Server System Infrastructure Forum (SSI) Assigns Specification Copyright to SNIA

SNIA announced last week that The Server System Infrastructure^SM Forum (SSI) has assigned the copyright of the SSI Forum specification to SNIA. The SSI leadership came to the realization that in the past 20 years, SSI has served its purpose of addressing ecosystem challenges in traditional server system architecture and the need to meet evolving requirements of modern data center and cloud infrastructure.

Working with SNIA presents SSI members with a great opportunity to build on their existing form factor work, foster innovation, and form new initiatives for future data center servers. Learn more about this announcement.

Security, GDPR, SNIA and You

The new European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is now enforceable. SNIA has been tracking the requirements of the GDPR for a while now, and can provide a host of helpful content to introduce the GDPR and explain key elements that are relevant to storage ecosystems. Read this blog to learn more.

SNIA Approves Real World Storage Workload Performance Test Specification for Datacenter Storage

The Real World Storage Workload (RWSW) Performance Test Specification (PTS) v1.0.7 is now available at https://www.snia.org/rwsw. The RWSW PTS provides standardized IO capture and analysis of in-situ target server storage performance and comparison and qualification of Datacenter storage when using Real World IO Capture Workloads.

The capture, characterization and test of Real World Storage Workloads for Datacenter Storage is expected to be of interest to datacenter hyperscalers, web server portal designers, IT professionals, storage server companies, SSD ODMs and OEMs, firmware designers, controller designers and researchers. In this context, “datacenter storage” includes, but is not limited to, SAN, NAS, DAS, JBOF, JBOD, SDS, Virtualized Storage, Object Drives, LUNs, SSDs and other logical storage.

Free cross platform IO Capture tools (for Windows, Linux and MacOS), workload visualization and examples are available here. Interested parties can contact the Solid State Storage TWG or submit questions to the portal here.

Make Your Plans to Attend SDC 2018

Make your plans to attend Storage Developer Conference (SDC) 2018 which will take place in Santa Clara, CA on September 24-27. The SDC Agenda team is currently finalizing over 100 technical sessions. See a sample of the SDC 2018 speaker line-up.

Discount: Now is a great time to register for this year’s event and take advantage of the $300 Early Bird registration discount. Early Bird registration discount ends on August 24th. SNIA Members will receive an additional $200 off their registration.

SDC also offers group discounts for groups of 5 or more attendees at a savings of 30% and up. View details on all registration information and options.

Join June 15th Call on Persistent Memory Activities

SNIA Persistent Memory and NVDIMM SIG invite SNIA members and industry colleagues to join them in an open call June 15, 2018 from 10:00 am – 11:00 am PT. The call will begin with an industry presentation on hybrid memory systems, followed by open discussions. Visit snia.org/PM for dial-in details.

The SNIA Persistent Memory and NVDIMM SIG has expanded its charter to focus on accelerating the awareness and adoption of persistent memory and NVDIMMs for competing architectures. All companies involved in persistent memory technologies – both SNIA and non-SNIA members - are invited to join open calls taking place May through July 2018 to prioritize 2018-2019 industry needs and work items, including user perspective case studies, best practices, and vertical industry requirements.

Be a Part of SNIA's First "T-Zine"

SNIA is introducing its technical journal/magazine, or “T-Zine”, which is an annually produced publication that is comprised of forward-looking, technical, and primarily vendor-neutral content.

The articles for the T-Zine will all be peer reviewed. Let us know if you are interested in participating in the review process.

Get more info and sign up to participate here

Featured Video

Sessions from SDC EMEA 2018 Now Available on SNIAVideo

The inaugural SDC EMEA event in Tel Aviv this year was a great success. Experts worldwide came to speak on the latest developments in storage-related technologies. All these sessions are now available on the SNIA YouTube Channel, SNIAVideo. Check out the SDC EMEA Playlist where you’ll find presentations on NVMe and NVMe-oF, persistent memory, non-volatile memory, solid-state storage, SNIA Swordfish™ and much more.

Object Storage: Storage for Developers by Dr. Michael Factor, IBM Fellow, Storage and Systems, IBM Haifa Research Lab

Featured Podcast

SPDK Blobstore: A Look Inside the NVM Optimized Allocator
by Paul Luse, Principal Engineer, Intel, and Vishal Verma, Performance Engineer, Intel

The Storage Performance Development Kit (SPDK) is an open source set of tools and libraries for writing high performance, scalable, user-mode storage applications. It achieves high performance by moving all of the necessary drivers into userspace and operating in a polled mode instead of relying on interrupts.

The Blobstore is a relative newcomer to SPDK and provides local, persistent, power-fail safe block allocator designed to replace filesystem usage in many popular databases. Most importantly, the Blobstore has been designed for the properties of flash and next-generation media from the start and directly leverages NVMe features. This podcast explores the basics of the Blobstore and reviews some of the latest performance data.

Featured Events

SNIA Takes the Stage in Hollywood, London and Boston this Month

Creative Storage Conference – Culver City, CA – June 7^th
SNIA Executive Director, Michael Oros, will present in Session F: Preserving Digital Content—the Challenges, Needs, and Options. Digital storage providers, professional media, and entertainment end users will learn about valuable developments in content archiving, automated metadata generation, and asset management that will ensure that content libraries are resilient, strong and useful.

Creative Storage Conference 2018 explores the theme of "Enabling Immersive Content: Storage Takes Off,” and provides the latest developments in digital storage for media and entertainment. SNIA will also exhibit and discuss technical activities in next generation data centers, persistent memory, and data security. SNIA members and colleagues receive $100 off registration for Creative Storage Conference. Register here to activate the SNIA discount.

In-Memory Computing Summit Europe – London – June 25-26
SNIA Europe Vice Chairman, Alex McDonald, will deliver a keynote at this year’s In-Memory Computing Summit Europe. Attendees will learn the latest about SNIA and persistent memory, highlighting SNIA work on the NVM programming model and persistent memory solutions available today.

The In-Memory Computing Summit Europe is an industry-wide event focused on the full range of in-memory computing-related technologies and solutions. SNIA will also exhibit and discuss physical storage and data in the cloud. SNIA members and colleagues can use the code “SNIA200” for £200 off the conference registration. Register here to activate the SNIA discount.

Storage Field Day – Boston – June 27-29
You’ve heard about NVMe and you’ve heard about NVMe over Fabrics. What, exactly, do the “Fabrics” mean in “NVMe over Fabrics? Dr. J Metz, SNIA Board member, dives into the Fabrics part of NVMe-oF on June 28th at Storage Field Day 16. He will also present the SNIA technology focus for 2018.

The brainchild of Stephen Foskett, Storage Field Day brings together thought leaders to share information and opinions in a presentation and discussion format with a carefully selected delegate panel of independent bloggers, speakers, freelance writers, and other social media tech influencers. The event will be live-streamed with a big social media presence as bloggers interact real-time with presenters and the on-line audience. Join in with hashtag #SFD16.

Upcoming Webcast

FCoE vs. iSCSI vs. iSER
June 21, 2018
J Metz, Cisco; Saqib Jang, Chelsio; Rob Davis, Mellanox; Tim Lustig, Mellanox

The “Great Storage Debates” webcast series continues, this time on FCoE vs. iSCSI vs. iSER. Like past “Great Storage Debates,” the goal of this presentation is not to have a winner emerge, but rather provide vendor-neutral education on the capabilities and use cases of these technologies so that attendees can become more informed and make educated decisions. Join to hear experts discuss and debate FCoE, iSCSI and iSER questions like:

If we can run various network storage protocols over Ethernet, what differentiates them?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of FCoE, iSCSI and iSER?
How are they structured?
What software and hardware do they require?
How are they implemented, configured and managed?
Do they perform differently?
What do you need to do to take advantage of them in the data center?
What are the best use cases for each?

Find SNIA at these Events

Creative Storage Conference – Culver City, CA – June 7, 2018
In-Memory Computing Summit - London, England – June 25-26, 2018
Storage Field Day – Boston, MA – June 27-29, 2018
DMTF Alliance Partner Technical Symposium - Portland, OR – July 23-27, 2018
Flash Memory Summit – Santa Clara, CA – August 7-9, 2018
Storage Developer Conference – Santa Clara, CA – September 24-27, 2018

We value your feedback. Please send any comments or suggestions to the SNIA Matters editor, Diane Marsili.