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arXiv · 2607.16836

Beyond Storage: State as a Runtime Control Problem in Parallel and Distributed Systems

Shuhao Zhang·Haoran Peng·Chun Ho Ma·Yancan Mao·Yufeng Du·Shifeng Liu·Ruijie Qiu·Xiaofei Liao·Hai Jin
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Abstract

Shared state increasingly shapes both performance and failure behavior in streaming, serving, retrieval, and continual-learning systems. Existing studies, however, often isolate access control, hardware-aware execution, memory management, and long-horizon updates. The review organizes this literature around three coupled dimensions: state access and scheduling, state-aware execution, and state evolution and reuse. Across these dimensions, the literature is synthesized through a common scaffold: state object, control surface, coupling path, evaluation boundary, and unresolved contract. This comparison identifies recurring anti-patterns and informs a contract-oriented blueprint and disturbance-aware evaluation agenda. Taken together, the evidence characterizes state management as a runtime control problem.

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Shuhao Zhang, Haoran Peng, Chun Ho Ma, Yancan Mao, Yufeng Du, Shifeng Liu, Ruijie Qiu, Xiaofei Liao, Hai Jin. 2026-07-18. Beyond Storage: State as a Runtime Control Problem in Parallel and Distributed Systems. https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.16836

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