SNIA NVM Programming Model (September 2013)

Upcoming advances in Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) technologies will blur the line between storage and memory, creating a disruptive change to the way software is written. The new SNIA NVM Programming Model describes behavior provided by operating systems enabling applications, file systems, and other software to take advantage of new NVM capabilities. This tutorial describes four programming modes. Two modes address NVM extensions for NVM emulating hard disks; block mode (as use by file systems) and file mode (as use by most applications). There are also two modes for Persistent Memory (PM); kernel extensions (as used by PM-aware file systems) and PM file mode (as used by PM aware applications). The tutorial also addresses some broader NVM software issues, such as strategies for storing pointers in persistent memory.

Learning Objectives

Awareness of the new SNIA NVM Programming Model
Advantages to software utilizing NVM features
Motivations for NVM device vendors to support the model