Category: Standards

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!



Answering Your Questions on EDSFF

Jonmichael Hands Leave a comment

We had a tremendous response to our webcast asking if we were truly at the end of the 2.5-inch disk era. SNIA Compute, Memory, and Storage Initiative SSD Special Interest Group brought together experts from Dell, Facebook, HPE, JEDEC, KIOXIA, Lenovo, and Microsoft in a lively follow on to the Enterprise and Data Center SSD Form Factor (EDSFF) May 2020 discussions at OCP Summit,. If you missed our live webcast – watch it on demand.

Webcast attendees raised a variety of questions.  Our experts provide answers to them here: Read More

See You (Online) at SDC!

Marty Foltyn Leave a comment

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

Marty Foltyn Leave a comment

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!

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.

Read More

Going Stir Crazy? Expand Your PM Resume at These Virtual Events!

Jim Fister Leave a comment

We here at SNIA know that everyone is getting a tad stir crazy sitting at home. However, there are still some great opportunities to learn while you’re trying to decide which wall of the home office to face tomorrow. SNIA Compute, Memory, and Storage Initative (CMSI) member company Intel is offering some excellent resources for those interested in programming persistent memory using the open-source Persistent Memory Development Kit (PMDK).

Intel is hosting a virtual forum on PMDK, along with the Storage Performance Development Kit (SPDK), and vTune Profiler tools. This is a great opportunity to meet virtually with the teams who are developing the tools as well as the community building applications. The Virtual Forum runs June 23-35, with special focus on PMDK on June 25th. There are a variety of exciting sessions all three days.

Intel is also hosting two BrightTALK seminars on Persistent Memory. The first, Building Durable Storage Solutions with Intel Optane Persistent Memory on June 23rd, will focus on remote applications for persistent memory. Especially for those interested in networked storage solutions, this will be a great educational webinar. The second, Enabling Persistent Memory Usages in Cloud on June 30th, will cover how many of the most popular in-memory databases already take advantage of Persistent Memory.

In addition, SNIA is continuing to advance the Persistent Memory development conversation. We announced at the Persistent Memory Summit in January that SNIA would be exploring more opportunity for online development using Persistent Memory, as well as an Optane Memory Programming Challenge. Both of these will be active for the second half of this year, and you can watch this space for a formal announcement in the next month.  Learn about our successful NVDIMM Programming Challenge journey here.

Please feel free to register for the above events to learn more and join the community.

And may we suggest the north office wall for tomorrow?

Note: This has also been cross-posted at the PIRL Blog, a collaborative effort of the USCD Non-Volatile Systems Lab and SNIA. Go check out PIRL for some more Persistent Memory Development content.

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.

Feedback Needed on New Persistent Memory Performance White Paper

Marty Foltyn Leave a comment

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.

SNIA at Flash Memory Summit 2019 – Your Guide Here!

Marty Foltyn Leave a comment

SNIA technical work and education advances will play a prominent role in the program at the 2019 Flash Memory Summit, August 5-8, 2019, in Santa Clara, CA.  Over 40 speakers will present on key standards activities and education initiatives, including the first ever FMS Persistent Memory Hackathon hosted by SNIA.  Check out your favorite technology (or all), and learn what SNIA is doing in these sessions:

Read More

New Capability in Familiar Places

Marty Foltyn Leave a comment

When it comes to persistent memory, many application developers initially think of change as hard work that likely yields incremental result.  It’s perhaps a better idea to look at the capability that’s new, but that’s already easily accessible using the methods that are in place today.  It’s not that enabling persistent memory is effortless, it’s more that normal code improvement can take advantage of the new features in the standard course of development.

The concept of multiple memory tiers is ingrained in nearly every programming model.  While the matrix of possibility can get fairly complex, it’s worth looking at three variables of the memory model.  The first is the access type, either via load/store or block operation. The second is the latency or distance from the processing units; in this case the focus would be on the DIMM.  The last would be memory persistence.

Adding persistence to the DIMM tier of memory provides opportunity to programmers in a variety of ways.  Typically, this latency is used for most of the program flow, while data eventually is moved to a farther tier such as disk or network for persistence.  Allocating the majority of data to a low-latency tier like a DIMM has significant potential.

An example of this in the marketplace would be SAP’s HANA in-memory database.  However, it’s less well-known that more traditional database products in the same category have built-in methodologies for moving data that is repeatedly accessed into the DIMM tier, later committing changes to storage via background processes.  It’s likely that adding persistence to DIMMs in volume would be both valuable and also architecturally possible in a short period of development time.

One way that this process is simplified for developers is the fact that the SNIA NVM Programming Model for DIMM-based persistence incorporates both load/store and block access modes.   Developers already familiar with using SSD over rotating media — that would be a fourth memory vector, deal with the ambiguity — would be able to see some incremental performance and potentially some system design simplification.  Those already using memory for data storage could utilize better recovery options as well as explore changes that high-performance storage could bring.

Join other developers on Wednesday, January 23rd at the SNIA Persistent Memory Programming Hackathon to explore options for how your software can take advantage of this new opportunity. Complimentary registration is available at this link.