Category: Computational Storage

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!

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Your Questions Answered on CMSI and More

Marty Foltyn

The “new” SNIA Compute, Memory, and Storage Initiative (CMSI) was formed at the beginning of 2020 out of the SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative.  The 45 companies who comprise the CMSI recognized the opportunity to combine storage, memory, and compute in new, novel, and useful ways; and to bring together technology, alliances, education, and outreach to better understand new opportunities and applications. 

To better explain this decision, and to talk about the various aspects of the Initiative, CMSI co-chair Alex McDonald invited CMSI members Eli Tiomkin, Jonmichael Hands, and Jim Fister to join him in a live SNIA webcast. 

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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.

What Drives SNIA Technical Work?

khauser Leave a comment

In 2019, SNIA On Storage is  partnering with the SNIA Technical Council Co-Chairs Bill Martin and Mark Carlson to chat about SNIA technical activities. In this blog, we chat with Mark on the catalysts for new SNIA work.  SNIA also invites you to check out our event calendar to meet SNIA in person across the globe in the next months.

SNIA On Storage (SOS):  A new year always brings new ideas, and I’m sure SNIA has some exciting activities planned for 2019.  But just how are new SNIA efforts created?

Mark Carlson (MC):  SNIA does not just sit back and dream up work to do, but rather relies on industry input and requirements.  A great example of how SNIA work is created is the 2018 launch of the Computational Storage Technical Work Group (TWG).  It all started at the Flash Memory Summit industry event with a simple Birds-of-a-Feather on a thing called “computational storage”.  Interest definitely was high – the room was packed – and the individuals assembled decided to use SNIA as the vehicle to do definition and standardization of this new concept. Read More

Dive into Computational Storage at Storage Developer Conference 2018 – A Chat with SNIA Technical Council Co-Chair Mark Carlson

khauser Leave a comment

An update from SNIA on Storage:  Computational Storage was definitely the “buzz” at SDC! Session slides can now be downloaded.  The BoF attracted over 50 attendees, and a F2F meeting (and WebEx) is set for October 11 at the SNIA Technology Center in Colorado Springs.  Go to snia.org/computational to sign up for the meeting to plan the mission and charter for the SNIA Computational Storage Technical Work Group.  All SNIA and non-SNIA members are welcome to participate in this phase of the TWG.

The SNIA Storage Developer Conference (SDC) is running September 24-27, 2018 at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara CA.   Registration is open, and the agenda is live!

SNIA On Storage is teaming up with the SNIA Technical Council to dive into major themes of the 2018 conference.  The SNIA Technical Council takes a leadership role to develop the content for each SDC, so SNIA on Storage spoke with Mark Carlson, SNIA Technical Council Co-Chair and Principal Engineer, Industry Standards, Toshiba Memory America, to understand why SDC is bringing Computational Storage to conference attendees.

SNIA On Storage (SOS): Just in the last few weeks, there’s been a tremendous buzz about “computational storage”. Is this a new kid on the block? Read More