Tag: Solid State

SNIA Volunteer Work Wins Recognition at Flash Memory Summit

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SNIA thanks and celebrates the many hardworking SNIA member volunteers whose technical work was awarded Best of Show at the recent Flash Memory Summit.

Jennifer Dietz and Eden Kim accept FMS award from Jay Kramer

SNIA won the FMS Most Innovative Flash Memory Technology Award, recognizing innovations that will change the way flash memory works and is used in products, for the SNIA Technical Position Real World Storage Workloads Performance Test Specification (RWSW PTS), developed by the SNIA Solid State Storage Technical Work Group (SSS TWG). “Real World Workloads are important for Data Center, IT, and Storage professionals,” said Eden Kim, Chair of the SSS TWG, and CEO of SNIA member company Calypso Systems “because real world workloads are very different from synthetic lab workloads and are key determinants in datacenter server and storage performance, optimization and qualification.”   Eden and Jennifer Dietz of SNIA member company Intel and Co-Chair of the SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative Marketing Committee accepted the award from Jay Kramer of Flash Memory Summit.

Mark Carlson and Bill Martin accept award on behalf of SNIA from Jay Kramer

SNIA also won the FMS Best of Show Technology Innovation Award, recognizing that cloud and other large data centers typically prioritize their selection criteria for storage solutions as those that can achieve the highest possible performance while avoiding proprietary vendor lock-in.  SNIA and EXTEN HyperDynamic™ NVMe over Fabrics high-performance storage software were recognized for creating an open storage management specification that works with EXTEN storage software for being the first in the industry to provide a solution based on SNIA Swordfish™ and DMTF Redfish® specifications. “We congratulate EXTEN Technologies for its innovation and well-deserved accolade,” said Don Deel, SNIA Storage Management Initiative Governing Board Chair. “By integrating SNIA Swordfish into its solution, EXTEN Technologies’ customers will benefit from a standards-based API that does not require learning the intricacies of storage infrastructure to handle day-to-day storage needs.” Accepting the award for SNIA at FMS were Mark Carlson of SNIA member company Toshiba Memory Systems and Bill Miller of SNIA member company Samsung Electronics, Co-Chairs of the SNIA Technical Council.

Congratulations to all the SNIA volunteers who participated in the development of these award-winning specifications.

SNIA Sessions at FMS Now Available for Viewing and Download

Also at Flash Memory Summit, SNIA work and volunteers were on display in sessions on persistent memory (PM), solid state storage, form factors, and testing. A two-day PM track featured talks on advances in PM, PM hardware, PM software and applications, and remote persistent memory (PMEM-101-1; PMEM -102-1; PMEM-201-1; and PMEM-202-1).

SNIA is now partnering with the Enterprise and Datacenter SSD Form Factor Working Group (EDSFF) on form factors and a Wednesday session outlined their advances (SSD-201-1). SNIA also presented a preconference seminar (G) on bringing your SSD testing up to date, and a SNIA Education afternoon with sessions on flash storage, programming and networking, buffers, queues, and caches; and a BoF on PM futures.  Check out all these sessions and more on the Flash Memory Summit proceedings page.

SNIA Executive Director Michael Oros shared SNIA strategic directions and areas of focus in a FMS main stage presentation, available here.

SNIA also presented updates on their work in Persistent Memory, Solid State Storage, and alliances at a well-attended reception on Monday evening.  The SSSI honored Doug Voigt, co-chair of the NVM Programming Technical Work Group, for his contributions to SNIA and the NVM Programming Model.

We continued our discussions on the exhibit floor featuring JEDEC-compliant NVDIMM-Ns from SNIA Persistent Memory and NVDIMM SIG members AgigA Tech, Micron, Netlist, SMART Modular Technologies, and Viking in a Supermicro box running an open source performance demonstration.  If you missed it, the SIG will showcase a similar demonstration at the upcoming SNIA Storage Developer Conference September 24-27, 2018, and the SNIA Persistent Memory Summit January 24, 2019 at the Hyatt Santa Clara.  Register now for both events!

How Many IOPS? Users Share Their 2017 Storage Performance Needs

Marty Foltyn Leave a comment

New on the Solid State Storage website is a whitepaper from analysts Tom Coughlin of Coughlin Associates and Jim Handy of Objective Analysis which details what IT manager requirements are for storage performance.The paper examines how requirements have changed over a four-year period for a range of applications, including databases, online transaction processing, cloud and storage services, and scientific and engineering computing. Users disclose how many IOPS are needed, how much storage capacity is required,  and what system bottlenecks prevent them for getting the performance they need. Read More

Cast Your Vote on November 8 for the Magic and Mystery of In-Memory Apps!

Marty Foltyn Leave a comment

It’s an easy “Yes” vote for this great webcast from the SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative on the Magic and Mystery of In-Memory Apps! Join us on Election Day – November 8 – at 1:00 pm ET/10:00 am PT to learn about today’s market and the disruptions that happen when combining big-data vote-yes(Petabytes) with in-memory/real-time requirements.  You’ll understand the interactions with Hadoop/Spark, Tachyon, SAP HANA, NoSQL, and the related infrastructure of DRAM, NAND, 3DXpoint, NV-DIMMs, and high-speed networking and learn what happens to infrastructure design and operations when “tiered-memory” replaces “tiered storage”.

Presenter Shaun Walsh of G2M Communications is an expert in memory technology – and a great speaker! He’ll share with you what you need to know about evaluating, planning, and implementing in-memory computing applications, and give you the framework to evaluation and plan for your adoption of in-memory computing.

Register at: https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/663/230103

Not a Tempest But a Seachange – Persistent Memory

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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

Upcoming December 11 Webcast: Flash Memory Enables 4K and Beyond Video Workflows

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by Marty Foltyn

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held each year in early January in Las Vegas, has moved a long way from the days when you had to search high and low on the show floor for storage-related exhibits. Step on the floor in 2016, and you may never get past the automobile displays which have the capability to track and store your every activity. And even if you do, the plethora of accessible tech, video imaging, and smart home apps will make your head spin!

Solid State Storage is an important contributor to the internet of things featured at CES, and understanding it is key to making informed choices. Get ready for CES 2016 by first attending a SNIA Solid State Storage webcast on Friday, December 11 at 11:00 am Pacific where Tom Coughlin, CEO of analyst firm Coughlin Associates, presents Flash Memory Enables 4K and Beyond Video Workflows.

As the price and availability of flash memory grows flash memory will enable future generations of media that is even more immersive than today as video moves to 8K and virtual reality begins to play an increasing role in entertainment. Tom will discuss how, as the resolution and frame rate for video increase, flash memory is staring to play a significant role for content capture, post production and content delivery. His presentation will include material from the 2015 Digital Storage in Media and Entertainment Report from Coughlin Associates (and the associated 2015 digital media professional survey) on the growing use of flash memory in all aspects of professional media and entertainment and put flash use in context with other storage technologies in this industry.

The webcast is an important lead in to the CES partner program Storage Visions Conference January 3-4 in Las Vegas, where SNIA will exhibit  solid state and persistent memory and have a pre-conference education day.  Register for this informative SNIA Brighttalk webcast , held on December 11, 2015 at 11:00 apm Pacific/2:00 pm Eastern at https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/663/180197

Data Recovery and Selective Erasure of Solid State Storage a New Focus at SNIA

Marty Foltyn Leave a comment

The rise of solid state storage has been incredibly beneficial to users in a variety of industries. Solid state technology presents a more reliable and efficient alternative to traditional storage devices. However, these benefits have not come without unforeseen drawbacks in other areas. For those in the data recovery and data erase industries, for example, solid state storage has presented challenges. The obstacles to data recovery and selective erasure capabilities are not only a problem for those in these industries, but they can also make end users more hesitant to adopt solid state storage technology.

Recently a new Data Recovery and Erase Special Interest Group (SIG) has been formed within the Solid State Storage Initiative (SSSI) within the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA). SNIA’s mission is to “lead the storage industry worldwide in developing and promoting standards, technologies and educational services to empower organizations in the management of information.” This fantastic organization has given the Data Recovery and Erase SIG a solid platform on which to build the initiative.

The new group has held a number of introductory open meetings for SNIA members and non-members to promote the group and develop the group’s charter. For its initial meetings, the group sought to recruit both SNIA members and non-members that were key stakeholders in fields related to the SIG. This includes data recovery providers, erase solution providers and solid state storage device manufacturers. Aside from these groups, members of leading standards bodies and major solid state storage device consumers were also included in the group’s initial formation.

The group’s main purpose is to be an open forum of discussion among all key stakeholders. In the past, there have been few opportunities for representatives from different industries to work together, and collaboration had often been on an individual basis rather than as a group. With the formation of this group, members intend to cooperate between industries on a collective basis in order to foster a more constructive dialogue incorporating the opinions and feedback of multiple parties.

During the initial meetings of the Data Recovery and Erase SIG, members agreed on a charter to outline the group’s purpose and goals. The main objective is to foster collaboration among all parties to ensure consumer demands for data recovery and erase services on solid state storage technology can be performed in a cost-effective, timely and fully successful manner

In order to achieve this goal, the group has laid out six steps needed, involving all relevant stakeholders:

  1. Build the business case to support the need for effective data recovery and erase capabilities on solid state technology by using use cases and real examples from end users with these needs.
  2. Create a feedback loop allowing data recovery providers to provide failure information to manufacturers in order to improve product design.
  3. Foster cooperation between solid state manufacturers and data recovery and erase providers to determine what information is necessary to improve capabilities.
  4. Protect sensitive intellectual property shared between data recovery and erase providers and solid state storage manufacturers.
  5. Work with standards bodies to ensure future revisions of their specifications account for capabilities necessary to enable data recovery and erase functionality on solid state storage.
  6. Collaborate with solid state storage manufacturers to incorporate capabilities needed to perform data recovery and erase in product design for future device models.

The success of this special interest group depends not only on the hard work of the current members, but also in a diverse membership base of representatives from different industries. We will be at Flash Memory Summit in booth 820 to meet you in person! Or you can visit our website at www.snia.org/forums/sssi for more information on this new initiative and all solid state storage happenings at SNIA.   If you’re a SNIA member and you’d like to learn more about the Data Recovery/Erase SIG or you think you’d be a good fit for membership, we’d love to speak with you.  Not a SNIA member yet? Email marty.foltyn@snia.org for details on joining.

It’s “All About M.2 SSDs” In a New SSSI Webcast June 10

Marty Foltyn Leave a comment

Interested in M.2, the new SSD card form factor?

The SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative is partnering with SATA-IO and NVM Express to give you the latest information on M.2, the new SSD card form factor.  Join us “live” on Tuesday, June 10, at 10:00 am Pacific time/1:00 pm Eastern time.

Hear from a panel of experts, including Tom Coughlin of Coughlin Associates, Jim Handy of Objective Analysis, Jon Tanguy of Micron, Jaren May of TE Connectivity, David Akerson of Intel, and Eden Kim of Calypso Systems.  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.

You can access this webcast via the internet.  Click here, or visit http://snia.org/news_events/multimedia#webcasts