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Rootconf topical edition on Databases

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Karthik Ramachandra

@karthikramachandra Presenter

Database systems: a decade of disruption and innovation

Submitted May 7, 2026

Session type - select the format for your session: 30-minute talk – technical deep dive

The past decade has been highly eventful for Database systems, to say the least.

Databases have transitioned from on-prem system software running in controlled environments to highly scalable and elastic services that run on commodity hardware in the cloud. They have evolved to handle diverse, complex workloads and multi-modal data while adhering to the ever-growing demands of security, compliance and data governance.
This transformation has been possible due to several fundamental breakthroughs in both technology and business. This talk traces the evolution of database systems over the past decade and describes some of the key ideas that have paved the way. The talk concludes by highlighting a few open challenges and opportunities for innovation in database systems, as we enter the era of AI.

#Take-aways from the keynote

  1. Understand the story of evolution of database systems over the past decade
  2. Learn about some deep systems innovations that have had tremendous impact both on industry and academia
  3. Get a glimpse of what lies in store for the future of databases in the era of AI

Intended audience

Anyone who is fascinated by database systems and is interested in getting a bird’s eye view of the past, present and future of this fundamental branch of computer science.

About the presenter

Karthik Ramachandra is head the Azure SQL DB R&D Organization in India. Prior to this, he was a researcher at Microsoft Research India and Microsoft Gray Systems Lab. Karthik’s areas of interest include query processing and optimization in large scale databases and data management systems.
Karthik has a PhD in computer science from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and a B.Tech. from BMS College of Engineering, Bangalore.
His doctoral thesis titled “Holistic Optimization of Database Applications” won an honorable mention for the ACM SIGMOD Jim Gray Doctoral Dissertation Award in 2015.

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