Computational Storage in the Real World

Computational storage has arrived, with real world applications meeting the goal of enabling parallel computation and/or alleviating constraints on existing compute, memory, storage, and I/O.  The SNIA Computational Storage Special Interest Group has gathered examples of computational storage use cases which demonstrate improvements in application performance and infrastructure efficiency through the integration of compute resources either directly with storage or between the host and the storage. First up in the SNIA Computational Storage Demo Series are our SIG member companies Eideticom Communications and NGD Systems. Read More

Cutting Edge Persistent Memory Education – Hear from the Experts!

Most of the US is currently experiencing an epic winter.  So much for 2021 being less interesting than 2020.  Meanwhile, large portions of the world are also still locked down waiting for vaccine production. So much for 2020 ending in 2020.  What, oh what, can possibly take our minds off the boredom? Here’s an idea – what about some education in persistent memory programming?  Read More

Compute Everywhere – Your Questions Answered

Recently, the SNIA Compute, Memory, and Storage Initiative (CMSI) hosted a wide-ranging discussion on the “compute everywhere” continuum.  The panel featured Chipalo Street from Microsoft, Steve Adams from Intel, and Eli Tiomkin from NGD Systems representing both the start-up environment and the SNIA Computational Storage Special Interest Group. We appreciate the many questions asked during the webcast and are pleased to answer them in this Q&A blog. Read More

Take 10 – Watch a Computational Storage Trilogy

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!

Read More

Are We at the End of the 2.5-inch Disk Era?

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

Your Questions Answered on Persistent Memory Programming

On April 14, the SNIA Compute Memory and Storage Initiative (CMSI) held a webcast asking the question – Do You Wanna Program Persistent Memory? We had some answers in the affirmative – answering the call of the NVDIMM Programming Challenge. The Challenge utilizes a set of systems SNIA provides for the development of applications that take advantage of persistent memory. These systems support persistent memory types that can utilize the SNIA Persistent Memory Programming Model, and that are also supported by the Persistent Memory Development Kit (PMDK) Libraries. Read More

Feedback Needed on New Persistent Memory Performance White Paper

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.

Read More

Register for the PIRL Conference Today

Registration is now open for the upcoming Persistent Programming in Real Life (PIRL) Conference – July 22-23, 2019 on the campus of the University of California San Diego (UCSD). The 2019 PIRL event features a collaboration between UCSD Computer Science and Engineering, the Non-Volatile Systems Laboratory, and the SNIA to bring industry leaders in programming and developing persistent memory applications together for a two-day discussion on their experiences. Read More

Register for the PIRL Conference Today

Registration is now open for the upcoming Persistent Programming in Real Life (PIRL) Conference – July 22-23, 2019 on the campus of the University of California San Diego (UCSD).

The 2019 PIRL event features a collaboration between UCSD Computer Science and Engineering, the Non-Volatile Systems Laboratory, and the SNIA to bring industry leaders in programming and developing persistent memory applications together for a two-day discussion on their experiences.

PIRL is a small conference, with attendance limited to under 100 people, including speakers.  It will discuss what real developers have done, and want to do, with persistent memory. Most of the presentations will include demonstrations of live code showing new concepts.  The conference is designed to be a meet-up for developers seeking to gain and share knowledge in the growing area of Persistent Memory development.

PIRL features a program of 18 presentations and 5 keynotes from industry-leading developers who have built real systems using persistent memory.  They will share what they have done (and want to do) with persistent memory, what worked, what didn’t, what was hard, what was easy, what was surprising, and what they learned.

This year’s keynote presentations will be:

  • * Pratap Subrahmanyam (Vmware): Programming Persistent Memory In A Virtualized Environment Using Golang
  • * Zuoyu Tao (Oracle): Exadata With Persistent Memory – An Epic Journey
  • * Dan Williams (Intel Corporation): The 3rd Rail Of Linux Filesystems: A Survival Story
  • * Stephen Bates (Eideticom): Successfully Deploying Persistent Memory and Acceleration Via Compute Express Link
  • * Scott Miller (Dreamworks): Persistent Memory In Feature Animation Production

Other speakers include engineers from NetApp, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Oracle, Sandia National Labs, Intel, SAP, Red Hat, and universities from around the world.  Full details are available at the PIRL website.

PIRL will be held on the University of California San Diego campus at Scripps Forum, a state-of-the-art conference facility just a few meters from the beach.  Discounted early registration ends July 10, so register today to ensure your seat.