New technologies and platforms have laid waste to the assumptions of fixed-size, monolithic memory. Multiple layers of CXL-attached memory and persistent memory now provide a wide variety of types and speeds of memory available to developers of future systems. We will compare these various tiers of memories, whether inside the box or remotely attached. Next, we will examine how users and consumers of multi-tiered memory can make use of their varying characteristics, such as latency and persistence.

Modern memory, storage and content delivery systems are built out of myriad components that provide a dizzying set of parameters used to optimize their cost or performance. By modularly simulating the components into building blocks, we show how you can quickly try many different sets of configurations. This modularity also allows plugging in alternative or proprietary components to measure their impact on the overall system cost and performance. These simulations can be built in days or weeks, instead of the months to years needed to build and test live systems.

Building on Optimizing Complex Hierarchical Memory Systems through Simulation from SDC 2023, this talk details recent work to optimize caching systems used in Content Delivery Networks, or CDNs. CDNs are built out of groups of servers at a variety of locations with various tiers and types of caches. Modern CDN caches present a huge array of variable configurations.

Building Content Delivery Networks, or CDNs, requires distributed, localized collections of compute, memory and storage. CDNs are built out of groups of servers at a variety of locations with various tiers and types of caches. Modern CDN caches present a huge array of variable configurations.

CXL offers unprecedented opportunities to design and build much larger application and compute arrangements than were available even a few years ago. The ability to connect memory subsystems and other compute resources through a switched network provides a dizzying array of possibilities for custom tailoring an environment for a particular workload.