NVMe at FMS and IDF – and what’s next

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August has been an action-packed month for the NVM Express team, with active presences at both the Flash Memory Summit, August 11-13, and the Intel Developer Forum, August 18-20. We had a lot of great conversations – thanks to all those who stopped by to see us.  And thanks also to the many members whose long hours and focused efforts made our participation possible!

At the Flash Memory Summit in Santa Clara, California, 15 NVM Express, Inc. members presented on 10 different topics, while at our booth, four members gave live demonstrations of NVMe products. Topics discussed included Security and the Trusted Computing Group Storage Specifications, NVMe over Fabrics, NVMe in Mobile Segments, Management Interface, and the NVMe Ecosystem.

  • The past, present, and future of NVMe were presented, to show the progress that has been made with NVMe over the past seven years and the amazing things that are in store for the future.
  • Real world benefits were showcased through a variety of data center and client use cases. For example, a proof point for Microsoft SQL for big data analytics with NVMe acceleration, SAS analytics for business, and the possibility of dual 4k video editing.
  • Oracle presented an end-user case study to show the evolution of their SSDs to NVMe and provided a comparison that showed a 2x increase in single block reads and 6x Log File Synch Waits over their old system.

These presentations showed how NVMe has left the proverbial drawing board and is now paving the way for future high-stakes use cases.

NVMe over Fabrics (an effort under development) was highlighted at the event, with several presentations that covered real-world use cases and applications, performance and emerging NVM application synergies. In addition to a Fabrics overview, the presentations touched on improved latency, advantages for sharing, and improved read-and-write performance.

A discussion about the NVMe ecosystem provided insights about how to begin utilizing all that NVMe has to offer through drivers, management, security, and components, discussing scalable architecture, and the importance of interoperability to system success. Strengths of the NVMe driver ecosystem, with drivers available on Windows, Linux, Soaris, VM ware, and UEFI, and a growing list of form factor availability were also highlighted. Closing remarks reiterated the advancements and opportunities that NVMe is bringing to the storage world.

Intel Developer Forum
FMS did a good job building excitement for IDF in San Francisco, the very next week. Our presence there included hands-on NVMe experiences and a plethora of informative events. NVM Express had a lively space in the event’s Technology Community that highlighted product availability and the breadth of industry investment driving our transformative technology, with demonstrations by 16 companies. In addition, the IDF conference agenda included several sessions dedicated to NVMe, both speaker-led presentations and “Tech Chats.”

What’s Next
The Annual NVM Express, Inc. Member Meeting is our next big event, and we look forward to sharing more about all the exciting things we have going on with NVMe. Save the date – it’s scheduled for March 21-22, 2016 in Santa Clara, California! If your company isn’t already a member, join us at http://nvmexpress.org/join-nvme/.