Welcome to the 2013 Performance and Dependability Symposium (PDS) in Budapest!

PDS is a well-recognized, major international forum for researchers and practitioners to present innovative, high-quality results in the analysis and assessment of computer systems and networks in terms of their performance, dependability, and security. As much as the considered systems vary from extremely small embedded devices and hardware components to large scale networked systems and infrastructures, so do the properties of interest with various aspects of performance, dependability, and security and the assessment approaches ranging from empirical and experimental studies to refined mathematical modeling methods.

This year, we received 113 submissions (95 regular papers, 11 practical experience reports, and 7 tool descriptions) from 20 countries, covering various facets of research and practice on these topics.

The review and selection process followed the tradition of thoroughness and rigor of DSN.  Every effort was made to ensure that submissions were solely evaluated based on their scientific merits.
With the double-blind process, reviewers did not know authors and their affiliations throughout the selection process. Each paper received three to five reviews in two rounds of reviewing where the first round with three reviews served as a preselection phase. Authors were given the opportunity to provide feedback to reviews and answer questions raised by the reviewers before the PC meeting. Discussions among reviewers took place online ahead of the PC meeting to recognize and resolve open issues. The authors’ rebuttals and the reviews were thoroughly discussed electronically through the START conference management system and during the PC meeting at the University of Maryland, on February 18-19, well attended by 32 PC members. The selection process was very competitive. We accepted 25 papers (22 regular papers, 2 practical experience reports, and 1 tool description). The overall acceptance rate was 22 %.

First of all, I would like to thank all the authors who submitted their work to PDS. I believe that the reviewing process provided valuable feedback to all authors regardless of the decision to accept or reject a particular submission. I also express my deep gratitude to the 40 PC members who devoted their time and provided their expertise to ensure the quality of the reviewing and the selection process. I am also very grateful to the external reviewers for their outstanding help and assistance in the review process. PC members and reviewers provide an invaluable service to our community to make this venue the forum of choice to present solid and strong results in our field.

The support received from the DSN General Chair (András Pataricza), the DSN Steering Committee Chair and Vice-Chairs (Neeraj Suri and Rick Schlichting in 2012, Roberto Baldoni and Paulo Verissimo in 2013) is very much appreciated. The cooperation with the DCCS Program Chair (George Candea) was stimulating and effective. Special thanks go to Michel Cukier for sharing his experiences from being PDS PC Chair in 2012 as well as for his kind support to host the PC meeting at the University of Maryland. Several SC and many PC members provided their feedback and guidance, in particular Peter Buchholz, Susanna Donatelli, Mohamed Kaâniche, and Bill Sanders, which I thankfully acknowledge here.

Thank you for attending this year’s DSN. I hope that you will find the program intellectually stimulating and that you also reserved some extra time to enjoy the historical and cultural highlights of Budapest.

Peter Kemper
College of William and Mary
PDS Program Chair