Overview

NSDI focuses on the design principles, implementation, and practical evaluation of networked and distributed systems. Our goal is to bring together researchers from across the networking and systems community to foster a broad approach to addressing overlapping research challenges. NSDI provides a high-quality, single-track forum for presenting results and discussing ideas that further the knowledge and understanding of the networked systems community as a whole, continue a significant research dialog, or push the architectural boundaries of network services.

Topics

• Highly available and reliable networked systems
• Security and privacy of networked systems
• Distributed storage, caching, and query processing
• Energy-efficient computing in networked systems
• Cloud/multi-tenant systems
• Mobile and embedded/sensor applications and systems
• Wireless networked systems
• Network measurements, workload, and topology characterization systems
• Self-organizing, autonomous, and federated networked systems
• Managing, debugging, and diagnosing problems in networked/distributed systems
• Virtualization and resource management for networked systems and clusters
• Systems aspects of networking hardware
• Experience with deployed/operational networked systems
• Communication and computing over big data on a networked system
• Practical aspects of network economics
• An innovative solution for a significant problem involving networked systems

Operational Systems Track

In addition to papers that describe original research, NSDI ’16 also solicits papers that describe the design, implementation, analysis, and experience with large-scale, operational systems and networks. We encourage submission of papers that disprove or strengthen existing assumptions, deepen the understanding of existing problems, and validate known techniques at scales or environments in which they were never used or tested before. Such operational papers need not present new ideas or results to be accepted.

Authors should indicate on the title page of the paper and in the submission form that they are submitting to this track.

What to Submit   

Submissions must be no longer than 12 pages, including footnotes, figures, and tables. Submissions may include as many additional pages as needed for references and for supplementary material in appendices. The paper should stand alone without the supplementary material, but authors may use this space for content that may be of interest to some readers but is peripheral to the main technical contributions of the paper. Note that members of the program committee are free to not read this material when reviewing the paper.

Submissions must be in two-column format, using 10-point type on 12-point (single-spaced) leading, with a maximum text block of 6.5” wide x 9” deep, with .25” inter-column space, formatted for 8.5” x 11” paper. Papers not meeting these criteria will be rejected without review, and no deadline extensions will be granted for reformatting. Pages should be numbered, and figures and tables should be legible when printed without requiring magnification. Authors may use color in their figures, but the figures should be readable when printed in black and white.

NSDI is single-blind, meaning that authors should include their names on their paper submissions and do not need to obscure references to their existing work. Authors must submit their paper’s title and abstract by September 17, 2015, and the corresponding full paper is due by September 24, 2015 (hard deadlines). All papers must be submitted via the Web submission form. Do not email submissions.

Submissions will be judged on originality, significance, interest, clarity, relevance, and correctness. Papers so short as to be considered "extended abstracts" will not receive full consideration.

NSDI '16 Policies

Simultaneous submission of the same work to multiple venues, submission of previously published work, or plagiarism constitutes dishonesty or fraud. USENIX, like other scientific and technical conferences and journals, prohibits these practices and may take action against authors who have committed them. See the USENIX Conference Submissions Policy for details.

Previous publication at a workshop is acceptable as long as the NSDI submission includes substantial new material. For example, submitting a paper that provides a full evaluation of an idea that was previously sketched in a five-page position paper is acceptable. Authors of such papers should cite the prior workshop paper and clearly state the submission's contribution relative to the prior workshop publication.

Authors uncertain whether their submission meets USENIX’s guidelines should contact the Program Co-Chairs, nsdi16chairs@usenix.org.

Papers accompanied by nondisclosure agreement forms will not be considered. All submissions will be treated as confidential prior to publication on the USENIX NSDI '16 web site; rejected submissions will be permanently treated as confidential.

Ethical Considerations

Authors must honor the ACM code of ethics. In particular, they must not endanger or mislead the users participating in their studies or experiments, nor reveal any personal information of these users without their explicit consent. The Program Committee reserves the right to reject a paper on the grounds that it does not meet these requirements.

Processes for Accepted Papers

Authors will be notified of paper acceptance or rejection by December 7, 2015. If your paper is accepted and you need an invitation letter to apply for a visa to attend the conference, please contact conference@usenix.org as soon as possible. (Visa applications can take at least 30 working days to process.) Please identify yourself as a presenter and include your mailing address in your email.

Accepted papers may be shepherded through an editorial review process by a member of the Program Committee. Based on initial feedback from the Program Committee, authors of shepherded papers will submit an editorial revision of their paper to their Program Committee shepherd. The shepherd will review the paper and give the author additional comments. All authors, shepherded or not, will upload their final file to the submissions system by February 18, 2016, for the conference Proceedings.

All papers will be available online to registered attendees before the conference. If your accepted paper should not be published prior to the event, please notify production@usenix.org. The papers will be available online to everyone beginning on the first day of the conference, March 16, 2016.

Best Paper Awards

Awards will be given for the best paper(s) at the conference.