NVMe: 3 New and 8 Updated Specs to Unify AI, Cloud, Client, and Enterprise Storage

NVM Express, Inc. announced the release of 3 new specis and 8 updated specs.

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This update to NVMe technology builds on the strengths of previous NVMe specs, introducing new features for modern computing environments while also streamlining development and time to market.

“Beginning as a single PCIe SSD spec, NVMe technology has grown into nearly a dozen specs, including multiple command sets, that provide pivotal support for NVMe technology across all major transports and standardize many aspects of storage,” said Peter Onufryk, NVM Express Technical Workgroup chair. “NVMe technology adoption continues to grow and has succeeded in unifying client, cloud, AI and enterprise storage around a common architecture. The future of NVMe technology is bright and we have 75 new authorized technical proposals underway.”

NVM Express spes target streamlined development
The latest NVMe specs consist of multiple documents targeted at allowing faster and simpler development of NVMe architecture. The 3 new specs are the NVMe Boot specification, the Subsystem Local Memory command set and the Computational Programs command set. The updated specs are the NVMe 2.1 Base spec, Command Set specs (NVM Command Set, ZNS Command Set, Key Value Command Set), Transport specs (PCIe Transport, FC Transport, RDMA Transport and TCP Transport) and the NVMe Management Interface spec.

Key new NVMe capabilities

Enabling live migration of PCIe NVMe controllers between NVM subsystems.
New host-directed data placement for SSDs that simplifies ecosystem integration and is backwards compatible with previous NVMe specifications.
Support for offloading some host processing to NVMe storage devices.
A network boot mechanism for NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF).
Support for NVMe over Fabrics zoning.
Ability to provide host management of encryption keys and highly granular encryption with Key Per I/O.
Security enhancements such as support for TLS 1.3, a centralized authentication verification entity for DH-HMAC-CHAP, and post sanitization media verification.
Management enhancements including support for high availability out-of-band management, management over I3C, out-of-band management asynchronous events and dynamic creation of exported NVM subsystems from underlying NVM subsystem physical resources.