Storage Developer Conference

PowerShell is a task-based command-line shell and scripting language that helps rapidly automate tasks that manage operating systems (Linux, macOS, and Windows) and processes. PowerShell is open-source, object-based and includes a rich expression parser and a fully developed scripting language with a gentle learning curve. The PowerShell Toolkit for SNIA Swordfish™ provides simple to use commands for managing any Swordfish Implementation (including the SNIA API Emulator). Attend this session to learn how to use the SNIA Swordfish PowerShell Module to jumpstart development of your own Swordfish implementation. Learning Objectives: 1) Provide an overview of the PowerShell open source tool kit; 2) Describe how the PowerShell tool kit can speed a Swordfish implementation; 3) Educate the audience on how to use and access the PowerShell tool kit.

After a year of implementation progress of the The SMB3 .1.1 POSIX Extensions, a set of protocol extensions to allow for optimal Linux and Unix interoperability with NAS and Cloud file servers - what is the current status - what have we learned - what has changed in the protocol specification in the past year - what advice do we have for implementers - and users … These extensions greatly improve the experience for users of Linux. This presentation will review the state of the protocol extensions and their current implementation in the Linux kernel and Samba among others, and provide an opportunity for feedback and suggestions for additions to the POSIX extensions. This has been an exciting year with many improvements to the implementations of the SMB3.1.1 POSIX Extensions in Samba and Linux! Learning Objectives: 1) What is the current status of Linux interoperability with various SMB3.1.1 servers?; 2) How have the protocol extensions for Linux/POSIX progressed over the past year? What has changed? What wo

NVMe KV (Key-Value) is an industry-wide proposal for a new command structure that allows access to data on an NVMe SSD controller using a “key” rather than a block address. Developed within the NVM Express technical working group, this Key Value command set provides a “key” to store a corresponding “value” on non-volatile media, then retrieves that “value” from the media by specifying the corresponding “key.” In addition to extensive work being undertaken by the NVM Express working group, the SNIA has completed an overarching KeyValue API released for a membership vote in January 2019. This presentation examines standardization efforts going on within SNIA and the NVM Express working group that will allow users to access key-value data without the costly and time-consuming overhead of additional translation tables between keys and logical blocks. Learning Objectives: 1) What is the status of standards development; 2) Overview of what is in the SNIA KV API; 3) Overview of what is in the NVMe KV proposal.

A variety of persistent memory technologies with DRAM-class performance, known as “memory class storage” or “MCS”, have appeared on the horizon. MCS will change the architecture of future computing systems. These technologies include carbon nanotube memory, phase change memory, magnetic spin memory, and resistive memory, and each has unique characteristics that can complicate systems designed to exploit them. The JEDEC DDR5 NVRAM specification in process intends to bridge the differences between the technologies and provide systems designers with a unified specification for DRAM-class persistent memory. Nantero NRAM is a NVRAM based on carbon nanotube cell structures that provides a DDR4 or DDR5 interface to the system, and provides additional enhancements to yield 20% higher performance at the same clock rate. Learning Objectives: 1) Attendees are exposed to system level advantages of memory class storage devices that operate at DRAM speeds but provide data persistence; 2) JEDEC is working on a new specific

One of the most common benchmarks in the storage industry is 4KiB random read I/O per second. Over the years, the industry first saw the publication of 1M I/Ops on a single box, then 1M I/Ops on a single thread (by SPDK). More recently, there have been publications outlining 10M I/Ops on a single box using high performance NVMe devices and more than 100 CPU cores. This talk will present a benchmark of SPDK performing more than 10 million random 4KiB read operations per second from a single thread to 20 NVMe devices, a large advance compared to the state of the art of the industry. SPDK has developed a number of novel techniques to reach this level of performance, which will be outlined in detail here. These techniques include polling, advanced MMIO doorbell batching strategies, PCIe and DDIO considerations, careful management of the CPU cache, and the use of non-temporal CPU instructions. This will be a low level talk with real examples of eliminating data dependent loads, profiling last level cache misses,

The applications using NVMe, SAS, SATA, USB based storage devices find a new use and one of them is mining for open source cryptocurrency such as Burst Coin. Using low power or solar power HDD’s, SSD and most importantly NVMe technology can improve turnaround latency and build blocks on a faster scale. Utilization of security protocols allows anonymization as well as protection of the users and vendors. Burst coin has an extensive developer’s community and can run on the cloud, has dApps, its own ATM and more. More importantly, Burst is based on Proof of Capacity protocol and utilizes storage drives, arrays and enables users to build the mesh net of miners and secure blockchain protocol. Using NVMe devices we can accelerate transactions. We will show how using performance analytics tools we can create predictions on building blockchain blocks and provide insights into date usage efficiency. Additional value benefits are saving energy costs, address new markets and create adoption in the larger markets. The us

A growing trend in the market is capacity of data. This data growth is creating challenges within modern storage infrastructures and a new way to think of data is needed. The SNIA Computational Storage TWG was formed in October of 2018 to address this opportunity for the Storage industry to use innovative technologies that bring computational capabilities closer to or within the storage device. The goal of the TWG is to develop an architecture and set of definitions that allow for common communication about the problem set as well as a standardized interface between the Computational Storage device and host or peer devices. Ultimately the TWG will drive standardization of the necessary Computational Storage interfaces across the industry, contribute to and drive the development of software necessary to enable the usages, and promote the education of the industry regarding Computational Storage. This session will provide an overview of Computational Storage, the focus areas of the TWG, and the opportunities f

Last year at SDC we reviewed the integration of crypto which made use of DPDK’s existing variety of drivers to usher in the capability. This year we are expanding our use of DPDK with the addition of a compression! This talk will outline the overall architecture of the compression module and explain in detail how we are managing the layout of the device and leveraging the Persistent Memory Development Kit to store metadata in super-fast persistent memory. Learning Objectives: 1) Understand new SPDK compression feature; 2) Understand the value of SPDK in general; 3) Learn about the SPDK Community.

This talks explains the exciting new features in the Linux NVMe driver and software target in the last two years, as well as the relevant block layer changes to support these features. Learning Objectives: 1) Learn about new Linux features; 2) Learn about new NVMe features; 3) Have fun!

LTO (Linear Tape Open) is an industry standard format for tape drives and media. To begin this talk we will give a brief overview of LTO tape: how data is recorded and accessed on tape, and some characteristics that make it very different from earlier forms of computer tape storage. We will then discuss the current state of LTO tape, including “feeds and speeds”, backwards/forwards drive and media compatibility, and the LTO Consortium’s roadmap for the future. Finally, we’ll discuss the Linear Tape File System (LTFS): what it is, how it works, and what benefits it provides. We’ll end with a detailed description of the latest important feature in LTFS version 2.5, Incremental Indexes, including a discussion of the impetus for Incremental Indexes, the benefits they provide, and an explanation of how they work. This talk is suitable for newcomers to tape storage as well as those who are already taking advantage of LTO tape and LTFS. Learning Objectives: 1) Understand the operation and current state of LTO tape

Introducing pmemkv, an open-source local key/value store for persistent memory based on PMDK. Written in C/C++, pmemkv provides optimized language bindings for Java, JavaScript, and Ruby. Pmemkv includes multiple storage engines that are tailored for different use-cases. Fast, flexible and bulletproof, pmemkv is an easy way to modify applications to use persistent memory. Learning Objectives: 1) Learn about a local/embedded key-value data store optimized for persistent memory; 2) Learn how cloud applications can easily manage key/value data on persistent platforms; 3) Code samples that demonstrate the ease of use of different language bindings.

RocksDB, a high performance key-value database developed by Facebook, has proven effective in using the high data speeds made possible by Solid State Drives (SSDs). By leveraging the NVMe standard, Eideticom’s NoLoad® presents FPGA computational storage processors as NVMe namespaces to the operating system and enables efficient data transfer between the NoLoad® Computational Storage Processors (CSPs), host memory and other NVMe/PCIe devices in the system. Presenting Computational Storage Processors as NVMe namespaces has the significant benefit of minimal software effort to integrate computational resources. In this presentation we use Eideticom’s NoLoad® to speed up RocksDB. Compared to software compaction running on a Dell R7425 PowerEdge server, our NoLoad®, running on Xilinx’s Avleo U280, resulted in 6x improvement in database transactions and 2.5x reduction is CPU usage while reducing worst case latency by 2.7x. Learning Objectives: 1) Computational storage with NVMe; 2) Presenting computational storag

Since the first release of NVMe 1.0 in 2011, the NVMe family of specifications continue to expand to support current and future storage markets, increasing the amount of new features and functionality. With that natural, organic growth, however, comes additional complexity. In order to refocus on simplicity and ease-of-development, the NVM Express group has undertaken a massive effort to refactor the specification. The upcoming refactored specification - NVMe 2.0 - integrates the scalable and flexible NVMe over Fabrics architecture within the NVMe base specification, meeting the needs of platform designers, device vendors and developers. But how can developers optimally design their products using the new NVMe 2.0 specification? This session will provide attendees with the following insights: • An overview of the existing specification structure, its logic and limitations • Highlights on how developers use the current specification before refactoring • Information showing how the refactored specification enab

Over the years, SSD QoS has become more important to a variety of storage market segments. Traditional latency reporting methods do not always accurately depict QoS behaviors. This is problematic when attempting to understand what events lead to a specific QoS level and how to mitigate latency events that lead to levels of QoS. Defining correct statistical techniques for large populations of latencies deepens our understanding of what drives levels of QoS. Advanced statistical techniques, such a machine learning and utilizing AI, allows for deeper understanding of what drives QoS and how to correctly manage large quantities of latencies. New visualization techniques enhance capabilities to understand latency behavior and define critical scenarios that drive latency. Learning Objectives: 1) Identify shortcomings of current QoS reporting; 2) Generate more reliable QoS values; 3) Techniques to broaden understanding of groups of latencies; 4) Identification of critical transitions in latency; 5) Identify inaccur

With the onset of the Computational Storage TWG and growth of interest in the market for these new and emerging solutions, it is imperative to understand how to develop, deploy and scale these new technologies. This session will walk through the new definitions, how each can be deployed and show use cases of NGD Systems Computational Storage Devices (CSD). Learning Objectives: 1. Learn the different kinds of Computational Storage 2. Understand the use cases for each type of solutions 3. Determine the ease of deployment and the value of these solutions

SMB3 has seen significant adoption as the storage protocol of choice for running private cloud deployments. With the recent advances in persistent memory technologies, we will take a look at how we can leverage the SMB3 protocol in conjunction with SMBDirect/RDMA to provide very low latency access to persistent memory devices across the network. With the increasing popularity of cloud storage - technologies like Azure Files which provide seamless access to cloud stored data via the standard SMB3 protocol is seeing significant interest. One of the key requirements in this space is to be able to run SMB3 over a secure / firewall friendly internet protocol. We will take a quick look at some work we are doing to enable SMB3 over QUIC - which is a recent UDP based transport with strong security and interop properties. We will also explore some work we have done to enable on-the-wire compression for SMB3. Learning Objectives: 1) Learn how we can use SMB3 to setup direct RDMA access to remote persistent memory; 2)

This talk describes work going on in three different organizations to enable scale out management of NVMe SSDs. The soon to be released NVME-MI 1.1 standard will allow management from host based agents as well as BMCs. This might be extended to allow support for Binary Encoded JSON (BEJ) in support of host agents and BMCs that want to support the Redfish Standard. We will also cover work going on in SNIA (Object Drive TWG) and DMTF in support. Learning Objectives: 1) Principles and limitations of scale out datacenter management; 2) An understanding of the NVMe-MI standard; 3) A Redfish profile for NVMe drives; 4) Inside the box management networks and outside the box management networks; 5) Platform Layer Data Model (PLDM).

As NVDIMMs enter the realm of standard equipment on servers and storage arrays and NVMe is standard equipment for servers and consumer devices alike, what is the actual performance advantage of using NVDIMM over NVMe, or NVMe over SAS or SATA SSDs? First, we’ll review some purely synthetic benchmarks of single devices using different storage technologies and see how they differ. Then, we’ll enter a more real world environment and see what performance gains can be had. One use of NVDIMMs is as a transaction log to allow quick acknowledgement of write operations. In our real-world scenario, we discuss the performance differences of using NVDIMMs, NVMe Flash, or SAS/SATA Flash as the SLOG or “write-cache” for an OpenZFS pool. Learning Objectives: 1) Performance differences between different storage media and storage transports for transactional workloads; 2) Basic overview of OpenZFS and how a SLOG works; 3) Impact of low latency NVDIMM and NVMe storage for application and user latency.

The Storage Performance Development Kit (SPDK) open source project is gaining momentum in the storage industry for its drivers and libraries for building userspace, polled mode storage applications and appliances. The SPDK NVMe driver was SPDK’s first released building block and is its most well-known. The driver’s design and architecture is heavily influenced by SPDK’s userspace polled-mode framework which has resulted in some significant differences compared to traditional kernel NVMe drivers. This presentation will present an overview of the SPDK NVMe driver’s architecture and design, a historical perspective on key design decisions and a discussion on the driver’s advantages and limitations. Learning Objectives: 1) Gain a deeper understanding of the architecture and design of the SPDK NVMe driver; 2) Identify the key design differences between a userspace polled-mode driver and a traditional kernel-mode driver; 3) Describe the key advantages and limitations of SPDK and its polled mode NVMe driver.

Persistent Memory is getting a lot of attention. SNIA has released a programming standard, NVDIMM makers, with the help of JEDEC, have created standardized hardware to develop & test PM, and chip makers continue to promote upcoming devices, although few are currently available. In this talk two industry analysts, Jim Handy & Tom Coughlin, will provide the state of Persistent Memory and show a realistic roadmap of what the industry can expect to see and when they can expect to see it. The presentation, based on three critical reports covering New Memory Technologies, NVDIMMs, and Intel’s 3D XPoint Memory (also known as Optane) will illustrate the Persistent Memory market, the technologies that vie to play a role, and the critical economic obstacles that continue to impede these technologies’ progress. We will also explore how advanced logic process technologies are likely to cause persistent memories to become a standard ingredient in embedded applications, such as IoT nodes long before they make sense in ser