Episode Description
In this episode of Disseminate: The Computer Science Research Podcast, host Jack Waudby sits down with Xiangyao Yu (UW–Madison), one of the leading voices shaping the next generation of cloud-native databases.
We dive deep into disaggregation — the architectural shift transforming how modern data systems are built. Xiangyao breaks down:
- Why traditional shared-nothing databases struggle in cloud environments
- How separating compute and storage unlocks elasticity, scalability, and cost efficiency
- The evolution of disaggregated systems, from Aurora and Snowflake through to advanced pushdown processing and new modular services
- His team's research on reinventing core protocols like 2-phase commit for cloud-native environments
- Real-time analytics, HTAP challenges, and the Hermes architecture
- Where disaggregation goes next — indexing, query optimizers, materialized views, multi-cloud architectures, and more
Whether you're a database engineer, researcher, or a practitioner building scalable cloud systems, this episode gives a clear, accessible look into the architecture that’s rapidly becoming the default for modern data platforms.
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