Released Versions of DMTF Redfish and SNIA Swordfish Specs Include NVMe and NVMe-oF Spec Enhancements

The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), NVM Express and DMTF announced the released SNIA Swordfish storage management specification version 1.2.1 and the 2020.3 release of DMTF Redfish provide functionality to ensure NVMe and NVMe-oF technology environments can be managed entirely by Redfish and Swordfish.

SNIA Swordfish and Redfish together provide management of servers, storage and fabrics including NVMe and NVMe-oF technology environments. Developed by the open industry consortium NVM Express, the NVMe-oF spec currently supports fabric transports like RDMA (iWARP, RoCE, IB), TCP, and FC. NVMe and NVMe-oF specs currently lack efficient remote configuration and provisioning management mechanisms to enable NVMe-oF technology scaling to large converged infrastructures – something Redfish and Swordfish can provide.

“It’s rewarding to see the timely results of SNIA’s collaboration with DMTF and NVM Express,” said Richelle Ahlvers, storage management architect, board member and chair, group developing Swordfish, SNIA. “It was clear from the outset that we shared the same purpose – making it easy for IT administrators, DevOps, and others to integrate NVMe and NVMe-oF devices into everything from single-system through enterprise scale-out management ecosystems.“

Features included in these versions of Redfish and Swordfish to ensure NVMe and NVMe-oF technology environments can be managed include:

Concepts and enhancements to the Redfish and Swordfish models and schema to support the management of NVMe and NVMe-oF devices and systems
Detailed technical mapping between NVMe specs and the Redfish and Swordfish schemas, providing guidance to implementers
Mockups of multiple configurations within Redfish and Swordfish ecosystems to show examples
User guide content specific to NVMe architecture instances

“We’re proud to have developed the fabric and storage extensions for NVMe-oF architectures, a major component of the Redfish 2020.3 release,” said Jeff Hilland, president, DMTF. “Through our three-way alliance partnership, SNIA and NVM Express provided critical feedback and additions to these extensions enabling a holistic management experience for NVMe-oF technology environments.“

NVMe technology continues to become more and more popular because of its low latency and high throughput. Technologies, such as AI, ML, and IoT continue to advance, and the need for increased performance continues to grow. The industry has been advancing external connectivity options using NVMe-oF architecture.

“We are pleased that NVMe and NVMe-oF technologies have become fully integrated into the SNIA Swordfish and DMTF Redfish specs, indicating a shared investment in the continued advancement of the larger technology ecosystem,” said Amber Huffman, president, NVM Express. “Due to this industry collaboration, we are able to usher in the fast speed, scalability and efficiency of the NVMe and NVM-oF specs across many data demanding markets.“

Read also:
SNIA Swordfish Specification
Standards-based RESTful API is extension to DMTF Redfish API spec.
Sptember 27, 2016 | Press Release