Modern data-intensive applications continuously generate massive streams of data, from network monitoring and cloud infrastructure to digital twins and AI systems. Analyzing this data in real time is often impossible using exact methods alone due to memory and latency constraints. Synopses, including sketches, are compact data summaries that enable fast, memory-efficient approximate analytics with provable accuracy guarantees. They are already widely deployed in modern data systems, yet many powerful synopsis techniques remain underutilized, while emerging AI applications present new opportunities and challenges. This interactive workshop is driven by real-world use cases, bringing together researchers and practitioners to identify where current methods fall short and where new synopsis techniques can have the greatest impact.
The workshop brings together researchers in algorithms, databases, distributed systems, and AI/ML with industry practitioners building large-scale data platforms and AI systems. Through interactive discussions centred on practical use cases, participants will identify high-impact research challenges, discuss barriers to industrial adoption, and shape a shared research agenda for the next generation of synopsis techniques.
Our goals are to:
The outcomes of the workshop will be summarized in a post-workshop white paper.
Lorentz Center, Leiden
Niels Bohrweg 1, 2nd floor, 2333 CA Leiden, The Netherlands
20 January 9:00 to 22 January 17:30 2027
The workshop is free of charge and invitation-only. We expect everyone to cover their own travel and accomodation costs.
The Lorentz Center offers accomodation for participants at a reduced rate. The costs of this hotel are expected to be around 137 euros for one night, including breakfast and taxes.
More information will follow.
Leiden has a train connection with Schiphol Airport of approximately 20 minutes, and with Amsterdam Central of 37 minutes.
The workshop is hosted in the week preceding the Conference on Innovative Data systems Research (CIDR) that is taking place in Amsterdam.
The workshop is organized by:
Wieger Punter (TU Eindhoven). E-mail: w.r.punter [at] tue.nl. Link to webpage.
Odysseas Papapetrou (TU Eindhoven). E-mail: o.papapetrou [at] tue.nl. Link to webpage.
Minos Garofalakis (Athena RC, TU Crete). E-mail: minos [at] athenarc.gr, Link to webpage.
For questions, don't hesitate to contact w.r.punter [at] tue.nl.
Below is the full tentative program for the 3-day workshop.
Before the onsite workshop, there is an online preparation meeting where we will discuss expectations of the workshop, briefly present the use cases, so that the time during the onsite workshop is used as efficient as possible.
Day 1 - 20 Jan
Overview of the workshop goals, structure, and expected outcomes.
Discussion on what the community has achieved, which research reached production, what inspired follow-up work, and why some ideas did not make it. This is to set the flavor of the remaining work- shop.
Presentations and Q&A on industry use cases: (1) Data-intensive science, (2) control systems monitoring and (3) sketching techniques for AI
Formation on breakout groups on use cases.
Group discussions focusing on specific use cases and identifying open problems.
Informal networking and continued discussions.
Day 2 - 21 Jan
Groups discuss potential solutions to identified problems.
Identify abstractions of the problems.
Groups discuss solutions to identified problems and abstractions to other problem settings.
Groups discuss solutions to identified problems and abstractions to other problem settings.
Groups share interim findings and insights.
Groups present results to each other.
Joint discussion and synthesis of the day's outcomes.
Day 3 - 22 Jan
Forward-looking keynote setting the stage for future research directions.
New thoughts, reflections and open questions.
What have researchers and practitioners learned from discussing the use cases?
Developing a shared vision for the field.
How to communicate the vision and results to the wider community?
Focused discussion on concrete research problems and open topics.
Summary of outcomes and next steps.
Informal wrap-up of the workshop.
A month after the workshop, an online meeting will take place to recap the onsite workshop. The white paper on the vision for the community will be presented here, and open challenges will be discussed. Also, this session gives space to discuss topics that came to participants minds following the workshop.
During the workshop, we will discuss several use cases that are relevant for the community. The use cases will be presented by industry partners, and will be discussed in breakout sessions. The goal is to identify open problems and challenges that can be addressed by the community.
The partners that contribute these use cases, and a brief description, will be announced soon, as well as a list of confirmed participants.