Author: Marty Foltyn

Memory Channel Storage Demystified at Next PCIe SSD Committee Meeting on March 10

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Join SSSI members for an “open” call on March 10, 2014 at 7:00 pm ET/4:00 pm PT.  SSSI member Jerome McFarland, Principal Product Marketer at Diablo Technologies, will talk about how memory channel storage technology works, how it’s deployed, and its advantages for applications.

Dial in at 1-866-439-4480 passcode 57236696.  A WebEx will be available at http://snia.webex.com, meeting number 792 152 928, password sssipcie.

The SSSI PCIe SSD Committee is a SSSI member committee that provides guidance to the marketplace on SSDs.  This can take the form of educational materials, best practices documents, and SNIA standards.

The “open” calls of the SSSI PCIe SSD Committee are designed to foster a broad understanding of technologies.  All SNIA and SSSI members, and those who are simply interested in technology advances, are welcome to attend.  Spread the word!

New SIG Formed to Accelerate Adoption of NVDIMM

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SNIA has just announced a new special interest group around NVDIMM to:

  • Provide  education on how system vendors can “design-in” NVDIMMs.
  • Communicate existing industry standards, and areas for vendor differentiation.
  • Help technology and solution vendors whose products integrate NVDIMMs to communicate their benefits and value to the greater market.
  • Develop vendor-agnostic user perspective case studies, best practices, and vertical industry requirements to help end user customers understand how products and solutions can meet performance, cost, and efficiency goals.

Initial members of the NVDIMM SIG include  vendors AgigA Tech, IDT,  Inphi,  Intel, Micron, Microsoft Corporation,  Netlist,  Pericom, Samsung, SK Hynix,  SMART Modular Technologies, and Viking Technology.

A new webpage under the Solid State Storage Technology Community on the SNIA website at www.snia.org/nvdimm provides a knowledge resource for presentations, white papers, FAQs, and  webcasts on NVDIMM contributed by SIG companies. Those interested in joining the NVDIMM SIG should contact nvdimmsigchair@snia.org.

SSD Education Afternoon Monday January 27 at SNIA Symposium in San Jose

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Interested in the latest information on SSD technology?  Join the SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative Monday January 27 for lunch and an afternoon of the latest on:

  • Flash/SSD technology
  • SCSI Express
  • SAS
  • NVM Express
  • SATA Express
  • SSD performance
  • SSD Markets

Lunch begins at noon, with presentations from 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm.  There is no charge to attend this session at the Sainte Claire Hotel in downtown San Jose CA. You can attend in person – register at www.snia.org/events/symp2014 or by WebEx (click here for details and the agenda).

Add to your NVDIMM Knowledge – Attend the January 28 Summit

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Over 150 individuals participated in the BrightTALK Enterprise Storage Summit NVDIMM webcast.  If you are eager for more information on NVDIMM, you will want to attend an upcoming SNIA Event – the Storage Industry Summit on Non–Volatile Memory.

This Summit will take place at the Sainte Claire Hotel in San Jose, CA on January 28th as part of the SNIA Annual Members’ Symposium, and will offer critical insights into NVM, including NVDIMMs, and the future of computing. This event is complimentary to attend and you can register here.

The Summit will take place from 8:15 AM to 5:30 PM and speakers currently include:

  • Nigel Alvares, Senior Director of Marketing, Inphi
  • Bob Beauchamp, Distinguished Engineer and Director Hardware Technology and Architecture, EMC
  • Matt Bryson, ABR Investment Strategy, LLC, SVP-Research
  • Jeff Chang, Vice President, Marketing & Business Development, AgigA Tech
  • Tom Coughlin, Founder, Coughlin Associates
  • Mark Geenen, President, TrendFocus
  • Jim Handy, Analyst, Objective Analysis
  • Jay Kidd, CTO, NetApp
  • Eden Kim, CEO, Calypso
  • Tau Leng, VP/GM, Supermicro
  • Jeff Moyer, Principal Software Engineer, Red Hat
  • Wes Mukai, VP of Cloud Computing, System Engineering, SAP
  • Jim Pinkerton, Lead Partner Architect, Microsoft
  • Adrian Proctor, VP Marketing, Viking Technology
  • Andy Rudoff, Senior Software Engineer, Intel
  • Esther Spanjer, Director, Marketing Management, SanDisk
  • Garret Swart, Database Architect, Oracle
  • Nisha Talagala, Lead Architect, Fusion-IO
  • Doug Voigt, Distinguished Technologist in Storage, HP

Visit http://www.snia.org/nvmsummit for more information and we hope you will join us in San Jose!

Solid State Storage Highlighted at Storage Visions 2014

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The SSSI began 2014 at the Storage Visions Conference. With a theme of Fast is Beautiful, the 2014 conference explored the latest storage technologies and methods to improve performance and efficiency, lower costs, and improve reliability.

Solid state storage was a key component of exhibits and technology sessions.IMG_6719

SSSI showcased our latest white papers on solid state storage. See them here.  SSSI members Fastor Systems and Greenliant Systems demonstrated innovative SSD solutions.

At Storage Visions,  Paul Wassenberg, SNIA SSSI Chair, discussed findings of a new SSSI survey rating SSD features. An unexpected discovery was the need for education on issues such as data encryption, power management, and others. SSSI will work to provide more information on these issues to help users to make informed choices about SSDs.  Join our dialog on related topics via a dedicated LinkedIn group .

SNIA’s continuing work in NVM programming and PCIe SSD created a buzz.  Jim Pappas of Intel moderated a panel on Bringing Non-Volatile Memory To Tomorrow’s Storage Architectures; Adrian Proctor of Viking Technology gave an NVDIMM overview on a Storage Developments Drive New Storage Options panel; and Eden Kim of Calypso Systems spoke on PCIe SSD activities on a Future Content – What’s Ahead for Content Storage panel.  Explore these areas further at our upcoming SNIA Annual Members Meeting, January 27-30, 2014 at the Sainte Claire Hotel in San Jose CA where a Storage Industry Summit-Focus on NVM will take place Tuesday January 28. Registration is complimentary.

Your Chance to Learn about PCIe Storage Protocol Analysis Test and Connectivity Tools and How to Hear On-demand The Latest on NVDIMM

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Join the SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative for an Open SSSI PCIe SSD Committee call

Who:  John Weidemier, Teledyne LeCroy

What:  PCIe storage protocol analysis test and connectivity tools

When:  Monday December 9, 2013 at  4:00 PM PST

Where:   via WebEx. at http://snia.webex.com Meeting Number: 792 152 928 password: sssipcie  and by dialing in to teleconference: 1-866-439-4480 Passcode: 57236696#

Why:  This OPEN call is an invitation to non SSSI Members to learn more about the exciting work of the PCIe Solid State Drive Committee and 2014 activities of the SSSI.

And, the great NVDIMM talk given on 12/5/13 as part of the BrightTALK Enterprise Storage Summit is now available for on-demand viewing! The session ranked 4.8 out of a 5.0 for quality technical content featuring information on a wide number of vendors who are creating NVDIMM products and solutions.

Click on this link  https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/663/95329.

Learn about NVDIMM in BrightTalk’s Enterprise Storage Summit

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If 2013 was the year of software-defined everything, of everything-as-a-service, and big data – what’s on the horizon for storage in 2014? What do we still need to know about the innovations of this year? What hard realities have been missing from the hype? In the  Enterprise Storage Summit, https://www.brighttalk.com/summit/2271, a bi-annual event from BrightTALK, top thought leaders from all over the globe gather to share their insights into one of the most difficult areas of IT infrastructure and shed light on some of the most crucial topics facing enterprises today, including backup/recovery, hardware innovations, continued transition to cloud storage and the implications of big data.

On December 5 at 9:00 am Pacific/12:00 noon Eastern, learn how Non-Volatile DIMMs, or NVDIMMs, provide a persistent memory solution with the endurance and performance of DRAM coupled with the non-volatility of Flash. This webinar, presented by Jeff Chang of AgigaTech, will provide a general overview of this emerging technology and why the industry is starting to take notice.

You will learn what an NVDIMM is, how it works, where it fits and why every system architect should consider them for their next generation enterprise server and storage designs.

Join this summit with other smart people from around the world to participate in live events and ask your questions. Register at https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/663/95329 to attend live or be notified of on-demand viewing.

 

Participate in the SSD Features Rating Project!

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The SSSI has launched the SSD Features Rating project – intended to provide a better understanding of what users expect of their SSDs.

Understanding which attributes are most important in applications will help SSD manufacturers to design products more suitable for those applications, and will provide guidance to users looking for the best SSD for their application.

The first step of the project  is a survey which asks SSD users to rate the importance of various SSD attributes/features.  SSSI plans to announce the results of the survey at the Storage Visions conference on January 5-6, 2014.

The survey is now open and will close on November 28.  Survey results will be posted on this page after the conference.

Join our LinkedIn Group:  SSDs – What’s Important to You? to contribute to the discussion!

Please take the survey at  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LGWKWJL

SSSI Sheds Light on Solid State Storage at Flash Memory Summit

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If you attended Flash Memory Summit along with thousands of other business professionals, you soon learned that solid state keynotes, breakouts, and show floor booths, while informative, could be mystifying.  Fortunately, the SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative (SSSI) was at FMS to provide enlightenment in the form of a SSS Reception, four new publications on SSS, and three SSSI member demonstrations.

SSSI’s second annual SSS Reception was attended by over 90 individualIMG_6196s and featured presentations by SSSI Governing Board members Paul Wassenberg of Marvell, Walt Hubis of Fusion-io, and Eden Kim of Calypso Systems on SSSI key programs and technical work.   SSSI Education Chair Tom Coughlin of Coughlin Associates delivered a market update on ubiquitous flash memory.   All SSSI members are eligible and encouraged to join specification development, education, and outreach programs, and new companies are welcome to join SSSI activities.

At the SSSI Booth, attendees snapped up new white papers and Tech Notes authored by SSSI members.  These papers are complimentary to all interested individuals and available on the SSSI education page.

  • The PCI Express (PCIe) 101 – An Overview of Standards, Markets, and Performance white paper surveys the broad landscape of emerging high performance PCIe storage and the implications of revolutionary applications of these new architectures.  Thirteen members of the SNIA SSSI PCIe SSD Committee representing eleven SNIA and SSSI member companies contributed their technical expertise to this paper, which covers standards, programming models for non-volatile memory, the PCIe SSD market, and PCIe SSD performance.
  • The SSD Performance – A Primer white paper, authored by SNIA SSS Technical Work Group chair Eden Kim of Calypso Systems, provides an introduction to solid state drive performance, evaluation, and test.  As noted in the Foreword by SSSI Founder and 2008-2010 SSSI Chair Phil Mills of IBM, “this paper is an excellent tutorial on the performance of solid state drives, which covers this topic in a very easy to understand way, yet provides detailed technical information that the reader can either dig into for a better understanding, or simply skip without missing the main points”.
  • A new PTS User Guide Tech Note delivers the hows and whys of the SNIA Solid State Performance Test Specification.  Authored by SNIA SSSI members Eden Kim of Calypso Systems and Chuck Paradon of HP, this Tech Note provides an easy to understand, step-by step guide to using the SNIA SSS Performance Test Specification (PTS) test methodologies and tests. The Tech Note discusses four basic PTS 1.1 tests – Write Saturation (WSAT), IOPS, Throughput (TP) and Response Time (or Latency) – as updated per SNIA draft PTS-E version 1.1.
  • The SSSI Workload I/O Capture Program (WIOCP) FAQ, authored by SNIA SSSI member Tom West of hyperI/O LLC, gives details on this project undertaken by the SNIA SSSI to collect I/O operation performance metrics. These empirical metrics reflect the actual I/O operation activity performed during normal, everyday application/workload usage spanning both consumer/client and enterprise systems.

IMG_20130814_155646

Also in the booth, the Media, Entertainment and Scientific Storage (MESS) Meetup group chatted with end users, and SSSI members exhibited new solid state storage solutions for enterprise markets:

  • BitMicro  presented a high performance MaxIO drive incorporating BiTMICRO’s ultra fast Talino Quad Core ASIC controller, which integrates embedded processors with a high speed multi-bus design to achieve performance far beyond legacy solid state designs.
  • Fastor Systems unveiled a NVMe compliant PCIe software defined storage device (SDS), or post-controller SSD, in which a de-coupled control & data plane together with a non-blocking fabric and message based architecture provide both high throughput and low latency to address the needs of today’s hyperscale datacenters.
  • Micron showcased a P420m PCIe SSD featuring multilevel (MLC) NAND technology.

Join the SSSI at Flash Memory Summit August 12-15 in Santa Clara CA!

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SSSI returns to the Flash Memory Summit in booth 808, featuring information on updates on new tests in the SNIA Solid State Storage Performance Test Specification-Enterprise 1.1, NVM programming, and Workload I/O Capture Program (WIOCP) activities; new tech notes and white papers, including a PTS User Guide Tech Note, a PCIe SSD 101 Whitepaper, and a Performance Primer Whitepaper; and PCIe SSD demonstrations from SSSI members Bitmicro, Fastor, and Micron.

flash memory summitAll current SSSI members attending FMS and individuals from companies interested in the SSSI and their activities are cordially invited to the SSSI Solid State Storage Reception Monday evening August 12 from 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm in Room 209-210 at the Santa Clara Convention Center.   At the reception, SSSI Education Chair Tom Coughlin of Coughlin Associates will provide an overview of the SSD market, and SSSI Chair Paul Wassenberg of Marvell will discuss SSD performance.  SSSI Vice Chair Walt Hubis of Fusion-io will discuss SSSI programs, including PTS, NVM Programming, Workload I/O Capture, and PCIe SSD.  Refreshments, table displays, and an opportunity drawing for SSDs provided by SSSI members Intel, Micron, and OCZ will be featured.

FMS conference activities begin August 13, and the agenda can be found here.  SSSI members speaking and chairing panels include:

Tuesday August 13

4:35 pm – Paul Wassenberg of Marvell on Standards

Wednesday August 14

8:30 am – Eden Kim and Easen Ho of Calypso Testers – PCIe Power Budgets, Performance, and Deployment

9:50 am – Eden Kim and Easen Ho of Calypso Testers –  SNIA Solid State Storage Performance Test Specification

3:10 pm – Walt Hubis of Fusion-io – Revolutionizing Application Development Using NVM Storage Software

3:10 pm – Easen Ho of Calypso Testers –  SSD Testing Challenges

4:30 pm – Paul von Behren of Intel –  SNIA Tutorial: SNIA NVM Programming Model:  Optimizing Software for Flash

Thursday August 15

3:10 pm – Jim Pappas of Intel – PCI Express and  Enterprise SSDs

3:10 pm – Jim Handy of Objective Analysis – Market Research

An open “Chat with the Experts” roundtable session Tuesday August 13 at 7:00 pm will feature Jim Pappas of Intel at a Standards table, Eden Kim of Calypso Testers at a SSD Performance table, Easen Ho of Calypso Testers at a Testing table, and Paul Wassenberg of Marvell at a SATA Express table.MESS - Final logo #2-Megan Archer

The Media Entertainment and Scientific Storage (MESS) will hold their August “Meetup” at the Open Chat with the Experts, and also be located in SSSI Booth 808 for further discussions.

Exhibit admission is complimentary until August 8.  SNIA and SSSI members and colleagues can receive a $100 discount on either the 3-day conference or the 1-day technical program using the code SNIA at www.flashmemorysummit.com.