Persistent Memory software development has been a source of server development innovation for the last couple years. The availability of the open source PMDK libraries (http://pmem.io/pmdk/) has provided a common interface for developing across PM types as well as server architectures. Innovation beyond PMDK also continues to grow, as more experimentation yields open and closed source products and tools.
However, there is still hesitation to develop without physical systems. While systems are available from a variety of outlets, the costs of those systems and the memory can still be a barrier for small developers. Recognizing that there’s a need to grow both outlet and opportunity, Now, however, the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) is announcing the availability of NVDIMM-based Persistent Memory systems for developers along with a programming challenge.
Interested developers can get credentials to access systems in the SNIA Technology Center in Colorado Springs, CO for development and testing of innovative applications or tools that can utilize persistent memory. The challenge is open to any developer or community interested in testing code.
Participants will have the opportunity to demonstrate their output to a panel of judges. The most innovative solutions will have a showcase opportunity at upcoming SNIA events in 2020. The first opportunity will be the SNIA Persistent Memory Summit. Judges will be looking for applications and tools that best highlight the values of persistent memory, including persistence in the memory tier, improved performance of applications using PM, and crash resilience and recovery of data across application or system restarts.
To register, contact SNIA at pmhackathon@snia.org. The challenge will be available starting immediately through at least the first half of 2020.
Check out the Persistent Programming in Real Life (PIRL) blog as well for information on this challenge and other upcoming activities.