Category: New & Events

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

Marty Foltyn
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. Read More

Continuing to Refine and Define Computational Storage

SNIAOnStorage
The SNIA Computational Storage Technical Work Group (TWG) has been hard at work on the SNIA Technical Document Computational Storage Architecture and Programming Model.  SNIAOnStorage recently sat down via zoom with the document editor Bill Martin of Samsung and TWG Co-Chairs Jason Molgaard of Arm and Scott Shadley of NGD Systems to understand the work included in the model and why definitions of computational storage are so important. SNIAOnStorage (SOS): Shall we start with the fundamentals?  Just what is the Computational Storage Architecture and Programming Model? Scott Shadley (SS): The SNIA Computational Storage Architecture and Programming Model (Model) introduces the framework of how to use a new tool to architect your infrastructure by deploying compute resources in the storage layer. Bill Martin (BM): The Model enables architecture and programming of computational storage devices. These kinds of devices include those with storage physically attached, and also those with storage not physically attached but considered computational because the devices are associated with storage. SOS: How did the TWG approach creating the Model and what does it cover? Read More

Answering Your Questions on EDSFF

Jonmichael Hands
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: Q:  SFF_TA_1006 suggests E1.S can support max 25W for 25mm asymmetric heat-sink. What are the air-flow assumptions for this estimate? Are there any thermal models and test guidelines available for EDSFF form-factors? Read More

See You (Online) at SDC!

Marty Foltyn
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 Read More

Take 10 – Watch a Computational Storage Trilogy

Marty Foltyn

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

Up to the Challenge!

Marty Foltyn
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. Read More

Judging Has Begun – Submit Your Entry for the NVDIMM Programming Challenge!

Marty Foltyn

We’re 11 months in to the Persistent Memory Hackathon program, and over 150 software developers have taken the tutorial and tried their hand at programming to persistent memory systems.   AgigA Tech, Intel,  SMART Modular, and Supermicro, members of the SNIA Persistent Memory and NVDIMM SIG, have now placed persistent memory systems with NVDIMM-Ns into the SNIA Technology Center as the backbone of the first SNIA NVDIMM Programming Challenge.

Interested in participating?  Send an email to PMhackathon@snia.org to get your credentials.  And do so quickly, as the first round of review for the SNIA NVDIMM Programming Challenge is now open.  Any entrants who have progressed to a point where they would like a review are welcome to contact SNIA at PMhackathon@snia.org to request a time slot.  SNIA will be opening review times in December and January as well.  Submissions that meet a significant amount of the judging criteria described below, as determined by the panel, will be eligible for a demonstration slot to show the 400+ attendees at the January 23, 2020 Persistent Memory Summit  in Santa Clara CA.

Your program or results should be able to be visually demonstrated using remote access to a PM-enabled server. Submissions will be judged by a panel of SNIA experts.  Reviews will be scheduled at the convenience of the submitter and judges, and done via conference call.

NVDIMM Programming Challenge Judging Criteria include:

Use of multiple aspects of NVDIMM/PM capabilities, for example:

  1. Use of larger DRAM/NVDIMM memory sizes
  2. Use of the DRAM speed of NVDIMM PMEM for performance
  3. Speed-up of application shut down or restart using PM where appropriate
  4. Recovery from crash/failure
  5. Storage of data across application or system restarts

Demonstrates other innovative aspects for a program or tool, for example:

  1. Uses persistence to enable new features
  2. Appeals across multiple aspects of a system, beyond persistence

Advances the cause of PM in some obvious way:

  1. Encourages the update of systems to broadly support PM
  2. Makes PM an incremental need in IT deployments

Program or results apply to all types of NVDIMM/PM systems, though exact results may vary across memory types.

Questions? Contact Jim Fister, SNIA Hackathon Program Director, at pmhackathon@snia.org, and happy coding!

Learn the Latest on Persistence at the 2020 Persistent Memory Summit

Marty Foltyn
The 2020 SNIA Persistent Memory Summit is coming to the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara on Thursday, January 23, 2020. The day before, on January 22, an expanded version of the SNIA Persistent Memory Hackathon will return, co-located again with the SNIA Annual Members Symposium. We’ll share Hackathon details in an upcoming SNIA Solid State blog. For those who have already attended a Persistent Memory Summit, you will find significant changes in the makeup of the agenda.  For those who have never attended, the new agenda might also be an opportunity to learn more about development options and experiences for persistent memory. The focus of the 2020 Summit will be on tool and application development for systems with persistent memory.  Read More

It’s a Wrap for SNIA and the Solid State Storage Initiative at Flash Memory Summit 2019

Marty Foltyn
A Best of Show award, over 12 hours of content, three days of demos, and a new program drawing attention to persistent memory programming completed, Flash Memory Summit 2019 is officially a success! SNIA volunteers were again recognized for their hard work developing standards for datacenters and storage professionals with a “Most Innovative Flash Memory Technology” FMS Best of Show award. This year, it was SNIA’s Object Drive Technical Work Group who received kudos for the SNIA Technical Position Key Value Storage API Specification.  Jay Kramer, head of the FMS awards program, presented the award to Bill Martin, Chair of the Object Drive TWG, commenting “Key value store technology can enable NVM storage devices to map and store data more efficiently and with enhanced performance, which is of paramount significance to facilitate computational storage.  Flash Memory Summit is proud to recognize the SNIA Object Drive Technical Work Group (TWG) for creating the SNIA Technical Position Key Value Storage API Specification Version 1.0 defining an application programming interface (API) for key value storage devices and making this available to the public for download. SNIA Sessions at FMS Now Available for Viewing and Download Read More

It’s a Wrap for SNIA and the Solid State Storage Initiative at Flash Memory Summit 2019

Marty Foltyn

A Best of Show award, over 12 hours of content, three days of demos, and a new program drawing attention to persistent memory programming completed – Flash Memory Summit 2019 is officially a success!

SNIA volunteers were again recognized for their hard work developing standards for datacenters and storage professionals with a “Most Innovative Flash Memory Technology” FMS Best of Show award. This year, it was SNIA’s Object Drive Technical Work Group who received kudos for the SNIA Technical Position Key Value Storage API Specification.  Jay Kramer, head of the FMS awards program, presented the award to Bill Martin, Chair of the Object Drive TWG, commenting “Key value store technology can enable NVM storage devices to map and store data more efficiently and with enhanced performance, which is of paramount significance to facilitate computational storage.  Flash Memory Summit is proud to recognize the SNIA Object Drive Technical Work Group (TWG) for creating the SNIA Technical Position Key Value Storage API Specification Version 1.0 defining an application programming interface (API) for key value storage devices and making this available to the public for download.

SNIA Sessions at FMS Now Available for Viewing and Download

SNIA Executive Director Michael Oros again took the mainstage to describe “Standards that Can Change Your Job and Your Life” encapsulating SNIA work in three core areas:  persistent memory, computational storage, and storage management.

Also at Flash Memory Summit, SNIA work and volunteers were on display in eight sessions on persistent memory, highlighting advances in persistent memory, PM software and applications, remote persistent memory, and current research in PM, sponsored by SNIA, JEDEC, and the OpenFabrics Alliance.   A new 2019 SNIA-sponsored track on computational storage featured four sessions on controllers and technology, deploying solutions, implementation methods, and applications.

SNIA’s SFF Technology Affiliate highlighted their work on the Enterprise and Datacenter 1U Short SSD Form Factor (E1.S) specification SFF-TA 1006,  while the Object Drive TWG expanded on their work in standardization for a key value storage interface underway at SNIA and NVM Express.   SNIA also presented a preconference seminar tutorial on persistent memory and NVDIMM, and a session on Storage Management with Swordfish APIs for Open Channel SSDs.

A new session on programming to persistent memory featured a tutorial (video available soon) and a 2 ½ day Persistent Memory Programming Hackathon where attendees programmed to persistent memory systems and discussed their applications.  Next up for the Hackathon series – a 2-day event at SNIA Storage Developer Conference.

Find PDFs of these sessions by clicking on Flash Memory Summit 2019 under Associated Event in the SNIA Educational Library.

We continued our discussions on the exhibit floor featuring JEDEC-compliant NVDIMM-Ns from SNIA Persistent Memory and NVDIMM SIG members AgigA Tech, Micron, 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 23-26, 2019, and at the 2020 SNIA Persistent Memory Summit January 23, 2020, both at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara.  Click on the conference names to register for both events.