Author: Marty Foltyn

Why Cryptocurrency and Computational Storage?

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Our new SNIA Compute, Memory, and Storage webcast focuses on a hot topic – storage-based cryptocurrency.

Blockchains, cryptocurrency, and the internet of markets are working to transform finance, wealth, safety, digital security, and trust. Storage-based cryptocurrencies had a breakout year in 2021. Proof of Space and Time is a new blockchain consensus that uses storage capacity to secure the blockchain. Decentralized file storage will enable alternatives to hyperscale data centers for hosting files and objects. Understanding the TCO of a storage system and optimizing the utilization of the storage hardware is critical in scaling these systems.

Join our speakers, Jonmichael Hands of Chia Network and Eli Tiomkin of NGD Systems, for this discussion on how a new approach of auto-plotting SSDs combined with computational storage can lower the total TCO. Registration is free for this webcast on Tuesday, February 15 at 10:00 am Pacific time. Click on the link to register and see you there! https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/663/526154

See You – Virtually – at SDC 2021

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SNIA Storage Developer Conference goes virtual September 28-29 2021, and compute, memory, and storage are important topics.  SNIA Compute, Memory, and Storage Initiative is a sponsor of SDC 2021 – so visit our booth for the latest information and a chance to chat with our experts.  With over 120 sessions available to watch live during the event and later on-demand, live Birds of a Feather chats, and a Persistent Memory Bootcamp and Hackathon accessing new systems in the cloud, we want to make sure you don’t miss anything!  Register here to see sessions live – or on demand to your schedule. 

Agenda highlights include:

LIVE Birds of a Feather Sessions are OPEN to all – SDC registration not required. Here is your chance, via zoom, to ask your questions of the SNIA experts.  Registration links will go live on September 28 and 29 at this page link.

Computational Storage Talks

A great video provides an overview of sessions. Watch it here.

  • Computational Storage APIs – how the SNIA Computational Storage TWG is leading the way with new interface definitions with Computational Storage APIs that work across different hardware architectures.
  • NVMe Computational Storage Update – Learn what is happening in NVMe to support Computational Storage devices, including a high level architecture that is being defined in NVMe for Computational Storage. The architecture provides for programs based on a standardized eBPF. (Check out our blog on eBPF.)

Persistent Memory Presentations

A great video provides an overview of sessions. Watch it here.

Dive – or Dip – into SNIA Persistent Memory + Computational Storage Summit Content

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SNIA’s 9th annual Summit was a success with a new name and an expanded focus – Persistent Memory + Computational Storage – from the data center to the edge.  

The Summit moved to a two-day virtual platform and drew twice as many attendees as the previous year. We experimented with 20-minute sessions to great success.  Attendees saw leading technology experts discussing real world applications and use cases, providing insights on technology trends and futures, and networking  in “live via the internet” panels and Birds-of-a-Feather sessions.

The recap of our 2021 event – agenda – abstracts – speaker bios – links to videos and presentations – is summarized on the PM+CS Summit home page. 

But we know your time is precious – so here are a few ways to sample a lot of great content presented over two full days.

  1. Read our colleague Tom Coughlin’s Forbes blog on the event
  2. Not only did Tom and Jim Handy present on memory futures at the event, but they also provided the fastest sub-7 minute recaps of both Wednesday’s and Thursday’s sessions with their lively commentary.
  3. New to persistent memory and/or computational storage technologies?  Check out our tutorials featuring Persistent Memory and Computational Storage Special Interest Group leaders giving you what you need to know.
  4. Love the back and forth?  You’ll enjoy the recordings of our live panel sessions where colleagues debate (and sometimes agree) on the topics of today:
  5. Is Persistent Memory your focus?  We’ve sorted the Persistent Memory Summit content for you in our SNIA Educational Library
  6. A Computational Storage man or woman?  Here is the list of all the Computational Storage content during the Summit to watch via our SNIA Educational Library.
  7. Want to get hands-on?  We have extended the opportunity to experience the  Persistent Memory Workshop and Hackathon with access to new cloud-based PM systems for more learning opportunities.

We extend a thank you and shout-out to our SNIA Compute, Memory, and Storage Initiative members and colleagues who presented in sessions and participated in panels. They represent these leading companies in the industry.

AMD, Arm, Coughlin Associates, Dell, Eideticom, Facebook, Futurewei Technologies, G2M Communications, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intuitive Cognition Consulting, Intel, Lenovo,  Los Alamos National Laboratory, MemVerge, Micron, Microsoft, MKW Ventures Consulting, NGD Systems, NVIDIA, Objective Analysis, Samsung, ScaleFlux, Silinnov Consulting, and SMART Modular Technologies.

We thank our Summit sponsors: Eideticom, MemVerge, Futurewei Technologies, SMART Modular Technologies, and NGD Systems; and the SNIA Compute Memory and Storage Initiative members who underwrote the event.

Finally, we thank you for your interest in SNIA Compute, Memory, and Storage Initiative outreach and education.  We look forward to seeing you at upcoming SNIA events, including our Storage Developer Conferences in EMEA, India, and the U.S.  Find out more details on SDC.

Experts Speak at Flash Memory Summit

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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!



See You (Online) at SDC!

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We’re going virtual in 2020, and Compute, Memory, and Storage are important topics at the upcoming SNIA Storage Developer Conference.  SNIA CMSI is a sponsor of SDC 2020 – so visit our booth for the latest information and a chance to chat with our experts.  With over 120 sessions available to watch live during the event and later on-demand, live Birds of a Feather chats, and a Persistent Memory Bootcamp accessing new PM systems in the cloud, we want to make sure you don’t miss anything!  Register here to see sessions live – or on demand to your schedule.  Agenda highlights include:

Computational Storage Talks

Deploying Computational Storage at the Edge – discussing the deployment of small form factor, asic-based, solutions, including a use case.

Next Generation Datacenters require composable architecture enablers and deterministic programmable intelligence – explaining why determinism, parallel programming and ease of programming are important.

Computational Storage Birds of a Feather LIVE Session – ask your questions of our experts and see live demos of computational storage production systems. Tuesday September 22, 2020 – 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm PDT (UTC-7)

Persistent Memory Presentations

Caching on PMEM: an Iterative Approach – discussing Twitter’s approach to exploring in-memory caching.

Challenges and Opportunities as Persistence Moves Up the Memory/Storage Hierarchy – show how and why memory at all levels will become persistent.

Persistent Memory on eADR System – describes how the SNIA Persistent Memory Programming Model will include the possibility of platforms where the CPU caches are considered permanent and need no flushing.

Persistent Memory Birds of a Feather LIVE Session – ask your questions to our experts on your bootcamp progress, how to program PM, or what PM is shipping today . Tuesday, September 22, 2020 – 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm PDT (UTC-7)

Solid State Storage Sessions

Enabling Ethernet Drives – provides a glimpse into a new SNIA standard that enables SSDs to have an Ethernet interface, and discussed the latest management standards for NVMe-oF drives.

An SSD for Automotive Applications – details efforts under way in JEDEC to define a new Automotive SSD standard.

Take 10 – Watch a Computational Storage Trilogy

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We’re all busy these days, and the thought of scheduling even more content to watch can be overwhelming.  Great technical content – especially from the SNIA Educational Library – delivers what you need to know, but often it needs to be consumed in long chunks. Perhaps it’s time to shorten the content so you have more freedom to watch.

With the tremendous interest in computational storage, SNIA is on the forefront of standards development – and education.  The SNIA Computational Storage Special Interest Group (CS SIG) has just produced a video trilogy – informative, packed with detail, and consumable in under 10 minutes!

What Is Computational Storage?, presented by Eli Tiomkin, SNIA CS SIG Chair, emphasizes the need for common language and definition of computational storage terms, and discusses four distinct examples of computational storage deployments.  It serves as a great introduction to the other videos.

Advantages of Reducing Data Movement frames computational storage advantages into two categories:  saving time and saving money. JB Baker, SNIA CS SIG member, dives into a data filtering computational storage service example and an analytics benchmark, explaining how tasks complete more quickly using less power and fewer CPU cycles.

Eli Tiomkin returns to complete the trilogy with Computational Storage:  Edge Compute Deployment. He discusses how an edge computing future might look, and how computational storage operates in a cloud, edge node, and edge device environment.

Each video in the Educational Library also has a downloadable PDF of the slides that also link to additional resources that you can view at your leisure.  The SNIA Compute, Memory, and Storage Initiative will be producing more of these short videos in the coming months on computational storage, persistent memory, and other topics.

Check out each video and download the PDF of the slides!  Happy watching!

Your Questions Answered on CMSI and More

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The “new” SNIA Compute, Memory, and Storage Initiative (CMSI) was formed at the beginning of 2020 out of the SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative.  The 45 companies who comprise the CMSI recognized the opportunity to combine storage, memory, and compute in new, novel, and useful ways; and to bring together technology, alliances, education, and outreach to better understand new opportunities and applications. 

To better explain this decision, and to talk about the various aspects of the Initiative, CMSI co-chair Alex McDonald invited CMSI members Eli Tiomkin, Jonmichael Hands, and Jim Fister to join him in a live SNIA webcast. 

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SNIA Exhibits at OCP Virtual Summit May 12-15, 2020 – SFF Standards featured in Thursday Sessions

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All SNIA members and colleagues are welcome to register to attend the free online Open Compute Project (OCP) Virtual Summit, May 12-15, 2020.

SNIA SFF standards will be represented in the following presentations (all times Pacific):

 Thursday, May 14:

The SNIA booth (link live at 9:00 am May 12) will be open from 9 am to 4 pm each day of OCP Summit, and feature Chat with SNIA Experts:  scheduled times where SNIA volunteer leadership will answer questions on SNIA technical work, SNIA education, standards, and adoption, and vision for 2020 and beyond.

The current schedule is below – and is continually being updated with more speakers and topics – so  be sure to bookmark this page.

And let us know if you want to add a topic to discuss!

Tuesday, May 12:

  • 10:00 am – 11:00 am – SNIA Education, Standards, and Technology Adoption, Erin Weiner, SNIA Membership Services Manager
  • 11:00 am – 12:00 pm – Uniting Compute, Memory, and Storage, Jenni Dietz, Intel/SNIA CMSI Co-Chair
  • 11:00 am – 12:00 pm – Computational Storage standards and direction, Scott Shadley, NGD Systems & Jason Molgaard, ARM, SNIA CS TWG Co-Chairs
  • 11:00 am – 12:00 pm – SNIA SwordfishTM and Redfish Standards and Adoption, Don Deel, NetApp, SNIA SMI Chair
  • 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm – SSDs and Form Factors, Cameron Brett, KIOXIA, SNIA SSD SIG Co-Chair
  • 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm – Persistent Memory Standards and Adoption, Jim Fister, SNIA Persistent Memory Enablement Director
  • 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm – SNIA Technical Activities and Direction, Mark Carlson, KIOXIA, SNIA Technical Council Co-Chair
  • 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm – SNIA Education, Standards, Promotion, Technology Adoption, Michael Meleedy, SNIA Business Operations Director

Wednesday, May 13:

  • 11:00 am – 12:00 pm – SNIA Education, Standards, and Technology Adoption, Arnold Jones, SNIA Technical Council Managing Director
  • 11:00 am – 12:00 pm – Persistent Memory Standards and Adoption, Jim Fister, SNIA Persistent Memory Enablement Director
  • 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm – Computational Storage Standards and Adoption, Scott Shadley, NGD Systems & Jason Molgaard, ARM, SNIA CS TWG Co-Chairs
  • 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm – SNIA Technical Activities and Direction, Bill Martin, Samsung, SNIA Technical Council Co-Chair
  • 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm – SSDs and Form Factors, Jonmichael Hands, Intel, SNIA SSD SIG Co-Chair
  • 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm – SNIA NVMe and NVMe-oF standards and direction, Mark Carlson, KIOXIA, SNIA Technical Council Co-Chair
  • 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm – SNIA SwordfishTM and Redfish standards and direction, Richelle Ahlvers, Broadcom, SNIA SSM TWG Chair, and Barry Kittner, Intel, SNIA SMI Marketing Chair

Thursday, May 14

  • 11:00 am – 12:00 pm – Uniting Compute, Memory, and Storage, Jenni Dietz, Intel, SNIA CMSI Co-Chair
  • 11:00 am – 12:00 pm – SNIA Education, Standards, and Technology Adoption, Erin Weiner, SNIA Membership Services Manager
  • 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm – SNIA SwordfishTM and Redfish standards activities and direction, Richelle Ahlvers, Broadcom, SNIA SSM TWG Chair, and Barry Kittner, Intel, SNIA SMI Marketing Chair
  • 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm – SNIA Technical Activities and Direction, Bill Martin, Samsung, SNIA Technical Council Co-Chair
  • 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm – Computational Storage Standards and Adoption, Scott Shadley, NGD Systems & Jason Molgaard, ARM, SNIA CS TWG Co-Chairs
  • 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm – SNIA NVMe and NVMe-oF standards activities and direction , Bill Martin, Samsung, SNIA Technical Council Co-Chair

Friday, May 15: 

  • 11:00 am – 12:00 pm – Computational Storage Standards and Adoption, Scott Shadley, NGD Systems & Jason Molgaard, ARM, SNIA CS TWG Co-Chairs
  • 11:00 am – 12:00 pm – SNIA SwordfishTM and Redfish standards and direction, Richelle Ahlvers, Broadcom, SNIA SSM TWG Chair
  • 12:00 pm– 1:00 pm – SNIA NVMe and NVMe-oF standards activities and direction, Mark Carlson, KIOXIA, SNIA Technical Council Co-Chair
  • 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm – SNIA Technical Activities and Direction, Bill Martin, Samsung, SNIA Technical Council Co-Chair
  • 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm – SNIA Education, Standards and Technology Adoption, Michael Meleedy, SNIA Business Services Director


Register today to attend the OCP Virtual Summit. Registration is free for all attendees and is open for everyone, not just those who were registered for the in-person Summit. The SNIA exhibit will be found here once the Summit is live.
 
Please note, the virtual summit will be a 3D environment that will be best experienced on a laptop or desktop computer, however a simplified mobile responsive version will also be available for attendees. No additional hardware, software or plugins are required.

Feedback Needed on New Persistent Memory Performance White Paper

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A new SNIA Technical Work draft is now available for public review and comment – the SNIA Persistent Memory Performance Test Specification (PTS) White Paper.

A companion to the SNIA NVM Programming Model, the SNIA PM PTS White Paper (PM PTS WP) focuses on describing the relationship between traditional block IO NVMe SSD based storage and the migration to Persistent Memory block and byte addressable storage.  

The PM PTS WP reviews the history and need for storage performance benchmarking beginning with Hard Disk Drive corner case stress tests, the increasing gap between CPU/SW/HW Stack performance and storage performance, and the resulting need for faster storage tiers and storage products. 

The PM PTS WP discusses the introduction of NAND Flash SSD performance testing that incorporates pre-conditioning and steady state measurement (as described in the SNIA Solid State Storage PTS), the effects of – and need for testing using – Real World Workloads on Datacenter Storage (as described in the SNIA Real World Storage Workload PTS for Datacenter Storage), the development of the NVM Programming model, the introduction of PM storage and the need for a Persistent Memory PTS.

The PM PTS focuses on the characterization, optimization, and test of persistent memory storage architectures – including 3D XPoint, NVDIMM-N/P, DRAM, Phase Change Memory, MRAM, ReRAM, STRAM, and others – using both synthetic and real-world workloads. It includes test settings, metrics, methodologies, benchmarks, and reference options to provide reliable and repeatable test results. Future tests would use the framework established in the first tests.

The SNIA PM PTS White Paper targets storage professionals involved with: 

  1. Traditional NAND Flash based SSD storage over the PCIe bus;
  2. PM storage utilizing PM aware drivers that convert block IO access to loads and stores; and
  3. Direct In-memory storage and applications that take full advantage of the speed and persistence of PM storage and technologies. 

The PM PTS WP discussion on the differences between byte and block addressable storage is intended to help professionals optimize application and storage technologies and to help storage professionals understand the market and technical roadmap for PM storage.

Eden Kim, chair of the SNIA Solid State Storage TWG and a co-author, explained that SNIA is seeking comment from Cloud Infrastructure, IT, and Data Center professionals looking to balance server and application loads, integrate PM storage for in-memory applications, and understand how response time and latency spikes are being influenced by applications, storage and the SW/HW stack. 

The SNIA Solid State Storage Technical Work Group (TWG) has published several papers on performance testing and real-world workloads, and the  SNIA PM PTS White Paper includes both synthetic and real world workload tests.  The authors are seeking comment from industry professionals, researchers, academics and other interested parties on the PM PTS WP and anyone interested to participate in development of the PM PTS.

Use the SNIA Feedback Portal to submit your comments.

Up to the Challenge!

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The SNIA Persistent Memory and NVDIMM Special Interest Group announced a programming challenge for NVDIMM-based systems in Q4 of 2019.  Participants get free online access to persistent memory systems based at the SNIA Technology Center using NVDIMM-Ns provided by SIG members AgigA Tech, Intel, SMART Modular, and Supermicro.  The goal of the challenge is to spark interest by developers in this new technology so they can understand more clearly how persistent memory applications can be developed and applied in 2020 environments and beyond.

Response to the NVDIMM Programming Challenge has been very positive.  Entrants to date have backgrounds from no experience programming persistent memory to those who develop persistent memory applications as part of their day jobs.

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