Six New SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative Projects

The Storage Network Industry Association’s Solid State Storage Initiative (SSSI), an effort formed to foster the growth and success of the market for solid state storage in both enterprise and client environments, showcased new technical and educational work at the SNW Conference, October 15-17, 2013, in Long Beach, CA.

“2013 has been a productive year for the SSSI. We have expanded our activities in the areas of PCIe SSD, SSD performance, workload I/O capture, and NVM programming, and have enhanced our educational offerings,” said Paul Wassenberg, SSSI chair from Marvell Technology Group Ltd. “SSSI showcased these activities and more at SNW Fall 2013.”

To better understand what users expect of SSDs, the SSSI kicked off the SSD Features Rating Project at SNW. A survey will target a broad spectrum of SSD users, asking them to rate the importance of various SSD features to better understand which attributes are most important in applications. Results will help SSD manufacturers to design products more suitable for these applications, and provide guidance to users looking for the best SSD for their application.

In recognition of the growing market for PCIe SSD products, the SSSI has released two new white papers written by SSSI experts: the first on PCIe SSD standards and markets; and the second on SSD performance. Also available is a FAQ on the SSSI Workload I/O Capture Program (WIOCP) and a guide to using the SNIA SSS Performance Test Specification highlighting the latest additions to the client and enterprise specifications, including the just released PTS Enterprise 1.1.

At their booth at SNW, SSSI showed the Workload I/O Capture Program (WIOCP), which utilizes the first such software designed to capture data that can be analyzed to gain insights into workload characteristics, key performance metrics, and guidance on improving SSD design.

SSSI experts were available to discuss the work of the NVM Programming Technical Work Group. Their programming models enable software to take advantage of NVM features, and include NVM-specific extensions to traditional SSS and a new programming model for emerging storage/memory hybrid hardware. A SNIA tutorial on the NVM Programming Model was presented by NVMP TWG Chair Paul von Behren, Intel Corp.

“The work of the SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative is critical in that it helps the marketplace to better understand SSD technology and take advantage of capabilities like NVM programming, enhancing performance, and matching SSDs to applications,” said Jim Handy, director, Objective Analysis. “With new products and solutions incorporating solid state entering the market in rapid numbers, having the most current knowledge is essential to evaluating, selecting, and using solid state storage in the organization, and to the rapid acceptance of the technology worldwide.”