SNIA Developer Conference September 15-17, 2025 | Santa Clara, CA
Dan Helmick
CTO
WorkOnward
Rahul Vishwakarma is the Chief Technology Officer at WorkOnward in Los Angeles, USA, where he leads the development of generative AI-based solutions, driving the company's mission to deliver innovative AI technologies. With over 15 years of experience and an M.S. in Computer Science from California State University, Long Beach, he specializes in AI systems. His innovative contributions are evidenced by his 60 granted U.S. patents. He has held significant positions at Dell Technologies and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. He is also a dedicated mentor, guiding the next generation of innovators through initiatives like the Sunstone Innovation Challenge at the Institute for Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Related Sessions
Optimal Performance Parameters for NVMe SSDs
This presentation will discuss Optimal Performance Parameters (OPTPERF and OPTRPERF) found in NVM Express® (NVMe) Section 5.8.2 of NVM Command Set Specification. Every performance parameter (NPWG, NPWA, NPDG, NPDA, NOWS, NPRG, NPRA, NORS) has several choices on setting values by SSD manufacturers. In this presentation, the differences intended for some of the parameters (Ex: NPWG vs NOWS) will be highlighted. Sometimes the parameters may be set by either NAND or SSD Controller attributes. The general impactors for setting the Optimal Performance Parameters will be discussed, and attendees will be better prepared to adjust Host SW for optimal SSD performance.
Live Migration for PCIe SSDs
TP4159 PCIe Infrastructure for Live Migration is an upcoming NVM Express® (NVMe) feature. The over-arching flow of Live Migration as viewed from an SSD will be discussed. Concerns for Live Migration state machine transitions, Virtual Memory (VM) addresses, log entry timings, and other implementation nuances will be highlighted. Attendees will obtain an understanding of both Source and Target SSD expected behaviors for Live Migration. In combination with the NVMe spec, attendees will be better prepared to implement an industry-compliant Live Migration feature for SSDs.
Host Workloads Achieving WAF==1 in an FDP SSD
Flexible Data Placement (FDP) is a new NVM Express® (NVMe) feature that advertises the ability to achieve Write Amplification Factor (WAF) of 1. This presentation will describe what a WAF of 1 means for an SSD. Several example workloads achieving a WAF of 1 will be discussed. Additionally, some Hosts have an increased ability to restrict either the deallocate behavior or the write behavior of their various workloads. For this reason, a review of different Host side rule implementations will be discussed. Illustrated NAND activity will be described enabling an attendee to extrapolate to other workloads. From simple circular FIFOs to large region deallocations to probabilistic overwrites, this presentation will cover many FDP use-cases with recommended write and deallocate guidelines for Hosts.
SSD Architecture Challenges with DRAM
Today’s SSDs are reaching extreme capacities with some coming close to petabytes of storage capacity available to Hosts. However, the SSDs are commonly using embedded computing resources and embedded DRAM controllers to provide access to this massive quantity of storage. Some of the largest drives are leveraging an increased Indirection Unit (IU) size to extend the embedded resources of the drive.
This presentation will define an IU, and it will also explain how the embedded environment with IUs creates the rule of thumb for 1:1000 DRAM to NAND ratio. We’ll correct this rule of thumb together, and we will explore its limitations in the embedded environment. The presentation will continue to review some of the primary architectural options available to extend the limits of these embedded SSD environments. For example, an SSD might be split into several sub-domains. Alternatively, some DRAM selections and interaction models might be utilized. By the end of the presentation, attendees will know everything they need to start their career as an SSD architect for DRAM interactions. Most importantly attendees will understand why some changes are coming for these extreme capacity SSDs and some suggested SW changes to facilitate large IU drives in their storage stack.
Nuances in FDP Implementation
With Flexible Data Placement (FDP) from NVM Express® (NVMe) finalized and increasing in ecosystem momentum, it has become clear that implementation choices are becoming a real differentiator among FDP drive configurations. Some customers leverage years of Multi-Streams deployment to migrate onto large RU sizes within a single RG. Some customers may be eager to mirror their experience with Open Channel SSDs by requesting small RGs and RU sizes. Yet another customer base might be examining FDP from a history of working with high Zone counts translating into large RUH counts. This presentation will provide customers with some high level guidance and background while engaging with SSD vendors. By understanding the drive impacts of such FDP configuration choices, customers and vendors can arrive at the best system solution for varying use-cases.
From Standards to Practice: Implementing Effective QoS Control in NVMe SSDs
With promises to unlock new levels of shared performance and utilization efficiency in solid-state drives (SSDs), NVM Express® is developing Technical Proposal (TP), TP4176 - Quality of Service for PCIe Bandwidth and IOPS for a Controller. Defining a standard for QoS requires a deep understanding of its complexities as applied to an SSD. This presentation will delve into the potential QoS control modes, key parameters, and simplified control mechanisms, providing clarity on how to optimize SSD performance for emerging standards. Through varied deployment examples and usage scenarios, we will discuss strategies for setting intelligent QoS parameters on the host side, exploring where an SSD is expected to meet customer requirements and where hosts may need to manage expectations. Our goal is to spark a conversation for influencing discussions at NVM Express towards achieving consistent QoS across SSD vendors to provide the best products to our customer base.