The 3rd Virtual Machine Research and Technology Symposium will be held May 6-7, 2004 in San Jose, California, USA.

Dates for paper submissions:

• Paper submissions due: October 13, 2003
• Notification to acceptance: December 7, 2003
• Camera-ready final papers due: February 16, 2004

For your convenience, here is a summary of the important information in the Call For Papers:

• Authors must submit a full paper that should consist of a traditional abstract that summarizes the content/ideas of the entire paper, followed by the full paper. It should include references to related work, figures, tables, and graphs that are central to understanding the paper.

• THE NEXT STEP IS VERY IMPORTANT. PLEASE READ CAREFULLY.

  One copy of a full paper, in PDF or PostScript format, must be submitted electronically using this Web form.

• The web form will also require the authors to provide the following information:
  • The title and authors of the manuscript.
  • The name of one author who will serve as a contact, with regular and electronic mail addresses, daytime and evening telephone numbers, and a fax number.
  • An indication of which, if any, of the authors are full-time students.

• All submissions will be acknowledged.

• The paper should be at least 10 but no more than 14 pages in length. Also, the number of words should not exceed 6,000 words. The text margins should be 6.5 inches wide by a maximum of 9 inches deep. The text should be in 10 point Times Roman type on 12 point (single-spaced) leading, set in two columns.

• Prizes will be awarded for Best Paper and Best Student Paper.

The most important thought to keep in mind when deciding whether to submit a paper is "What will the audience or readers learn from my paper?" We don't expect every paper to report on a major breakthrough, but we do look for something new, potentially useful, and not entirely obvious. Think about how different your work is from previously published papers; it may be good work but if there is nothing new to learn, it isn't worth reading (or writing) a paper about it. Think about how other people might find your work useful; can they apply what you are teaching them to their own systems? And, does your work really improve upon the previous state of the art? Or does it show how other people have been confused? "Negative results" that contradict the conventional wisdom are often as important as positive results.

Trying to decide if something is non-obvious isn't easy (patent lawyers make lots of money arguing about this), and sometimes the best ideas seem obvious in hindsight. However, if several people have done the same thing, and you are simply the first person to have considered writing a paper about it, perhaps it is too obvious.

The Program Committee will also be trying to decide if papers will lead to a good 25-minute presentation. Some papers are just too complex to be presented this way (perhaps you should focus on just one aspect); other papers just don't have enough to talk about for that long. On the other hand, a few rare papers are accepted mostly because the committee expects them to produce an interesting talk, but that might not otherwise merit publication.

Again, when you are writing your paper, keep in mind "what do I intend to teach the reader?" That means keeping the paper focused on one or a few main points. Don't try to cram too many big issues into the paper, and don't fill it up with irrelevant details. But do include enough background for the reader to understand why your problem is important, how your work relates to previous work in the field, and how it might fit into a practical system. Also, provide enough detail for the reader to put your performance measurements in context. It is vitally important to provide a good bibliography, both so that you give proper credit to previous work, and so that a reader can know where to turn to find additional background information. The Program Committee will not look kindly on a paper if the author doesn't appear to be familiar with the current literature.

Lots of papers and books have been written about how to write a good paper. We'd like to suggest that you read a paper called An Evaluation of the Ninth SOSP Submissions; or, How (and How Not) to Write a Good Systems Paper. This was written by Roy Levin and David D. Redell, the program committee co-chairs for SOSP-9, and first appeared in ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, Vol. 17, No. 3 (July, 1983), pages 35-40.

Although SOSP and VM have different foci, Levin and Redell give good advice for authors of any kind of systems paper. The authors have graciously agreed to make this paper available online.

If you have any other questions, feel free to send mail to the Program Chair at vm04chair@usenix.org.

HOW SHOULD I GET MY MANUSCRIPT TO YOU?

We have found in the past that PDF files (readable by Acroread or Acrobat) are often the best means of submitting papers.

PostScript files are also acceptable, but given that PostScript generators vary quite a lot, it is likely that we may not be able to print every submitted PostScript file. For instance, several software packages generate PostScript that can only be printed on Apple Laserwriters. So if you submit PostScript documents, please remember the following:

• Use only the most basic of fonts (TimesRoman, Helvetica, Courier). Other fonts are often not available with every printer or previewer.
• PostScript that requires some special prolog to be loaded into the printer probably will not work for us. Please don't send such files!
• If you used a PC or Macintosh-based word processor to generate your PostScript, ensure that it can be printed it on a more generic PostScript printer before sending it so as to ensure that the PostScript is portable.

If the paper you submit via the web form is missing figures, tables or other illustrations that are present in your original paper, please indicate this with a prominent note and contact the Program Chairs for submitting these illustrations.

Overseas authors should make sure that their abstract prints properly on US-style 8.5x11 inch paper. Please make sure that you leave enough room for top and bottom margins.

Finally, if you have any other questions, at any time during the entire submissions process, especially if you have a paper idea but have concerns about it not being "right" for this conference, PLEASE send mail to the Program Chair at vm04chair@usenix.org.