Interview: The future for NVMe technology, and how UNH-IOL advances its progressRecent product announcements prove the NVMe (NVM Express) revolution is underway and is expected to continue with a wave of new products hitting the market in the coming months. Through its NVMe Testing Consortium, the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) gives subsystem vendors, silicon vendors, IP companies and enterprise storage companies an early, competitive advantage to test and prepare their NVMe products for market prior to the widespread introduction of NVMe SSDs.We spoke to David Woolf, UNH-IOL NVMe Testing Consortium Lead, about the industry drivers behind this expected wave of products, specifically in the enterprise market, and how the lab responds to the industrys demands with enhancements to its NVMe testing program and upcoming NVMe plugfests.TechRadar Pro: Could you describe the UNH-IOLs experience in testing NVMe technology?David Woolf: The UNH-IOL is a non-profit test lab operating since 1988 and specialising in testing services for data, telecom and storage networking technologies. We provide broad-based flexible testing to services to cost-effectively speed go-to-market time for products.While we have quite the history in network, routing protocols, and storage, NVMe is one of our more recent efforts. We began engagement with the NVM Express Organisation in mid-2012, when we partnered to create the NVMe Testing Consortium, and have been acting as the organisations testing arm ever since.Were continuing to raise the bar on NVMe compliance and interoperability, adding more test cases that mimic real-world use cases end customers expect to use these products in, such as hot plug, booting, and dual port redundancy.TRP: What are the key benefits of membership in the UNH-IOLs NVMe Testing Consortium and how much does membership cost?DW: Members of the UNH-IOLs NVMe Testing Consortium have direct access to state-of-the-art test equipment, which eliminates the expense required to set up and operate their own multivendor environments.An annual membership fee of $19,000 (around £12,000, AU$21,800) includes participation in our NVMe Plugfests; access to our key conformance test tools, UNH-IOL INTERACT PC Edition and Teledyne-LeCroy Edition; access to the UNH-IOL NVMe Interoperability test bed; and support for UNH-IOL Administration of the open source tNVMe tool.The services also include optional hot-plug and boot tests aimed at improving the specification and preparing for future functionality. These services will benefit any company developing an NVMe product: SSD companies, controller companies, OEMs, and IP companies. (Companies interested in joining the UNH-IOL Testing Consortium should head over here).TRP: What is the ultimate goal of NVMe plugfests, and what do they prove?DW: An NVMe plugfest is an opportunity to roll out new test requirements, and the earliest opportunity for companies aiming to add products to the NVMe Integrators List to test said products against the latest requirements. At the most recent NVMe plugfest, we saw a good mix of subsystem vendors, silicon vendors, IP companies and enterprise storage companies in attendance, and the plugfest ultimately led to the certification of eight devices.TRP: What is the UNH-IOL NVMe Integrators List? How is it perceived from an NVMe/Storage OEM (original equipment manufacturer) point of view?DW: The NVMe Integrators List is maintained by the UNH-IOL and serves as the industrys resource on products that have been proven to be interoperable and in conformance with the NVMe specification and industry-accepted test practices.Products which have recently achieved placement on the Integrators List include: SSDs from Huawei, Intel and Samsung Semiconductor; an SSD controller from PMC Sierra; SSD IPs (intellectual property solutions) from Mobiveil; and systems from Dell. For some OEMs, the Integrators List placement has become a prerequisite of validation. Most OEMs do their own internal validation – they view this as one of their value-adds and, in some cases, a competitive advantage. However, other OEMs now require placement on the UNH-IOL NVMe Integrators List as a stipulation in their procurement agreements.The general view is that being on this list (and performing the testing associated with it) has become a necessity for earning validation by major OEMs. Large OEMs will have their own, specific performance, endurance, or usability requirements, and they want the NVMe Integrators List testing to take care of the basic interoperability and conformance requirements. If a product cant pass the NVMe Integrators List tests, then it isnt ready for further validation by the OEMs.TRP: What real-world business challenges are solved by NVMe technology?DW: Consolidation. NVMe is going to further enable the low-latency, all flash data centre that the industry has been buzzing about. Today, many data centres are replete with hard drives – not because of their capacities, but because they need so many drives to fill the pipe (i.e. a need for many drives all delivering a little bit of data, in order to deliver data fast enough).The throughput enabled by an SSD with a controller that is streamlined for SSD operation (which, essentially, is what NVMe is) will allow data centres to literally do more with less. There was a great slide during Dells keynote at the Flash Memory Summit back in August that illustrates this. Today, a Half-Petabyte of storage is handled by 7 2U servers. As the move to all flash servers is accompanied by increases in SSD capacity and decreases in flash costs, that Half-Petabyte served by 7 servers becomes a full petabyte served by a single server. Cooling, power, and maintenance costs are slashed.TRP: In your opinion, what does the evolution of NVMe testing indicate for the future of data storage technology?DW: Were going to see NVMe really start to make an impact in the enterprise data centre. End users are expecting to soon be able to use NVMe drives the way theyre accustomed to using SAS and Fibre Channel drives. Thats driving our additions and modifications to the UNH-IOL NVMe test program.We want the test program to adequately prepare products for deployment, so were actively investigating the additions of hot plug, NVMe boot, dual port redundancy and reservations to our suite of testing services because these are necessary enterprise features.TRP: What other efforts or collaborations does the lab undertake to advance NVMe technology?DW: In addition to working closely with companies on ensuring product interoperability, the UNH-IOL contributes extensively to technology standards development through participation in a variety of standards bodies and forums.For example and in the case of NVMe, we have a strong partnership with the NVM Express Organisation, which is a great forum for talking to and collaborating with a wide variety of companies: memory companies, controller companies, OEMs, OS vendors, IP companies, and test tool vendors.Getting ideas from these participants not only allows us to build a program that is relevant and progressive, but also helps us to continue the validation of NVMe as a robust and interoperable solution for enterprise and data centre application performance challenges.Ongoing collaborations not only develop new standards, but provide insights and perspectives to guide future growth opportunities for the technology, for the lab and its member companies, and for the industry at large.By Desire Athow Recent product announcements prove the NVMe (NVM Express) revolution is underway and is expected to continue with a wave of new products hitting the market in the coming months. Through its NVMe Testing Consortium, the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) gives subsystem vendors, silicon vendors, IP companies and enterprise storage companies an early, competitive advantage to test and prepare their NVMe products for market prior to the widespread introduction of NVMe SSDs.We spoke to David Woolf, UNH-IOL NVMe Testing Consortium Lead, about the industry drivers behind this expected wave of products, specifically in the enterprise market, and how the lab responds to the industrys demands with enhancements to its NVMe testing program and upcoming NVMe plugfests.TechRadar Pro: Could you describe the UNH-IOLs experience in testing NVMe technology?David Woolf: The UNH-IOL is a non-profit test lab operating since 1988 and specialising in testing services for data, telecom and storage networking technologies. We provide broad-based flexible testing to services to cost-effectively speed go-to-market time for products.While we have quite the history in network, routing protocols, and storage, NVMe is one of our more recent efforts. We began engagement with the NVM Express Organisation in mid-2012, when we partnered to create the NVMe Testing Consortium, and have been acting as the organisations testing arm ever since.Were continuing to raise the bar on NVMe compliance and interoperability, adding more test cases that mimic real-world use cases end customers expect to use these products in, such as hot plug, booting, and dual port redundancy.TRP: What are the key benefits of membership in the UNH-IOLs NVMe Testing Consortium and how much does membership cost?DW: Members of the UNH-IOLs NVMe Testing Consortium have direct access to state-of-the-art test equipment, which eliminates the expense required to set up and operate their own multivendor environments.An annual membership fee of $19,000 (around £12,000, AU$21,800) includes participation in our NVMe Plugfests; access to our key conformance test tools, UNH-IOL INTERACT PC Edition and Teledyne-LeCroy Edition; access to the UNH-IOL NVMe Interoperability test bed; and support for UNH-IOL Administration of the open source tNVMe tool.The services also include optional hot-plug and boot tests aimed at improving the specification and preparing for future functionality. These services will benefit any company developing an NVMe product: SSD companies, controller companies, OEMs, and IP companies. (Companies interested in joining the UNH-IOL Testing Consortium should head over here).TRP: What is the ultimate goal of NVMe plugfests, and what do they prove?DW: An NVMe plugfest is an opportunity to roll out new test requirements, and the earliest opportunity for companies aiming to add products to the NVMe Integrators List to test said products against the latest requirements. At the most recent NVMe plugfest, we saw a good mix of subsystem vendors, silicon vendors, IP companies and enterprise storage companies in attendance, and the plugfest ultimately led to the certification of eight devices.TRP: What is the UNH-IOL NVMe Integrators List? How is it perceived from an NVMe/Storage OEM (original equipment manufacturer) point of view?DW: The NVMe Integrators List is maintained by the UNH-IOL and serves as the industrys resource on products that have been proven to be interoperable and in conformance with the NVMe specification and industry-accepted test practices.Products which have recently achieved placement on the Integrators List include: SSDs from Huawei, Intel and Samsung Semiconductor; an SSD controller from PMC Sierra; SSD IPs (intellectual property solutions) from Mobiveil; and systems from Dell. For some OEMs, the Integrators List placement has become a prerequisite of validation. Most OEMs do their own internal validation – they view this as one of their value-adds and, in some cases, a competitive advantage. However, other OEMs now require placement on the UNH-IOL NVMe Integrators List as a stipulation in their procurement agreements.The general view is that being on this list (and performing the testing associated with it) has become a necessity for earning validation by major OEMs. Large OEMs will have their own, specific performance, endurance, or usability requirements, and they want the NVMe Integrators List testing to take care of the basic interoperability and conformance requirements. If a product cant pass the NVMe Integrators List tests, then it isnt ready for further validation by the OEMs.TRP: What real-world business challenges are solved by NVMe technology?DW: Consolidation. NVMe is going to further enable the low-latency, all flash data centre that the industry has been buzzing about. Today, many data centres are replete with hard drives – not because of their capacities, but because they need so many drives to fill the pipe (i.e. a need for many drives all delivering a little bit of data, in order to deliver data fast enough).The throughput enabled by an SSD with a controller that is streamlined for SSD operation (which, essentially, is what NVMe is) will allow data centres to literally do more with less. There was a great slide during Dells keynote at the Flash Memory Summit back in August that illustrates this. Today, a Half-Petabyte of storage is handled by 7 2U servers. As the move to all flash servers is accompanied by increases in SSD capacity and decreases in flash costs, that Half-Petabyte served by 7 servers becomes a full petabyte served by a single server. Cooling, power, and maintenance costs are slashed.TRP: In your opinion, what does the evolution of NVMe testing indicate for the future of data storage technology?DW: Were going to see NVMe really start to make an impact in the enterprise data centre. End users are expecting to soon be able to use NVMe drives the way theyre accustomed to using SAS and Fibre Channel drives. Thats driving our additions and modifications to the UNH-IOL NVMe test program.We want the test program to adequately prepare products for deployment, so were actively investigating the additions of hot plug, NVMe boot, dual port redundancy and reservations to our suite of testing services because these are necessary enterprise features.TRP: What other efforts or collaborations does the lab undertake to advance NVMe technology?DW: In addition to working closely with companies on ensuring product interoperability, the UNH-IOL contributes extensively to technology standards development through participation in a variety of standards bodies and forums.For example and in the case of NVMe, we have a strong partnership with the NVM Express Organisation, which is a great forum for talking to and collaborating with a wide variety of companies: memory companies, controller companies, OEMs, OS vendors, IP companies, and test tool vendors.Getting ideas from these participants not only allows us to build a program that is relevant and progressive, but also helps us to continue the validation of NVMe as a robust and interoperable solution for enterprise and data centre application performance challenges.Ongoing collaborations not only develop new standards, but provide insights and perspectives to guide future growth opportunities for the technology, for the lab and its member companies, and for the industry at large. ift.tt/1gB4pon
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 12:40:16 +0000
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