The applications using NVMe, SAS, SATA, USB based storage devices find a new use and one of them is mining for open source cryptocurrency such as Burst Coin. Using low power or solar power HDD’s, SSD and most importantly NVMe technology can improve turnaround latency and build blocks on a faster scale. Utilization of security protocols allows anonymization as well as protection of the users and vendors. Burst coin has an extensive developer’s community and can run on the cloud, has dApps, its own ATM and more.

This talks explains the exciting new features in the Linux NVMe driver and software target in the last two years, as well as the relevant block layer changes to support these features.

Zoned Namespaces is an exciting new interface in the NVMe specification. It expose a new storage interface between the host and SSD, in which the SSD exposes a set of sequential write only zones, that the SSD internally can align perfectly to its physical media characteristics. The new interface allows one to minimize SSD write amplification, improve throughput and latency, and extend the life of the SSD. However, to take advantage of it, one much have host support (file-systems and/or applications) that understands the interface, and can make efficient use of it.

One of the most common benchmarks in the storage industry is 4KiB random read I/O per second. Over the years, the industry first saw the publication of 1M I/Ops on a single box, then 1M I/Ops on a single thread (by SPDK). More recently, there have been publications outlining 10M I/Ops on a single box using high performance NVMe devices and more than 100 CPU cores. This talk will present a benchmark of SPDK performing more than 10 million random 4KiB read operations per second from a single thread to 20 NVMe devices, a large advance compared to the state of the art of the industry.

Customers of SSDs have very different requirements. While a single uniform space of non-volatile storage media may satisfy some, others require independent areas with performance isolation. Still others may require a small amount of low-latency storage and a much larger amount of higher-latency storage. To enable a single SSD type to be configured by the customer to satisfy their particular requirements, NVM express has defined a mechanism to configure non-volatile media in not just SSDs but also in storage arrays.

NVMe KV (Key-Value) is an industry-wide proposal for a new command structure that allows access to data on an NVMe SSD controller using a "key" rather than a block address. Developed within the NVM Express technical working group, this Key Value command set provides a "key" to store a corresponding "value" on non-volatile media, then retrieves that "value" from the media by specifying the corresponding "key." In addition to extensive work being undertaken by the NVM Express working group, the SNIA has completed an overarching KeyValue API released for a membership vote in January 2019.

Block devices, file-systems, and files have for decades served as the fundamental building blocks for the storage application developer.

Emerging NVMe based storage interfaces such as Open-Channel SSDs, Denali, and ZNS promise to deliver tighter latencies, reduced write amplification, and IO isolation. These promises are fulfilled, in part, by moving responsibilities from the device into host software.

Last year at SDC we reviewed the integration of crypto which made use of DPDK’s existing variety of drivers to usher in the capability. This year we are expanding our use of DPDK with the addition of a compression! This talk will outline the overall architecture of the compression module and explain in detail how we are managing the layout of the device and leveraging the Persistent Memory Development Kit to store metadata in super-fast persistent memory.

Since the first release of NVMe 1.0 in 2011, the NVMe family of specifications continue to expand to support current and future storage markets, increasing the amount of new features and functionality. With that natural, organic growth, however, comes additional complexity.

This talk will discuss configuring Zoned SSDs based on capacity, performance, and endurance. We will examine the challenges associated with strict write pointers and the tradeoffs associated with various solutions, along with ‘Idealized Flash’, and life cycle management of wear and QoS. We will explore minimizing system level modifications and overhead with log structured hosts and in disaggregated storage configurations. Will provide ‘Apples to Apples’ performance benchmarks contrasting FTL SSDs and Zoned SSDs with log structured hosts.