Fast workflow

FAST Workflow

Use this as the project-management skill for a FAST submission. Replace every date with the current official timetable and work backwards from the deadline you choose. FAST — the USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies — runs two deadlines a year, has an author-response period, and can issue a one-shot revision that spans into the next deadline, so plan for a longer arc than a plain accept/reject conference.

FAST is a USENIX conference: it has no standing editor-in-chief and no article-processing charge. Rotating leadership is the per-edition Program Co-Chairs and the program committee, and the cost model is registration plus USENIX membership — proceedings are open access. Chairs and the Artifact Evaluation Committee rotate yearly; re-check the current committee page rather than carrying a name forward (FAST '27 rosters: 待核实 beyond what the CFP names).

Choose the deadline, then plan backward

FAST '27 offers Spring (submit 17 Mar 2026, notify 4 Jun 2026, final files 28 Jul 2026) and Fall (submit 15 Sep 2026, notify 8 Dec 2026, final files 26 Jan 2027). Pick by evidence readiness — storage measurements at steady state on real, aged devices take real calendar time — not by whichever is nearest. As of 2026-07-09 the Spring round is notified and the live target is the Fall deadline, 15 Sep 2026.

Milestones

• Venue fit: confirm FAST over OSDI/ATC/EuroSys and that the core lesson is storage (fast-topic-selection).
• Evidence lock: freeze the testbed (devices, firmware, kernel), the workloads/traces, the device-state protocol (aging, fill, TRIM), the baselines, and the metrics.
• Registration: register real title, abstract, authors, topics, and conflicts on the correct Spring/Fall HotCRP instance.
• Submission: upload the anonymized, double-blind PDF and the availability statement.
• Author response: during the response window, answer reviewer questions with existing evidence or a concrete, feasible plan.
• Decision: Accept / Accept-with-shepherding / One-shot Revision / Reject.
• Shepherding or one-shot revision (if issued): make the required changes; a one-shot revision may demand new experiments and is resubmitted at the next deadline.
• Acceptance: prepare the open-access camera-ready, pursue USENIX artifact badges on the AEC's own timeline, register, and present.

Backward plan from the submission deadline

Weeks out (heuristic)	Storage-evaluation milestone
12+	Testbed fixed: device models/firmware, kernel, mkfs options; workloads/traces chosen
10	Device-state protocol locked (aging/preconditioning, fill level, TRIM); baselines built and tuned
8	Measurement runs complete at steady state; device counters (SMART/logs) captured; provenance logged
6	Analysis done; tail-latency distributions, write-amplification, endurance projections computed
4	Full draft in the USENIX template; artifact + trace-replay scripts assembled and anonymized
3	Internal mock review by a storage reader
2	Caveats hardened, related-work delta sharpened, page limit met
1	Double-blind sweep on PDF and artifact; availability statement final
0	Register the abstract on the correct HotCRP, then upload

These offsets are planning heuristics only — anchor every one to the current Important Dates block, never to a previous cycle's calendar. Note that storage runs (aging a drive, replaying a long trace, an endurance test) can dominate the schedule; size them explicitly.

The two-deadline reality and one-shot revision

• Missing one deadline is not a lost year. The other FAST deadline is months away — but so is a sibling (OSDI/ATC/EuroSys) date; factor that into routing rather than idling.
• A one-shot revision is a second full deadline, not a formality. Its instructions can require specific new experiments, the revised paper is re-read, and it can be rejected. Budget the revision window like a fresh submission, and note the paper stays under review at FAST during it, so it cannot go elsewhere in parallel.

Failure modes by stage

• Testbed still moving at week 6 forces last-minute measurements nobody audited — the classic storage-soundness reject in the making.
• Reporting fresh-out-of-box instead of steady-state numbers invites the "did you precondition?" objection that can sink an SSD paper.
• Leaving the anonymized artifact and trace hosting to the final week is how a device dump, hostname, or personal trace URL leaks identity under double-blind.
• Treating a one-shot revision as an accept and under-budgeting its experiments turns a winnable revision into a reject.

Coordination notes

• Assign one owner for the testbed/provenance log and another for the double-blind sweep; shared ownership is how both slip.
• Archive the exact submitted PDF, artifact, and (later) the response/revision documents — the revision round must quote reviews precisely and stay anonymous.

Output format

[Current stage] idea / evidence / writing / registration / submitted / response / shepherd-or-revision / accepted
[Target deadline] Spring / Fall <date and source, or unknown>
[Critical path] <three tasks that determine readiness — often measurement-time-bound>
[Risk register] <page limit / anonymity / device state / provenance / tail latency / artifact>
[Owner map] <task -> person or role>