Category: Market Trends

Experts Speak at Flash Memory Summit

Marty Foltyn Leave a comment



2020 brought new developments in persistent memory and computational storage. SNIA Compute, Memory, and Storage Initiative was pleased to sponsor two tracks at the recent Flash Memory Summit where industry leaders captured the advances.  Videos and presentations are now available.

In the Persistent Memory Track, Dave Eggleston of Intuitive Cognition Consulting and Chris Petersen of Facebook combine to deliver a state of the union address for the industry effort underway to deliver persistent memory. They examine industry advances of persistent memory media, the new devices and form factors for persistent memory attachment, remote and direct-attached PM with low latency interfaces like CXL, and describe the best fit applications and use cases for persistent memory.

Jia Shi of Oracle and Yao Yue of Twitter then dive into a rapid-fire presentation on two examples of how persistent memory is changing the landscape – in appliances, in infrastructure, and in applications – from the perspective of a social networking company and a cloud and enterprise software provider.  They highlight the motivation for using persistent memory and the delivered results

Finally, Ginger Gilsdorf of Intel and Tom Coughlin of Coughlin Associates look ahead to how Persistent Memory technology is evolving, including maximizing performance in next-generation applications, and provide their perspective on PM market growth projections.

The track concludes with speakers reuniting in a panel to discuss the reasons that have stopped persistent memory from gaining wider usage and identifying breakthroughs that are beginning to appear.

The Computational Storage Track opens with an update by Chuck Sobey of Channel Science who discusses the shifting of compute power to the storage; use cases including database, big data, AI/ML, and edge applications; and how the framework for computational storage is driven by SNIA and the NVM Express standards groups.

Stephen Bates of Eideticom follows with an outline of the state of the nation in computational storage standards. He then describes computational storage examples already in use that illustrate ways storage challenges are being met, and comments on promising directions to explore for the future.

Andy Walls of IBM then discusses using computational storage to handle big data, allowing data to reside close to processing power, thus allowing processing tasks to be in-line with data accesses. He covers computational storage examples already in use for application distribution and other promising directions to explore for the future.

Neil Werdmuller and Jason Molgaard of Arm discuss flexible computational storage solutions, and how data-driven applications that benefit from database searches, data manipulation, and machine learning can perform better and be more scalable if developers add computation directly to storage.

A lively panel with Arm, Eideticom, NGD Systems, and ScaleFlux rounds out the track, discussing keys to making computational storage work in your applications.  

Enjoy these presentations and contact us at askcmsi@snia.org with your questions and comments!



Are We at the End of the 2.5-inch Disk Era?

Jonmichael Hands Leave a comment

The SNIA Solid State Storage Special Interest Group (SIG) recently updated the Solid State Drive Form Factor page to provide detailed information on dimensions; mechanical, electrical, and connector specifications; and protocols. On our August 4, 2020 SNIA webcast, we will take a detailed look at one of these form factors – Enterprise and Data Center SSD Form Factor (EDSFF) – challenging an expert panel to consider if we are at the end of the 2.5-in disk era.

Enterprise and Data Center Form Factor (EFSFF) is designed natively for data center NVMe SSDs to improve thermal, power, performance, and capacity scaling. EDSFF has different variants for flexible and scalable performance, dense storage configurations, general purpose servers, and improved data center TCO.  At the 2020 Open Compute Virtual Summit, OEMs, cloud service providers, hyperscale data center, and SSD vendors showcased products and their vision for how this new family of SSD form factors solves real data challenges.

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Everyone Wants Their Java to Persist

Jim Fister Leave a comment

In this time of lockdown, I’m sure we’re all getting a little off kilter. I mean, it’s one thing to get caught up listening to tunes in your office to avoid going out and alerting your family of the fact that you haven’t changed your shirt in two days. It’s another thing to not know where a clean coffee cup is in the house so you can fill it and face the day starting sometime between 5AM and Noon. Okay, maybe we’re just talking about me, sorry. But you get the point.

Wouldn’t it be great if we had some caffeinated source that was good forever? I mean… persistence of Java? At this point, it’s not just me.

Okay, that’s not what this webinar will be talking about, but it’s close. SNIA member Intel is offering an overview of the ways to utilize persistent memory in the Java environment. In my nearly two years here at SNIA, this has been one of the most-requested topics. Steve Dohrmann and Soji Denloye are two of the brightest minds in enabling persistence, and this is sure to be an insightful presentation.

Persistent memory application capabilities are growing significantly.  Since the publication of the SNIA NVM Programming Model developed by the SNIA Persistent Memory Programming Technical Work Group, new language support seems to be happening every day.  Don’t miss the opportunity to see the growth of PM programming in such a crucial space as Java.

The presentation is on BrighTALK, and will be live on May 27th at 10am PST. You can see the details at this link.

Now I just have to find a clean cup.

This post is also cross-posted at the PIRL Blog.  PIRL is a joint effort by SNIA and UCSD’s Non-Volatile Systems Lab to advance the conversation on persistent memory programming.  Check out other entries here.

Trends in Media and Entertainment Storage – Your Questions Answered from Our Webcast

Marty Foltyn Leave a comment

Thanks to all who attended or listened on-demand to our recent SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative (SSSI) webcast on Trends in Worldwide Media and Entertainment Storage. Motti Beck of Mellanox Technologies and Tom Coughlin, SSSI Education Chair and analyst with Coughlin Associates, got rave reviews for their analysis of this important market.  Feedback comments included “Good overview with enough details for me to learn something”; “Really appreciate the insight into the ME businesses”; and “Just in time for the upcoming NAB Show!”.  We appreciate your interest and enthusiasm!

Important to every SNIA webcast are the Questions – and we got quite a few on this one.  Thanks in advance to Tom Coughlin, who provided the answers below.  Send any more questions to us at asksssi@snia.org with the subject- M&E Webcast Questions.  Happy reading, and we hope to see you at one of our upcoming webcasts or events.

 

Q.  What is the best form to store(age) the format video, NAS or SAN?

A.  Well, it depends.  A SAN can directly access the data blocks that make up the video file, these can be quickly transported to the workstation.  There they are reassembled into the video file.  A properly configured SAN can provide faster access to data, particularly if many users are accessing the same data in the storage system.  SANs can be appropriate for a larger production facility.  A NAS may provide somewhat slower access, but provides individual access to individual files.  NAS storage can be an appropriate shared storage for smaller production facilities where there are fewer users or the users don’t access the same files at the same time.

 

Q.  Are there an M&E-specific performance benchmarks or other qualification tools recommended for storage subsystem selection?

A.  That is an interesting question.  I know about several general storage performance benchmarks, such as SPC (https://spcresults.org/benchmarks).  There are storage performance tests offered by some M&E industry suppliers, such as one from AJA System Test (https://www.aja.com/products/aja-system-test).  This is probably an area that could use some additional development.

 

Q.  Revenue share by type and use case – is this on the decline or rise?  What are the YoY trends?

A.  If I understand this right, you are asking questions about revenue growth for different media and entertainment use cases or different parts of the workflow on an annual basis.  That information is in the 2018 Digital Storage for Media and Entertainment Report (https://tomcoughlin.com/tech-papers/)

 

Q.  A question for Tom Coughlin.  You  said 66% will use private or public cloud for archiving in 2018.  Do you have the breakdown between the the two?

A.  It is a combination but given the concerns of the industry, I suspect this is mostly private cloud in 2018.

 

Q.  When Tom says “post production” storage, is that primary, secondary/nearline, or both?

A.  If I understand the question right, this is all storage used in post-production, which can use a primary and secondary storage tier, particularly in a larger facility which is economizing on its storage costs.

 

Q.  With regard to HDD storage, does the interface trend continue to be SATA/SAS?  Does the back end workload look to benefit from SMR or dual-actuator technology?

A.  For the time being HDDs will be SATA and SAS.  There are now some HDD storage systems with NVMe on the back end and it will be interesting to see how this develops.  I am sure that M&E users will benefit from SMR and dual-actuator HDDs.  SMR will be good for active archiving in particular and dual actuator will allow faster access to HDD data, a benefit for video projects.

 

Q.  Unless I missed it, you made no mention of software-defined storage as a viable method for storing the growing amount of data in M&E.  Was that taken into consideration when you did your survey?

A.  Software defined storage can be an important element in media and entertainment storage and is finding increasing use in this and other applications.

 

Q.  Is the cloud archive, primary copy or secondary (insurance policy with limited to no access)?

A.  It depends upon the organization, although I think for many studios and larger organizations, they may keep content on tape and even off-line tape as well.  Cloud archives do allow access to data, the usual issue is the cost of egressing that content.

Persistently Fun Once Again – SNIA’s 7th Persistent Memory Summit is a Wrap!

kristin.hauser Leave a comment

Leave it to Rob Peglar, SNIA Board Member and the MC of SNIA’s 7th annual Persistent Memory Summit to capture the Summit day as persistently fun with a metric boatload of great presentations and speakers! And indeed it was a great day, with fourteen sessions presented by 23 speakers covering the breadth of where PM is in 2019 – real world, application-focused, and supported by multiple operating systems. Find a great recap on the Forbes blog by Tom Coughlin of Coughlin Associates.

Attendees enjoyed live demos of Persistent Memory technologies from AgigA Tech, Intel, SMART Modular, the SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative, and Xilinx.  Learn more about what they presented here.

And for the first time as a part of the Persistent Memory Summit, SNIA hosted a Persistent Memory Programming Hackathon sponsored by Google Cloud, where SNIA PM experts mentored software developers to do live coding to understand the various tiers and modes of PM and what existing methods are available to access them.  Upcoming SNIA SSSI on Solid State Storage blogs will give details and insights into “PM Hacking”.  Also sign up for the SNIAMatters monthly newsletter to learn more, and stay tuned for upcoming Hackathons – next one is March 10-11 in San Diego.

Missed out on the live sessions?  Not to worry, each session was videotaped and can be found on the SNIA Youtube Channel.  Download the slides for each session on the PM Summit agenda at www.snia.org/pm-summit.  Thanks to our presenters from Advanced Computation and Storage, Arm, Avalanche Technology, Calypso Systems, Coughlin Associates, Dell, Everspin Technologies, In-Cog Solutions, Intel, Mellanox Technologies, MemVerge, Microsoft, Objective Analysis, Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation, Tencent Cloud, Western Digital, and Xilinx.   And thanks also to our great audience and their questions – your enthusiasm and support will keep us persistently having even more fun!

Emerging Memory Questions Answered

Marty Foltyn Leave a comment

With a topic like Emerging Memory Poised to Explode, no wonder this SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative webcast generated so much interest!  Our audience had some great questions, and, as promised, our experts Tom Coughlin and Jim Handy provide the answers in this blog. Read on, and join SNIA at the Persistent Memory Summit January 24, 2019 in Santa Clara CA.  Details and complimentary registration are at www.snia.org/pm-summit.

Q. Can you mention one or two key applications leading the effort to leverage Persistent Memory?

A. Right now the main applications for Persistent Memory are in Storage Area Networks (SANs), where NVDIMM-Ns (Non-Volatile Dual In-line Memory Modules) are being used for journaling.  SAP HANA, SQLserver, Apache Ignite, Oracle RDBMS, eXtremeDB, Aerospike, and other in-memory databases are undergoing early deployment with NVDIMM-N and with Intel’s Optane DIMMs in hyperscale datacenters.  IBM is using Everspin Magnetoresistive Random-Access Memory (MRAM) chips for higher-speed functions (write cache, data buffer, streams, journaling, and logs) in certain Solid State Drives (SSDs), following a lead taken by Mangstor.  Everspin’s STT MRAM DIMM is also seeing some success, but the company’s not disclosing a lot of specifics.

Q. I believe that anyone who can ditch the batteries for NVDIMM support will happily pay a mark-up on 3DXP DIMMs should Micron offer them.

A: Perhaps that’s true.  I think that Micron, though, is looking for higher-volume applications.  Micron is well aware of the size of the NVDIMM-N market, since the company is an important NVDIMM supplier.  Everspin is probably also working on this opportunity, since its STT MRAM DIMM is similar, although at a significantly higher price than Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM).

Volume is the key to more applications for 3DXPoint DIMMs and any other memory technology.  It may be that the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications will help drive the greater use of many of these fast Non-Volatile Memories.

Q.  Any comments on HPE’s Memristor?

A: HPE went very silent on the Memristor at about the same time that the 3D XPoint Memory was introduced.  The company explained in 2016 that the first generation of “The Machine” would use DRAM instead of the Memristor.  This leads us to suspect that 3D XPoint turned some heads at HPE.  One likely explanation is that HPE by itself would have a very difficult time reaching the scale required to bring the Memristor’s cost to the necessary level to justify its use.

Q. Do you expect NVDIMM-N will co-exist into the future with other storage class memories because of its speed and essentially unlimited endurance of DRAM?

A: Yes.  The NVDIMM-N should continue to appeal to certain applications, especially those that value its technical attributes enough to offset its higher-than-DRAM price.

Q. What are Write/Erase endurance limitations of PCM and STT? (vis a vis DRAM’s infinite endurance)?

A: Intel and Micron have never publicly disclosed their endurance figures for 3D XPoint, although Jim Handy has backed out numbers in his Memory Guy blog (http://TheMemoryGuy.com/examining-3d-xpoints-1000-times-endurance-benefit/).  His calculations indicate an endurance of more than 30K erase/write cycles, but the number could be significantly lower than this since SSD controllers do a good job of reducing the number of writes that the memory chip actually sees.  There’s an SSD guy series on this: http://thessdguy.com/how-controllers-maximize-ssd-life/, also available as a SNIA SSSI TechNote.   Everspin’s EMD3D256M STT MRAM specification lists an endurance of 10^10 cycles.

Q. Your thoughts on Nanotube RAM (NRAM)?

A: Although the nanotube memory is very interesting it is only one member in a sea of contenders for the Persistent Memory crown.  It’s very difficult to project the outcome of a device that’s not already in volume production.

Q. Will Micron commercialize 3D XPoint? I do not see them in the market as much as Intel on Optane.

A: Micron needs a clear path to profitability to rationalize entering the 3D XPoint market whereas Intel can justify losing money on the technology.  Learn why in an upcoming post on The Memory Guy blog.

Thanks again to the bearded duo and their moderator, Alex McDonald, SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative Co-Chair!  Bookmark the SNIA Brighttalk webcast link for more great webcasts in 2019!

Around the World, It’s a Persistent Memory Summer

Marty Foltyn Leave a comment

This summer, join SNIA as they evangelize members’ industry activity to advance the convergence of storage and memory.

SNIA is participating in the first annual European In-Memory Computing Summit, June 20-21, 2017 at the Movenpick Hotel in Amsterdam.  SNIA Europe Vice-Chair and SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative (SSSI) Co-Chair Alex McDonald of NetApp keynotes a session on SNIA and Persistent Memory, highlighting Read More

Your Questions Answered on Non-Volatile DIMMs

Marty Foltyn Leave a comment

 

by Arthur Sainio, SNIA NVDIMM SIG Co-Chair, SMART Modular

SNIA’s Non-Volatile DIMM (NVDIMM) Special Interest Group (SIG) had a tremendous response to their most recent webcast:  NVDIMM:  Applications are
Here!  You can view the webcast on demand.

Viewers had many questions during the webcast.  In this blog, the NVDIMM SIG answers those questions and shares the SIG’s knowledge of NVDIMM technology. Read More

How Many IOPS? Users Share Their 2017 Storage Performance Needs

Marty Foltyn Leave a comment

New on the Solid State Storage website is a whitepaper from analysts Tom Coughlin of Coughlin Associates and Jim Handy of Objective Analysis which details what IT manager requirements are for storage performance.The paper examines how requirements have changed over a four-year period for a range of applications, including databases, online transaction processing, cloud and storage services, and scientific and engineering computing. Users disclose how many IOPS are needed, how much storage capacity is required,  and what system bottlenecks prevent them for getting the performance they need. Read More

Cast Your Vote on November 8 for the Magic and Mystery of In-Memory Apps!

Marty Foltyn Leave a comment

It’s an easy “Yes” vote for this great webcast from the SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative on the Magic and Mystery of In-Memory Apps! Join us on Election Day – November 8 – at 1:00 pm ET/10:00 am PT to learn about today’s market and the disruptions that happen when combining big-data vote-yes(Petabytes) with in-memory/real-time requirements.  You’ll understand the interactions with Hadoop/Spark, Tachyon, SAP HANA, NoSQL, and the related infrastructure of DRAM, NAND, 3DXpoint, NV-DIMMs, and high-speed networking and learn what happens to infrastructure design and operations when “tiered-memory” replaces “tiered storage”.

Presenter Shaun Walsh of G2M Communications is an expert in memory technology – and a great speaker! He’ll share with you what you need to know about evaluating, planning, and implementing in-memory computing applications, and give you the framework to evaluation and plan for your adoption of in-memory computing.

Register at: https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/663/230103