Kubernetes Trials & Tribulations Q&A: Cloud, Data Center, Edge

Michael Hoard
Kubernetes cloud orchestration platforms offer all the flexibility, elasticity, and ease of use — on premises, in a private or public cloud, even at the edge. The flexibility of turning on services when you want them, turning them off when you don’t, is an enticing prospect for developers as well as application deployment teams, but it has not been without its challenges. At our recent SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative webcast “Kubernetes Trials & Tribulations: Cloud, Data Center, Edge” our experts, Michael St-Jean and Pete Brey, debated both the challenges and advantages of Kubernetes. If you missed the session, it is available on-demand along with the presentation slides. The live audience raised several interesting questions. Here are answers to them from our presenters. Q: Are all these trends coming together? Where will Kubernetes be in the next 1-3 years? Read More

Programming Frameworks Q&A

Alex McDonald
Last month, the SNIA Networking Storage Forum made sense of the “wild west” of programming frameworks, covering xPUs, GPUs and computational storage devices at our live webcast, “You’ve Been Framed! An Overview of xPU, GPU & Computational Storage Programming Frameworks.” It was an excellent overview of what’s happening in this space. There was a lot to digest, so our stellar panel of experts has taken the time to answer the questions from our live audience in this blog. Q. Why is it important to have open-source programming frameworks? A. Open-source frameworks enable community support and partnerships beyond what proprietary frameworks support. In many cases they allow ISVs and end users to write one integration that works with multiple vendors. Q. Will different accelerators require different frameworks or can one framework eventually cover them all? Read More

Memory Semantics and Data Movement with CXL and SDXI

David McIntyre
Using software to perform memory copies has been the gold standard for applications performing memory-to-memory data movement or system memory operations. With new accelerators and memory types enriching the system architecture, accelerator-assisted memory data movement and transformation need standardization. At the forefront of this standardization movement is the SNIA Smart Data Accelerator Interface (SDXI) which is designed as an industry-open standard that is Extensible, Forward-compatible, and Independent of I/O interconnect technology. Adjacently, Compute Express Link™ (CXL™) is an industry-supported Cache-Coherent Interconnect for Processors, Memory Expansion, and Accelerators. CXL is designed to be an industry-open standard interface for high-speed communications, as accelerators are increasingly used to complement CPUs in support of emerging applications such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. How are these two standards related? Read More

You’ve Been Framed! An Overview of Programming Frameworks

Alex McDonald
With the emergence of GPUs, xPUs (DPU, IPU, FAC, NAPU, etc.) and computational storage devices for host offload and accelerated processing, a panoramic wild west of frameworks is emerging, all vying to be one of the preferred programming software stacks that best integrates the application layer with these underlying processing units. On October 26, 2022, the SNIA Networking Storage Forum will break down what’s happening in the world of frameworks in our live webcast, “You’ve Been Framed! An Overview of Programming Frameworks for xPU, GPU & Computational Storage Programming Frameworks.” We’ve convened an impressive group of experts that will provide an overview of programming frameworks that support: Read More

New Standard Brings Certainty to the Process of Proper Eradication of Data

Eric Hibbard Leave a comment

A wide variety of data types are recorded on a range of data storage technologies, and businesses need to ensure data residing on data storage devices and media are disposed of in a way that ensures compliance through verification of data eradication.

When media are repurposed or retired from use, the stored data often must be eliminated (sanitized) to avoid potential data breaches. Depending on the storage technology, specific methods must be employed to ensure that the data is eradicated on the logical/virtual storage and media-aligned storage in a verifiable manner.

Existing published standards such as NIST SP 800-88 Revision 1 (Media Sanitization) and ISO/IEC 27040:2015 (Information technology – Security techniques – Storage security) provide guidance on sanitization, covering storage technologies from the last decade but have not kept pace with current technology or legislative requirements.  

New standard makes conformance clearer

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Reaching a Computational Storage Milestone

SNIAOnStorage
Version 1.0 of the SNIA Computational Storage Architecture and Programming Model has just been released to the public at www.snia.org/csarch. The Model has received industry accolades, winning the Flash Memory Summit 2022 Best of Show Award for Most Innovative Memory Technology at their recent conference. Congratulations to all the companies and individuals who contributed large amounts of expertise and time to the creation of this Model.  SNIAOnStorage sat down with SNIA Computational Storage Technical Work Group (CS TWG) co-chairs Jason Molgaard and Scott Shadley; SNIA Computational Storage Architecture and Programming Model editor Bill Martin; and SNIA Computational Storage Special Interest Group chair David McIntyre to get their perspectives on this milestone release and next steps for SNIA. SNIAOnStorage (SOS): What is the significance of a 1.0 release for this computational storage SNIA specification? Read More

Is the Data Really Gone? A Q&A

SNIA CMSI
In our recent webcast Is the Data Really Gone? A Primer on the Sanitization of Storage Devices, our presenters Jonmichael Hands (Chia Network), Jim Hatfield (Seagate), and John Geldman (KIOXIA) took an in-depth look at exactly what sanitization is, what the standards are, and where sanitization is being practiced today.  If you missed it, you can watch on-demand their recommendations for the verification of sanitization to ensure that devices are meeting stringent requirements – and access the presentation slides at the SNIA Educational Library.  Here, in our Q&A blog, our experts answer more of your questions on data sanitization. Read More

Kubernetes is Everywhere Q&A

Alex McDonald
Earlier this month, the SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative hosted a fascinating panel discussion “Kubernetes is Everywhere: What About Cloud Native Storage?”  where storage experts from SNIA and Kubernetes experts from the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) discussed storage implications for Kubernetes. It was a lively and enlightening discussion on key considerations for container storage. In this Q&A blog, our panelists Nick Connolly, Michael St-Jean, Pete Brey and I elaborate on some of the most intriguing questions during the session. Q. What are the additional/different challenges for Kubernetes storage at the edge – in contrast to the data center?   Read More

Join Us as We Return Live to FMS!

SNIA CMSI
SNIA is pleased to be part of the Flash Memory Summit 2022 agenda August 1-4, 2022 at the Santa Clara CA Convention Center, with our volunteer leadership demonstrating solutions, chairing and speaking in sessions, and networking with FMS attendees at a variety of venues during the conference. The ever-popular SNIA Reception at FMS features the SNIA groups Storage Management Initiative, Compute Memory and Storage Initiative, and Green Storage Initiative, along with SNIA alliance partners CXL Consortium, NVM Express, and OpenFabrics Alliance.  Stop by B-203/204 at the Convention Center from 5:30 – 7:00 pm Monday August 1 for refreshments and networking with colleagues to kick off the week! Read More

A Deep Dive on xPU Deployment and Solutions

John Kim
A Deep Dive on xPU Deployment and Solutions Our first and second webcasts in this xPU webcast series explained what xPUs are, how they work, and what they can do. If by you missed them, they are available to watch here in the SNIA Educational Library. On August 24, 2022, the SNIA Networking Storage Forum will host the third webcast in this series, “xPU Deployment and Solutions Deep Dive,” where our xPU experts will explain next steps for deployments, discussing: When to Deploy:
  • Pros and cons of dedicated accelerator chips versus running everything on the CPU
    •  xPU use cases across hybrid, multi-cloud and edge environments
    • Cost and power considerations
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