This session at eScience Workshop 2011 discusses rapid developments in computation, storage, and networking that have enabled an array of new services and systems, ranging from improvements in high-performance computing to the proliferation of smart sensors. In both science and information systems, old architectures and institutions are struggling with data-intensive science—a new knowledge ecosystem, characterized by radical personalization, rapidly assembling (and disassembling) collaborative networks, and intense real-time communications. An ecosystem concept that is characterized more by resilience and flexibility than by robustness and predictability may be a better model for both science and information technology. Jim Gray’s “laws” of data-intensive science can help guide us through this new conceptualization.