This summer, join SNIA as they evangelize members’ industry activity to advance the convergence of storage and memory. SNIA is participating in the first annual European In-Memory Computing Summit, June 20-21, 2017 at the Movenpick Hotel in Amsterdam.  SNIA Europe Vice-Chair and SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative (SSSI) Co-Chair Alex McDonald of NetApp keynotes a session on SNIA and Persistent Memory, highlighting SNIA work on an NVM programming model and persistent memory solutions available today and SNIA is a sponsor in the exhibit hall. Alex’s presentation and SNIA’s booth presence is just one of SNIAs many outreach and education activities on persistent memory taking place this summer. Rob Peglar, SNIA Board of Directors member, was a highlight of Storage Field Day earlier this month, engaging with tech’s leading bloggers on persistent memory advances.  Watch the day’s video on-demand. SNIA’s NVDIMM Special Interest Group exhibited at the JEDEC Server Forum, presenting an application demonstration using multiple member companies’ JEDEC-compliant NVDIMM-Ns.   Eden Kim, chair of SNIA’s Solid State Storage Technical Work Group, speaks later this week at the China Flash Summit on SNIA’s work in persistent memory and solid state storage performance. In August, SNIA will have a major presence at Flash Memory Summit, with a dedicated persistent memory conference track, an NVDIMM Forum, and a persistent memory demonstration area.  Stay tuned for all the details coming in July. Finally, SNIA will continue an interest in containers and persistent memory with a SNIA BrightTalk webcast July 27 at 10:00 am PT/1:00 pm ET. Registration is now open to join SNIA experts Arthur Sainio, SNIA NVDIMM SIG Co-Chair, Chad Thibodeau, SNIA Cloud Storage member, and Alex McDonald, Co-Chair of SNIA Solid State Storage and SNIA Cloud Storage Initiatives to find out what customers, storage developers, and the industry want to see to fully unlock the potential of persistent memory in a container environment.

Following enthusiastic response to their first Storage Field Day in March, SNIA is returning to the lineup on June 15, 2017. Storage Field Day events bring together innovative IT organizations and independent thought leaders to share information and opinions in a presentation format that is lively – and live streamed. SNIA will present Storage Field Day #13 at their Technology Center in Colorado Springs, CO where organizer Stephen Foskett and a dozen delegates will tour the facility and interact with SNIA members on persistent memory and scalable storage management - two hot storage topics that consumers and the industry want to learn more about. Specifically, SNIA experts will discuss:

• How the convergence of storage and memory will revolutionize computer architecture
• How SNIA is accelerating a system for unified, scalable server and storage management.

In SNIA’s 90 minute session, beginning at 12 pm Pacific/1:00 pm Mountain/ 3:00 pm Eastern, Rob Peglar, senior vice president and CTO at Symbolic IO and a SNIA Board member, will first discuss how SNIA, its technical work, and its outreach initiatives are key contributors to an ecosystem driving system memory and storage into a single, unified “persistent memory” entity. Rob will describe activities of the SNIA Non Volatile Memory Technical Work Group, which is delivering specifications describing the behavior of a common set of software interfaces that provide access to non volatile memory, and the NVDIMM Special Interest Group, which accelerates awareness and adoption of Non Volatile Dual In-line (NVDIMM) memory modules in the marketplace. Richelle Ahlvers, principal storage management architect at Broadcom Limited and co-chair of the SNIA Scalable Storage Management Technical Work Group, will discuss how the customer-centric SNIA Swordfish^TM interface extends the DMTF’s Redfish specification (API) to handle the management of storage equipment and storage services found in modern data centers. By extending the DMTF Redfish API protocol and schema, SNIA Swordfish helps provide a unified approach for the management of storage equipment, data services, and servers in converged, hyper-converged, hyperscale and cloud infrastructure environments. The same easy-to-use RESTful interface is used, along with JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) and the Open Data Protocol (OData), making it easier for IT administrators to integrate scalable solutions into their data centers. SNIA invites you and your colleagues to watch the live stream of Storage Field Day 13 on June 15th at 1:00 pm MT.  Click here to access the live viewing portal.  If your plans don’t permit you to watch live, check out the SNIAVideo channel for on-demand viewing of all SNIA’s presentations at Storage Field Day, and other technology discussions or follow the conversation on Twitter using #SFD13.

New solid state storage technologies are forcing the industry to refine distinctions between networks and other types of system interconnects.   The question on everyone's mind is: when is it beneficial to use networks to access solid state storage, particularly persistent memory? It's not quite as simple as a "yes/no" answer. The answer to this question involves application, interconnect, memory technology and scalability factors that can be analyzed in the context of a latency budget. On April 19^th, Doug Voigt, Chair SNIA NVM Programming Model Technical Work Group, returns for a live SNIA Ethernet Storage Forum webcast, "Architectural Principles for Networked Solid State Storage Access - Part 2" where we will explore latency budgets for various types of solid state storage access.  These can be used to determine which combinations of interconnects, technologies and scales are compatible with Load/Store instruction access and which are better suited to IO completion techniques such as polling or blocking. In this webcast you'll learn:

• Why latency is important in accessing solid state storage
• How to determine the appropriate use of networking in the context of a latency budget
• Do's and don'ts for Load/Store access

This is a technical seminar built upon part 1 of this series. If you missed it, you can view it on demand at your convenience. It will give you a solid foundation on this topic, outlining key architectural principles that allow us to think about the application of  networked  solid state technologies more systematically. I hope you will register today for the April 19^th event. Doug and I will be on hand to answer questions on the spot. Update: If you missed the live event, it's now available  on-demand. You can also  download the webcast slides.

SNIA will be out and about in February in San Francisco and Santa Clara, CA, focused on their security, container, and file storage activities. February 14-17 2017, join SNIA in San Francisco at the RSA Conference in the OASIS Interop: KMIP & PKCS11 booth S2115. OASIS and SNIA member companies will be demonstrating OASIS Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP) through live interoperability across all participants. SNIA representatives will be on hand in the booth to answer questions about the Storage Security Industry Forum KMIP Conformance Test Program, which enables organizations with KMIP implementations to validate the protocol conformance of those products and meet market requirements for secure, plug-and-play storage solutions. And Eric Hibbard, Chair of the SNIA Security Technical Work Group and CTO Security and Privacy, HDS Corporation, will participate in the “Can I Get a Witness? Technical Witness Bootcamp” session on February 17. The following week, February 21-23, join SNIA at Container World in Santa Clara CA. Enabling access to memory is an important concern to container designers, and Arthur Sainio, SNIA NVDIMM Special Interest Group Co-Chair from SMART Modular, will speak on Boosting Performance of Data Intensive Applications via Persistent Memory. Integrating containers into legacy solutions will be a focus of a panel where Mark Carlson, SNIA Technical Council Co-Chair from Toshiba, will speak on Container Adoption Paths into Legacy Infrastructure. SNIA experts will be joined by other leaders in the container ecosystem like Docker, Twitter, ADP, Google, and Expedia . The SNIA booth will feature cloud infrastructure and storage discussions and a demonstration of a multi-vendor persistent memory solution featuring NVDIMM!  (P.S. – Are you new to containers? Get a head start on conference discussions by checking out a December 2016 SNIA blog on Containers, Docker, and Storage.)   Closing out February, find SNIA at their booth at USENIX FAST from February 27-March 2 in Santa Clara, CA, where you can engage with SNIA Technical Council leaders on the latest activities in file and storage technologies. We look forward to seeing you at one (or more) of these events!  

The backbone of SNIA is its passionate and dedicated volunteers – over 3,500 from 160 companies involved in storage and technology.  At the end of each year, SNIA members vote anonymously to recognize both individuals and groups who have made significant contributions over that year to advancing SNIA’s mission to lead the storage industry worldwide in developing and promoting vendor-neutral architectures, standards, and educational services that facilitate the efficient management, movement, and security of information. At the January 2017 Annual Members Symposium, SNIA was pleased to honor the following volunteer members and groups: Individual Awards Jim Pappas from Intel Corporation received the Exceptional Leadership Award for his outstanding leadership advancing the cause of persistent memory within SNIA leading to an impact both on the industry and the Association.  The recent 5^th annual SNIA Persistent Memory Summit, chaired by Pappas, drew over 500 attendees both live and online, and featured sessions demonstrating the deliverance of convergence of storage and memory.   Patrick Boyd from Dell Corporation received the Unsung Hero Award for working tirelessly under the radar, expecting no accolades for his major contributions to the SNIA Scalable Storage Management Technical Work Group.   Doug Voigt from Hewlett Packard Enterprise received the Volunteer of the Year Award for his consistent contributions during 2016 furthering the work of the SNIA Non-Volatile Memory Programming Technical Work Group.   Richelle Ahlvers from Broadcom Limited received the New Contributor of the Year Award for her leadership of a new SNIA program within the SNIA Scalable Storage Management Technical Work Group and contributions to driving a new SNIA Swordfish v.1.0 specification in nine months.   Group Awards   The SNIA Storage Management Initiative received the Outstanding Achievement of a SNIA Technology Community Award for advancing for SNIA the cause of storage management with its achievements leading to an impact on the industry.   SNIA Japan received the Significant Contribution(s) by a Committee or Regional Affiliate Award for its work to advance data storage technology in the industry. The SFF Task Force received the Significant Impact by a Previously Existing Technical Work Group (TWG) or Task Force Award for its member work and efforts to establish the SNIA SFF Technology Affiliate (TA) Technical Work Group to carry forth the longstanding SFF Committee work efforts that has operated since 1990 until mid-2016. The SNIA Scalable Storage Management Technical Work Group received the New SNIA Group of the Year Award for its innovative, groundbreaking work in providing a unified approach for the management of storage and servers in hyperscale and cloud infrastructure environments, making it easier for IT administrators to integrate scalable solutions into their data centers.  

It's an easy "Yes" vote for this great webcast from the SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative on the Magic and Mystery of In-Memory Apps! Join us on Election Day - November 8 - at 1:00 pm ET/10:00 am PT to learn about today's market and the disruptions that happen when combining big-data (Petabytes) with in-memory/real-time requirements.  You'll understand the interactions with Hadoop/Spark, Tachyon, SAP HANA, NoSQL, and the related infrastructure of DRAM, NAND, 3DXpoint, NV-DIMMs, and high-speed networking and learn what happens to infrastructure design and operations when "tiered-memory" replaces "tiered storage". Presenter Shaun Walsh of G2M Communications is an expert in memory technology - and a great speaker! He'll share with you what you need to know about evaluating, planning, and implementing in-memory computing applications, and give you the framework to evaluation and plan for your adoption of in-memory computing. Register at: https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/663/230103

SNIA and the Solid State Storage Initiative (SSSI) invite you to join them at Flash Memory Summit 2016, August 8-11 at the Santa Clara Convention Center. SNIA members and colleagues receive $100 off any conference package using the code "SNIA16" by August 4 when registering for Flash Memory Summit at http://www.flashmemorysummit.com On Monday, August 8, from 1:00pm – 5:00pm, a SNIA Education Afternoon will be open to the public in SCCC Room 203/204, where attendees can learn about multiple storage-related topics with five SNIA Tutorials on flash storage, combined service infrastructures, VDBench, stored-data encryption, and Non-Volatile DIMM (NVDIMM) integration from SNIA member speakers. Following the Education Afternoon, the SSSI will host a reception and networking event in SCCC Room 203/204 from 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm with SSSI leadership providing perspectives on the persistent memory and SSD markets, SSD performance, NVDIMM, SSD data recovery/erase, and interface technology. Attendees will also be entered into a drawing to win solid state drives. SNIA and SSSI members will also be featured during the conference in the following sessions:

• Persistent Memory (Preconference Session C) NVDIMM presentation by Arthur Sainio, SNIA NVDIMM SIG Co-Chair (SMART Modular) Monday, August 8, 8:30am- 12:00 noon 
• Data Recovery of SSDs (Session 102-A) SIG activity discussion by Scott Holewinski, SSSI Data Recovery/Erase SIG Chair (Gillware) Tuesday, August 9, 9:45 am - 10:50 am
• Persistent Memory – Beyond Flash sponsored by the SNIA SSSI (Forum R-21) Chairperson: Jim Pappas, SNIA Board of Directors Vice-Chair/SSSI Co-Chair (Intel); papers presented by SNIA members Rob Peglar (Symbolic IO), Rob Davis (Mellanox), Ken Gibson (Intel), Doug Voigt (HP), Neal Christensen (Microsoft) Wednesday, August 10, 8:30 am - 11:00 am
• NVDIMM Panel, organized by the SNIA NVDIMM SIG (Session 301-B) Chairperson: Jeff Chang SNIA NVDIMM SIG Co-Chair (AgigA Tech); papers presented by SNIA members Alex Fuqa (HP), Neal Christensen (Microsoft) Thursday, August 11, 8:30am - 9:45am

Finally, don't miss the SNIA SSSI in Expo booth #820 in Hall B and in the Solutions Showcase in Hall C on the FMS Exhibit Floor. Attendees can review a series of updated performance statistics on NVDIMM and SSD, see live NVDIMM demonstrations, access SSD data recovery/erase education, and preview a new white paper discussing erasure with regard to SSDs. SNIA representatives will also be present to discuss other SNIA programs such as certification, conformance testing, membership, and conferences.

I'll be speaking at SNIA's SDC Pre-Conference this Sunday, Sept 20, about the new Intel-Micron 3D XPoint memory.  I was surprised to find that my talk won't be unique.  There are about 15 papers at this conference that will be discussing NVM, or persistent memory. What's all this fuss about? Part of it has to do with the introduction by Micron & Intel of their 3D XPoint (pronounced "Crosspoint") memory.  This new product will bring nonvolatility, or persistence, to main memory, and that's big! Intel itself will present a total of seven papers to tell us all how they envision this technology being used in computing applications.  Seven other companies, in addition to Objective Analysis (my company) will also discuss this hot new topic. SNIA is really on top of this new trend.  This organization has been developing standards for nonvolatile memory for the past couple of years, and has published an NVM Programming Model to help software developers produce code that will communicate with nonvolatile memory no matter who supplies it.  Prior to SNIA's intervention the market was wildly inconsistent, and all suppliers' NVDIMMs differed slightly from one another, with no promise that this would become any better once new memory technologies started to make their way onto memory modules. Now that Intel and Micron will be producing their 3D XPoint memory, and will be supplying it on industry-standard DDR4 DIMMs, it's good to know that there will be a standard protocol to communicate with it.  This will facilitate the development of standard software to harness all that nonvolatile memory has to offer. As for me, I will be sharing information from my company's new report on the Micron-Intel 3D XPoint memory.  This is new, and it's exciting.  Will it succeed?  I'll discuss that with you there.