Successful Completion of the PERSIST Research Project: Advancing Robust Computing in the Era of Persistent Memory

Date : 06.05.2026

The research project PERSIST (How to Compute in Persistent Memory Systems), funded by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI), has been successfully completed, delivering major scientific and technological advances that redefine how computing systems operate in the era of Non-
Volatile Memory (NVM). As traditional main memory technologies such as DRAM lose data upon system failures or shutdowns, next-generation systems are shifting toward NVM, which enables data persistence even after crashes. PERSIST addressed a fundamental question for the future of computing: How does computation change when memory becomes persistent?

Major Achievements

PERSIST has made significant contributions that bridge foundations with practice:

  • A Unified Theory for Persistent Computing. The project developed the first comprehensive theoretical framework for modeling and analyzing concurrent systems with recoverable failures in NVM environments. It establishes a unified consistency theory and introduces new correctness conditions tailored to persistent memory.
  • Recoverable Computing with Minimal Overhead. A suite of efficient recoverable data structures, algorithms, and synchronization primitives was designed, enabling fast recovery after failures without compromising performance during normal operation.
  • Advanced Memory Management Systems. The project introduced Fenrir, a high-performance, modular memory management system for NVM, delivering significantly improved memory allocation and garbage collection compared to existing solutions.
  • High-Performance Data Processing Solutions. The project developed cutting-edge indexing structures, including FreSh, PFreSh, and Hercules, enabling fast and reliable similarity search in massive datasets, both in memory and on disk.
     

International Recognition
PERSIST produced 13 publications in leading international conferences and journals, with two Best Paper Awards at top-tier venues, highlighting the project’s scientific excellence and global impact.

Impact and Added Value
Beyond research, PERSIST delivered strong educational and societal impact: a) Integration of results into graduate-level education, b) 42 invited talks, tutorials, and lectures worldwide, c) Active participation in major international workshops and conferences, d) Public outreach activities, including engagement with students and the general public.

The outcomes of PERSIST are expected to have far-reaching impact across multiple domains, including data centers, big data analytics, high-performance and exascale computing. By enabling efficient and reliable recovery from failures, the project paves the way for computing systems that are not only faster, but fundamentally more resilient.

 

CONTACT INFORMATION
Professor Panagiota Fatourou
Foundation for Research & Technology - Hellas (FORTH) Institute of Computer Science (ICS)
Tel.: 2810 391727,
Email: faturu@ics.forth.gr
URL: www.csd.uoc.gr/~faturu

 

MORE INFORMATION
persist-project.gr/
www.linkedin.com/groups/9235182/