Not a Tempest But a Seachange – Persistent Memory

by Marty Foltyn

Persistent memory discussions are capturing the minds of SNIA members and colleagues.  At last month’s SNIA Storage Developer Conference, NVM (non-volatile memory) and NVMe sessions were standing-room-only, and opinion sharing continued into animated hallway discussions.  I encourage you to check out the many presentations on the SNIA SDC website, and to download the live recordings of the keynotes here.

memconSNIA continued their education on persistent memory at this week’s Memcon in Santa Clara CA. SNIA’s booth was packed with attendees asking questions like what is the difference between the different kinds of NVDIMMs (you’ll want to check out our new snia_nvdimm_infographic), and is NVDIMM a standard (indeed, it is, JEDEC just released the DDR4 NVDIMM-N Design Standard Revision 1.0 last month, and you can download the link from our website). Read More

What Do 650 of Your Colleagues Know That You Don’t Know?

wordcloud 4Is your head spinning with all the variations in solid state storage technologies, interconnects, and application level approaches on the market today?

Then you will want to mark your professional calendar – at YOUR convenience – to watch the SNIA BrighTalk webcast: Architectural Principles for Networked Solid State Storage Access,” – one of the most successful ever produced by SNIA! Read More

Persistent Memory Featured at Open Server Summit and in New NVDIMM Webcast

April’s Open Server Summit brought thought leaders together for two days of keynotes, sessions, and a demonstration showcase on converged server-storage-networking infrastructures and open specifications shaping the data center. SNIA board member Rob Peglar of Micron Technology delivered a keynote on new persistent memory directions that create new approaches for system architects.

A Summit highlight was a SNIA’s Solid State Storage Initiative sponsored panel on Providing Storage at Memory Speed Using NVDIMMs, where booth and panelpanelists reviewed how NVDIMMs operate in new interest areas for persistent memory like databases, Web 2.0, analytics, OLTP, and video and image processing. NVDIMM technologies were also featured on the showfloor with demonstrations from SNIA NVDIMM Special Interest Group (SIG) members Diablo Technologies, Netlist, and SMART Modular.  Download the presentation from Open Server Summit here. Read More

SNIA NVM Summit Delivers the Persistent Memory Knowledge You Need

by Marty Foltyn

The discussion, use, and application of Non-volatile Memory (NVM) has come a long way from the first SNIA NVM Summit in 2013.  The significant improvements in persistent memory, with enormous capacity, memory-like speed and non-volatility, will make the long-awaited promise of the convergence storage and memory a reality. In this 4th annual NVM Summit, we will see how Storage and Memory have now converged, and learn that we are now faced with developing the needed ecosystem.  Register and join colleagues on Wednesday, January 20, 2016 in San Jose, CA to learn more, or follow http://www.snia.org/nvmsummit to review presentations post- event.

The Summit day begins with Rick Coulson, Senior Fellow, Intel, discussing the most recent developments in persistent memory with a presentation on All the Ways 3D XPoint Impacts Systems Architecture.

Ethan Miller, Professor of Computer Science at UC Santa Cruz, will discuss Rethinking Benchmarks for Non-Volatile Memory Storage Systems. He will describe the challenges for benchmarks posed by the transition to NVM, and propose potential solutions to these challenges.

Ken Gibson, NVM SW Architecture, Intel will present Memory is the New Storage: How Next Generation NVM DIMMs will Enable New Solutions That Use Memory as the High-Performance Storage Tier . This talk reviews some of the decades-old assumptions that change for suppliers of storage and data services as solutions move to memory as the new storage

Jim Handy, General Director, Objective Analysis, and Tom Coughlin, President, Coughlin Associates will discuss Future Memories and Today’s Opportunities, exploring the role of NVM in today’s and future applications. They will give some market analysis and projections for the various NVM technologies in use today.

Matt Bryson, SVP-Research, ABR, will lead a panel on NVM Futures-Emerging Embedded Memory Technologies, exploring the current status and future opportunities for NVM technologies and in particular both embedded and standalone MRAM technologies and associated applications.

Edward Sharp, Chief, Strategy and Technology, PMC-Sierra, will present Changes Coming to Architecture with NVM. Although the IT industry has made tremendous progress innovating up and down the computing stack to enable, and take advantage of, non-volatile memory, is it sufficient, and where are the weakest links to fully unlock the potential of NVM.

Don Jeanette, VP and John Chen, VP of Trendfocus will review the Solid State Storage Market, discuss what is happening in various segments, and why, as it relates to PCIe.

Dejan Vucinc, HGST San Jose Research Center will discuss Latency in Context: Finding Room for NVMs in the Existing Software Ecosystem. HGST Research has been working diligently to find out where is there room in the existing hardware/software ecosystem for emerging NVM technology when viewed as block storage rather than main memory. Vucinc will show an update on previously published results using prototype PCI Express-attached PCM SSDs and our custom device protocol, DC Express, as well as measurements of its latency and performance through a proper device driver using several different kinds of Linux kernel block layer architecture.

Arthur Sainio, Director Marketing, SMART Modular and Co-Chair, SNIA NVDIMM SIG, will lead a panel on NVDIMM. discussing how new media types are joining NAND Flash, and enhanced controllers and networking are being developed to unlock the latency and throughput advantages of NVDIMM.

Neal Christiansen, Principal Development Lead, Microsoft, Microsoft will discuss Storage Class Memory Support in the Windows OS. Storage Class Memories (SCM) have been the topic of R&D for the last few years and with the promise of near term product delivery, the question is how will Windows be enabled for such SCM products and how can applications take advantage of these capabilities.

Jeff Moyer, Principal Software Engineer, Red Hat will give an overview of the current state of Persistent Memory Support in the Linux Kernel.

Cristian Diaconu, Principal Software Engineer, Microsoft will present Microsoft SQL Hekaton – Towards Large Scale Use of PM for In-memory Databases, using the example of Hekaton (Sql Server in-memory database engine) to break down the opportunity areas for non-volatile memory in the database space.

Tom Talpey, Architect File Server Team, Microsoft, will discuss Microsoft Going Remote at Low Latency: A Future Networked NVM Ecosystem. As new ultra-low latency storage such as Persistent Memory and NVM is deployed, it becomes necessary to provide remote access – for replication, availability and resiliency to errors.

Kevin Deierling, VP Marketing, Mellanox will discuss the role of the network in developing Persistent Memory over Fabrics, and what are the key goals and key fabric features requirements.

Assessing SSD Performance in the Data Center

By Marty Foltyn

As solid state drives (SSDs) are deployed in datacenters around the world in both hybrid HDD/SSD and all flash arrays (AFAs), it is becoming increasingly important to understand what metrics are relevant to assess SSD datacenter performance. While the traditional metrics of IO operations per second (IOPS), Bandwidth, and Response Times are commonly used, it is becoming more important to report and understand the ‘Quality of Service’ of those metrics.

eden articleEden Kim, Chair of the SNIA Solid State Storage Technical Working Group, has recently authored an article on Understanding Data Center Workloads. In it, he defines workloads and specifically data center workloads, describes how they are tested, and shows how to measure workloads for performance analysis. Industry standard test methodologies that ensure fair and accurate testing of SSDs both at the device and system level are described, along with how to use them on a reference test platform, Eden also describes in depth Response Time Confidence levels and how an understanding of Demand Variation and Demand Intensity can help the IT administrator assess how a given SSD or array will perform relative to the requirements of an application workload or relative to a specific Response Time Ceiling thus helping in the overall system optimization, design, and deployment.

Read Eden’s full article on the SNIA Solid State Storage Education page at http://www.snia.org/forums/sssi/knowledge/educationBy. Scroll down to “Performance” to find this and a whole range of white papers, tech notes, webcasts, and presentations on this important Solid State Storage topic.

SSD Data Retention Issue Debunked

For the past few weeks, there has been quite a commotion on tech sites, and it was all because of a 5 year old presentation. Someone discovered a set of slides created in 2010 by then-chair of the JEDEC SSD committee, Alvin Cox of Seagate. That person misinterpreted one of the slides to mean that unpowered SSDs would retain data for only a few days in a hot room. It was reported on one site and of course picked up by several others, spreading quickly across the spectrum of sites reporting on technical matters. Finally, Alvin and a colleague gave an interview to PCWorld (www.pcworld.com/article/2925173/debunked-your-ssd-wont-lose-data-if-left-unplugged-after-all.html) setting the record straight, stating that a scenario that might cause data loss is highly unlikely, especially for consumers. Read the article for more details.

MRAM Topic of Open SSSI TechDev Committee Call Monday February 2 at 2:00 pm PT

As part of their educational offering, the SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative TechDev committee will feature Barry Hoberman speaking on Spin Transfer and MRAM.

This conference call and SNIA WebEx at 2:00 pm Pacific time February 2, 2015 is open to the public. Find the answers to your questions on Spin Transfer/MRAM, including:

  • What are the drivers pushing emergence / adoption of Spin Transfer / MRAM?
  • What are the compelling advantages of Spin Transfer / MRAM?
  • What are the key applications that will be able to take advantage of MRAM?
  • What has to happen for Spin Transfer to find traction and deployment?
  • When will Spin Transfer / MRAM market adoption take place?

Dial-in to: snia.webex.com Meeting Number: 794 116 066 password: TechDev2015 Teleconference: 1-866-439-4480 Passcode: 57236696#

Looking forward to seeing you!

NVM Programming Model Recognized for Enterprise Business Innovation

At the most recent Flash Memory Summit in August 2014, the SNIA NVM Programming Model was selected for a singular honor – industry recognition as a Best of Show for Enterprise Business Applications.  Being recognized was quite unique, as the Model is not a product or a solution as were other winners in the various categories; but rather a body of work that defines new software programming models for non-volatile memory, also known as NVM.

NVM technologies are currently advancing in such a way as to blur the line between storage and memory – which will radically transform the way software is written. The NVM Programming Model embraces this transformation, describing behavior provided by operating systems that enables applications, file systems, and other software to take advantage of new NVM capabilities.

The Model addresses NVM extensions for existing devices such as SSDs and persistent memory, describing the differences between software written for block storage (SSDs and disks) and persistent memory, and outlining the potential benefits for adapting software for persistent memory.

In presenting the Award to Doug Voigt, co-chair of the SNIA NVM Programming Technical Work Group, Jay Kramer, Chairman of the Flash Memory Summit Awards Program and President of Network Storage Advisors Inc., stated,  “Flash memory technology is currently experiencing a progression of innovations that can make a real difference in solving storage solution challenges. The industry is seeing a proliferation of new Non–Volatile Memory (NVM) functionality and new NVM technologies.  We are proud to select the SNIA NVM Programming Model for the Best of Show Award as it brings to the marketplace a new standard with a model that defines recommended behavior between various user spaces and operating system (OS) kernel components supporting NVM.”

Congratulations to the many SNIA member company contributors to the Programming Model for this honor!  For information and to download the specification, visit http://www.snia.org/forums/sssi/nvmp.

flash_mem_summ2014_award

 

M.2 Webcast – Get the Latest Info on the New SSD Card Form Factor!

The SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative is partnering with SATA-IO and NVM Express to present a panel of experts from Objective Analysis, Micron, TE Connectivity, Intel, Calypso, and Coughlin Associates to give you the latest information on M.2, the new SSD card form factor. You will leave this webinar with an understanding of the M.2 market, M.2 cards and connection schemes, NVM Express, and M.2 performance; you’ll also be able to ask questions of the experts.

Join us on June 10, 2014 at 10:00 am.  Register at http://snia.org/news_events/multimedia#webcasts!

Hear the Latest on UltraDIMM SSDs Monday June 9 at 4:00 pm PDT

Join the SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative for an “open-to-all interested” PCIe SSD Committee call and a discussion on UltraDIMM SSDs.

SSSI member Rob Callaghan of SanDisk will discuss:

* What is an UltraDIMM SSD?
* How is it different from other SSDs?
* How does a Block IO SSD reside on a DIMM channel?
* Do I need to modify/update my BIOS to use it?
* How many do I use, and what is the scalability?
* What kind of performance can I expect to get?
* What is the cost benefit of using this technology?
* What applications will benefit from using an UltraDIMM SSD?

Below are the dial-in and WebEx details.  Eden Kim and the PCIe SSD Committee hope you will join the SSSI for this interesting topic!

UltraDIMM Discussion

Monday June 9, 2014 at 4PM PDT

Log in to:  snia.webex.com Meeting Number: 792 152 928 password:  sssipcie

Dial-in to: Teleconference: 1-866-439-4480 Passcode: 57236696#