FMS: Kalray Supporting NVMe/TCP to Ease and Accelerate Data Center Storage Disaggregation

Kalray Corporation has leveraged the capability of its MPPA (Massively Parallel Processor Array) processor and its optimized fast-path software to develop a NVMe/TCP profile for its Target Controller (KTC) solution.

NVMe/TCP brings the opportunity to disaggregate storage from the compute servers in infrastructures using regular and ubiquitous TCP protocol, re-using existing NIC)and switches for deployment and optimized cost.

The company’s PCIe cards can be configured to support NVMe-over Fabric (NVMe-oF) either over RDMA (RDMA over Converged Ethernet or RoCE) or over TCP protocols. This dual-persona capability brings the flexibility required in evolving data centers, minimizing investments while maximizing the return and lifetime of the NVMe-oF storage disaggregated infrastructure.

Integrators and users can therefore repurpose their JBOF (Just a Bunch of Flash) systems.

Integration into Wistron’s Lymma JBOF
Wistron Corporation (Taiwan), one of suppliers of information and communication products, selected this solution to be integrated into a version of its Lymma JBOF and give data center operators and storage appliance makers rapid access to a complete product.

The company has been an early supporter of the NVMe-oF standard and a first company to receive the NVMe-oF certification for a complete solution from the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory.

“NVMe/TCP is opening the door for a democratization of the storage disaggregation“, says Olivier Lauvray – EVP and GM, data center business unit, Kalray. “Our 10/40Gb/s solution allows for mature data centers to expand the lifetime and value of their assets without a high investment, while our 25/100Gb/s solution is aiming at new data center infrastructure deployments“.

KTC, enabling cost-effective storage disaggregation
KTC packaged solution is enabling JBOF or JBOD (Just-a-Bunch-of-Disks) integrators to develop and deploy solutions based on NVMe-oF. It consists of a company’s PCIe card using a single MPPA processor that integrates all the software required to support a JBOF/JBOD NVMe-oF target controller functionality. There is no need for an additional costly and power-hungry processor or additional FPGA. With a MPPA power consumption below 20W, the resulting storage solutions are dense and cost-effective.

The company is taking advantage of the computing capability, architecture flexibility and standard programmability of its MPPA processor, to develop and enable system solutions with low TCO for customers. The multi-standard KTC product is aan example of how the firm’s technology can enable a paradigm shift in the data center industry.

Flexibility, performance and low latency
The first version of this multi-standard solution is available on a 40Gb PCIe-based KTC card from the company, achieving 2.5  million IO/s, and several cards are integrated into a version of the Lymma JBOF from Wistron, resulting in a dense solution. Further deployment of KTC is planned onto the 100Gb/s PCIe Cards from the firm and within other JBOF chassis, targeting up to nine  million IO/s per card.

Demonstration will be shown at the Flash Memory Summit.

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