Tag: NVM Express

NVMe®/TCP Q&A

Erik Smith Leave a comment

The SNIA Networking Storage Forum (NSF) had an outstanding response to our live webinar, “NVMe/TCP: Performance, Deployment, and Automation.” If you missed the session, you can watch it on-demand and download a copy of the presentation slides at the SNIA Educational Library. Our live audience gave the presentation a 4.9 rating on a scale of 1-5, and they asked a lot of detailed questions, which our presenter, Erik Smith, Vice Chair of SNIA NSF, has answered here.

Q: Does the Centralized Discovery Controller (CDC) layer also provide drive access control or is it simply for discovery of drives visible on the network?

A: As defined in TP8010, the CDC only provides transport layer discovery. In other words, the CDC will allow a host to discover transport layer information (IP, Port, NQN) about the subsystem ports (on the array) that each host has been allowed to communicate with. Provisioning storage volumes to a particular host is additional functionality that COULD be added to an implementation of the CDC. (e.g., Dell has a CDC implementation that we refer to as SmartFabric Storage Software (SFSS).

Q: Can you provide some examples of companies that provide CDC and drive access control functionalities? Read More

When NVMe™ over Fabrics Meets TCP

Tom Reu 2 Comments

In the storage world, NVMe™ is arguably the hottest thing going right now. Go to any storage conference – either vendor-related or vendor-neutral, and you’ll see NVMe as the latest and greatest innovation. It stands to reason, then, that when you want to run NVMe over a  network, you must understand NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF). Meanwhile, TCP is by far the most popular networking transport protocol both for storage and non-storage traffic.

TCP – the long-standing mainstay of networking – is the newest transport technology to be approved by the NVM Express ® organization, enabling NVMe/TCP. This can mean really good things for storage and storage networking – but what are the tradeoffs?

With any new technology, though, there can still be a bit of confusion.  No  technology is a panacea; and with any new development there will always be a need to gauge where it is best used (like a tool in a toolbox).

Learn more on January 22nd when the SNIA Networking Storage Forum hosts a live webcast, What NVMe™/TCP Means for Networked Storage. In this webcast, we’ve brought together the lead author of the NVMe/TCP specification, Sagi Grimberg, and J. Metz, member of the SNIA and NVMe Boards of Directors, to discuss:

  • What is NVMe/TCP
  • How NVMe/TCP works
  • What are the trade-offs?
  • What should network administrators know?
  • What kind of expectations are realistic?
  • What technologies can make NVMe/TCP work better?
  • And more…

Obviously, we can’t cover the entire world of NVMe and TCP networking in an hour, but we  can  start to raise the questions – and approach the answers – that must be addressed in order to make informed decisions. Speaking of questions, bring yours. Sagi and J. will be answering them on the 22nd. Register today to save your spot.