Abstract
Architectures implementing Open-Channel SSD concepts have successfully made their way into the data center. However, the lack of a standard has facilitated fragmentation and, in turn, hindered sound adoption. To address this problem, NVMe is standardizing Zoned Namespaces - a new namespace type that allows applications to (i) make explicit decisions around data placement on areas of the device (zones) and (ii) have control over zone states, including reset cycles. The result is lower write- and space-amplification, lower cost and higher predictability. In this talk, we will discuss the concepts around ZNS, the efforts being made to add support for it in Linux, and the user-space ecosystem to enable suitable applications (e.g., RocksDB). Also, we will cover some of the features we are adding to ZNS in order to further reduce tail latencies and provide QoS.