It's been a very busy week, so I'm afraid this SST is going to be somewhat shorter than normal. Computational storage, an incredibly great value for storage conference ($27!), and some updates in new storage tech.
As always, links were live at time of publication.
- Storage Media and Technology
- Storage Companies in the News
- Industry Associations and Standards
- Webinars, Blogs, and Conferences
- Bonus Round
Storage Media and Technology
I don't really think this is a "surprise", but it is an important piece of the puzzle. Robin Harris has a decent article on storage latency vs. bandwidth, and why latency is more important.
As if that wasn't enough, ExtremeTech chimes in with Why Latency Impacts SSD Performance More Than Bandwidth Does.
Is Tape the new HDD? IEEE seems to think so.
Tri-Mode storage adapters are pretty cool. I remember when this was being worked on in SNIA, and it's good to see them come out with a bang. NVMe, SAS, and SATA on the same interface.
Memory capacity and speeds are increasing, capabilities are expanding, and the use cases seem infinite at this point. But think about the poor memory controller, and the increased complexity that it takes to make all of that work.
A quick description of the eMMC Controller Protocol. Because, sure. Why not?
A pretty good article about the tradeoffs of putting computational storage closer to the edge, especially with power and architecture considerations.
Storage Companies in the News
I remember when Pure Storage outlined its "Evergreen", subscription-based program. At the time, it was a new way of procuring storage arrays in the Data Center, and it was a bit controversial about how well it would work. Recently, however, it appears that they have been somewhat successful with this, with a milestone of 7,000 non-disruptive controller upgrades since they started the program.
Computational Storage is on the rise in the marketplace, and is becoming a more and more frequent topic in the world of hyperscalers and data centers. Pliops just made their splash with their own monster CS device.
Industry Associations and Standards
EETimes has an article on the NVMe 2.0 refactored specification.
Webinars, Blogs, and Conferences
Lots of webinars, blogs, and conferences to talk about this time around.
First, SDC India takes place next week, from August 5-6 (IST). The cost is only about $27 ($2000 Rupees), and has some really good bleeding edge conversations. It's an incredible value for the money and registration gets you access to both the live and the recorded sessions if you can't attend because of the time zone.
Also from SNIA, some webinars to note:
From Fibre Channel:
“Inside a Modern Fibre Channel Architecture.” Presenters are Patty Driever, Craig Carlson, Dave Peterson with David Rodgers as moderator. Here is a link to the blog that introduces both of the webcasts https://fibrechannel.org/inside-a-modern-fibre-channel-architecture/ “Inside a Modern Fibre Channel Architecture” Part 1 – September 15, 2021“Inside a Modern Fibre Channel Architecture” Part 2 – October 27, 2021
A few new blogs that are worth taking a look at:
What is eBPF, and Why Does it Matter for Computational Storage? Recently, a question came up in the SNIA Computational Storage Special Interest Group on new developments in a technology called eBPF and how they might relate to computational storage. To learn more, SNIA on Storage sat down with Eli Tiomkin, SNIA CS SIG Chair with NGD Systems; Matias Bjørling of Western Digital; Jim Harris of Intel; Dave Landsman of Western Digital; and Oscar Pinto of Samsung.
Q&A: Security of Data on NVMe-oF. Ensuring the security of data on NVMe over Fabrics was the topic of our SNIA Networking Storage Forum (NSF) webcast “Security of Data on NVMe over Fabrics, the Armored Truck Way.” During the webcast our experts outlined industry trends, potential threats, security best practices and much more. The live audience asked several interesting questions and here are answers to them.
Bonus Round
And finally, say this ten times fast...
Special thanks to Diane Marsili for providing some of the text and links for blogs and webinars. 🙂