ACTIVITIES

Work-in-Progress Reports (WiPs)

Wednesday, February 25, 3:30 p.m.–5:00 p.m.
The FAST technical sessions will include a session for Work-in-Progress reports, preliminary results, and "outrageous" opinion statements. We are particularly interested in presentations of student work.

WiPs will be selected in advance of the conference on the basis of one-page abstracts, which should be in PDF format with fonts no smaller than 10 points and 3/4-inch margins. Longer submissions will be rejected without review.

Abstracts must be emailed to [email protected] by 11:59 p.m. PST (UTC-8) on Thursday, January 29, 2009. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by Monday, February 9, 2009. WiP presenters may also be invited to participate in the poster session to encourage extended discussion of their ideas.

WiP talks will be selected on the following basis:

• Submissions must describe new, interesting work, not previously presented. Untested, blue-sky, and provocative ideas are explicitly encouraged, but more developed work is also desirable.
• Submissions should represent early work that is not yet published in a refereed conference or journal.
• Student submissions meeting the above criteria will be given preference; however, non-students are also encouraged to submit abstracts.

Submissions should begin with the following information in this format:

• Talk title
• Author names, affiliations, and email addresses
• Which authors, if any, are students

Following that, you should provide a 1–3 paragraph summary of your proposed talk. The job of the abstract is to convince the WiP review committee that the 5-minute talk will be technically interesting to the audience. The abstract should be no longer than necessary to describe the key ideas. Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection via email by February 9, 2009. No reviews will be provided.

Presentations will be strictly limited to 5 minutes. Given this, your presentation should be focused on communicating one novel idea well, rather than trying to present a complete overview of your work. The talk itself can, of course, go into greater detail than the 1–3 paragraph abstract. Send any questions about the Work-in-Progress session to [email protected].

Further guidelines about the mechanics of the talks can be found here.

Poster Session & Happy Hour

Wednesday, February 25, 5:00 p.m.–7:00 p.m.
Held in conjunction with a happy hour, the poster session will allow researchers to present recent and ongoing projects. The poster session is an excellent forum to discuss new ideas and get useful feedback from the community. Proposed posters should be described with a one-page abstract of the research in PDF format, with fonts no smaller than 10 points and 3/4-inch margins. Longer submissions will be rejected without review. Submitters may include additional pages with graphs or diagrams proposed for the poster and referenced in the abstract, but those pages may not contain text.

Posters will be selected on the following basis:

• Posters should describe work in progress, including a significant aspect that has not previously been published.
• Posters should include some form of preliminary results.
• Student submissions meeting the above criteria will be given preference; however, non-students are also encouraged to submit abstracts.

Poster submissions should begin with the following information in this format:

• Poster title
• Author names, affiliations, and email addresses
• Which authors, if any, are students

Following that, you should provide a 1–3 paragraph summary of the research to be presented in your poster. The job of the abstract is to convince the poster review committee that the poster will be technically interesting to the FAST community and will provoke interesting discussions. The abstract should be no longer than necessary to describe the key ideas.

Poster abstracts must be emailed to [email protected] by 11:59 p.m. PST (UTC-8) on Thursday, January 29, 2009. Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection via email by February 9, 2009. No reviews will be provided.

Further guidelines about poster layout and procedures can be found here.

Birds-of-a-Feather Sessions (BoFs)

Wednesday, February 25, 7:00 p.m.–11:00 p.m.
Thursday, February 26, 7:30 p.m.–11:30 p.m.
Do you have a topic you'd like to discuss with others? Our Birds-of-a-Feather sessions may be perfect for you. BoFs are very interactive and informal gatherings for attendees interested in a particular topic. Registered attendees may schedule BoFs in advance by contacting [email protected].

Social Activities

Meet the conference speakers and connect with your peers in the community.

Tuesday, February 24, 6:00 p.m.–7:00 p.m.
Welcome Get-Together

Wednesday, February 25, 5:00 p.m.–7:00 p.m.
Poster Session & Happy Hour

Thursday, February 26, 12:30 p.m.–2:00 p.m.
Conference Luncheon

Thursday, February 26, 6:00 p.m.–7:30 p.m.
Conference Reception, Sponsored by NetApp