: understanding of principles, development of algorithms, proof of concepts, …

freedom and time to explore own ideas!

Partner:little interest, resources, capacity to implement our concepts

Missing bilateral involvement prohibits transfer of knowledge, experience, …

Härder T., Reuter, A.: Principles of Transaction-Oriented Database Recovery, in:Comp. Surveys 15: 4,

287-317, 1983.

Effelsberg, W., Härder, T.: Principles of Database Buffer Management, in: ACM TODS 9: 4, 560-595,

1984.

Research results: The ACID principle, Buffer Mgmt Algorithms, …

© 2009 AG DBIS

ADBIS2009

Ideal Cooperations

Ideal Cooperations

Middle Ages and NowadaysMiddle Ages

and Nowadays

A New ApproachA New

Approach

The AncientTimes

The AncientTimes

The Middle Ages The Middle Ages Ph. D. projects

• Isolated topics, oriented towards the demand of the funding party

• Distant advising – no group integration (bi-monthly visits)• Needs self-reliant and active students• Only works, if students have discussion partners in their home

environment• Success 6 x, failure ? (cannot be done on weekends)

Short-term opportunities• Run specific subprojects for Fraunhofer, DFKI, SAP, etc. • Not very attractive from a research point of view • It does not bring forward running Ph. D. work• But some extra money is always welcome!

4

Not overly attractive, because they do not boost the long-term research of the group

The definitely better options are DFG-funded research opportunities!

© 2009 AG DBIS

ADBIS2009

Ideal Cooperations

Ideal Cooperations

Middle Ages and NowadaysMiddle Ages

and Nowadays

A New ApproachA New

Approach

The AncientTimes

The AncientTimes

NowadaysNowadays Attractive research opportunities?

• Always conflicting: publishing vs. patent applications• Before start, you should have experience with the

company!• Reluctant funding• Short-term contracts with thight and specific research

tasks

Research cooperation with Google?• Challenging application• Specific topics, not focused to DBIS• Recommendable for post-docs

5But general sponsoring programmes

© 2009 AG DBIS

ADBIS2009

Ideal Cooperations

Ideal Cooperations

Middle Ages and NowadaysMiddle Ages

and Nowadays

A New ApproachA New

Approach

The AncientTimes

The AncientTimes

The Ideal Project with Industry PartnersThe Ideal Project with Industry Partners Where do you find the best research environment?

• If you want do know the next great DB wave (coming up in ~3 years), go to a research group of a (key) university (Don Haderle, ~1990)

• Today: If you want to discover hot topics of the near future, go to the research labs of the DBMS vendors

Ideal Project (quality counts!)• Long-term funding (aligned to a Ph. D. duration)• Focus on systematic research / deep understanding• No pressing deadlines / milestones • Concept-related work, but proof of concepts• Enthusiasm / momentum of game-changing

technology

6

EU funding hardly fulfills any of these aspects,but Collaborative Research Centers approximate some of these “ideal properties”.

© 2009 AG DBIS

ADBIS2009

Ideal Cooperations

Ideal Cooperations

Middle Ages and NowadaysMiddle Ages

and Nowadays

A New ApproachA New

Approach

The AncientTimes

The AncientTimes

7

A New Approach: 2009A New Approach: 2009Research under conflicting interests

University Industry

Start conditions: comparable interests, knowledge (?), competence (?)

fresh Ph. D. students experienced system architects

Overall goals: relevant and novel quality research

concepts, visibility system optimizations, intellect. property

Funding: ? no research money

Application parameters: Example: energy efficiency

single-flash config multi-device configs (RAID )Model:

single/dual processors processor complexEnvironment:

< 10GB 1 PBData volume:

10K TPM > 1M TPMConcurrency:

energy-aware budget-aware Optimization:

prototypes applicable resultsExpectations:

© 2009 AG DBIS

ADBIS2009

Ideal Cooperations

Ideal Cooperations

Middle Ages and NowadaysMiddle Ages

and Nowadays

A New ApproachA New

Approach

The AncientTimes

The AncientTimes

A New Approach (2)A New Approach (2) Loose coupling –

only support of knowledge, tools, and data• Enhance/generalize the project results• Quality research money from independent source (DFG)

Benefits of the cooperation• Refinement/extension of our XML research• Application of DB2 page reference strings from various

applications• Comparison of XTC with major DBMS products (DB2)• Use of standard benchmarks

- TPoX for OLTP- Upcoming variations of TPoX for decision support

• Reveal energy efficiency of DB2 components and compare it to XTC

• Distant flash-aware reimplementation and evaluation of DB2 components in DB2 (Buffer Mgr)

Future• Specific project support by IBM Center of Advanced Studies

(CAS)8