The Network Impact of NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF)
Overall rating: 4.65 Instructor: 4.50 Materials: 4.71 more …
Few things have taken hold in the storage world like Non-Volatile Memory Express (a.k.a. NVMe™). Designed to be the most efficient interface for storage systems like Flash, it’s all about performance, performance, performance. But what happens when you want to take that kind of performance and put it onto the network? What happens to the network?
This webinar is going to take a look at the various types of Fabrics that make up NVMe™ over Fabrics (NVMe-oF™) and examine what kinds of considerations will be necessary for planning a network that must carry ultra-high performance storage. We’ll be discussing just what makes NVMe different than traditional storage solutions, as well as how that leads to important impacts that affect the network.
Contents
The newest and, arguably, the most important development in the Data Center in the past few years has been the emergence of high-performance storage - namely Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe™). While this has certainly gotten server and storage administrators excited, networking administrators have been mostly left to their own devices to find out just what it means to them.
Networking administrators have good reason to be concerned. Up until recently, storage has simply been an “also-ran.” That is, networks tended to run storage as well as LAN (or even WAN) traffic, and in some cases, storage has simply been something of a ‘best effort’ in the grand scheme of things. NVMe, though, changes the nature of the relationship between hosts and targets for sure - but also can have a significant impact on the network.
Now, more than ever, networks need to be specially designed for storage concerns where:
- Latency is orders of magnitude shorter
- Throughput is orders of magnitude faster
- Congestion can be more unpredictable
To that end, it’s absolutely essential that network administrators understand where the “gotchas” are, and how to prepare for them. How do we know what types of transports to use, when planning for NVMe-oF? What are the right questions to ask?
This webinar will go into detail about each of the official Fabrics supported with NVMe over Fabrics, and where the “sweet spot” is and how to prepare for it.
Target Audience
Storage administrators who need to understand what to expect from Network Administrators, and Network Administrators who need to understand how these crazy new storage devices can make their lives “interesting.” It will be a blend of the two, since in order for this to work correctly these two groups will have to learn how to work together.
The Author
J Michel Metz is currently an R&D Engineer for Advanced Storage at Cisco Systems, Inc, but has a broad and eclectic background of both academic, corporate, and industry experience. He is an award-winning public speaker, author, and contributor to industry trade publications. He has been active in industry standards, with membership on the Board of Directors for the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA), Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), and the NVMe Promoter’s Board. J has been a fundamental contributor to technologies and solutions such as Cisco’s Unified Ports, Multihop and Dynamic FCoE, and solid state solutions
Happy Campers
About the webinar
- I read about NVMe-oF, RoCE, PFC, ECN and similar storage related topics before, but these two hours were what I needed to "connect the dots".
I'd like to dive deeper into different TCP algorithms, as You mentioned the DCTCP. - (Anonymous)
- So much information. This presenter certainly knows his stuff. Found this webinar really interesting and well paced. I will be taking notes next time around!
- Cameron Rooke
- I got a better insight of what is happening in the storage world and how it might impact future design.
- Mikael Eriksson
- Fast pacing, as usual with J, I guess, but very clear and good structured.
- Marcin Lebiecki
- The ins and outs and technical challenges for NVMe over Fabric are extremely well explained. And must watch for any Network engineer before deploying a NVMe-oF solution.
- Jean-Baptiste Broguiere
About the instructor
- He's fast, I mean - really fast.
- (Anonymous)
- Top notch.
- Cameron Rooke
- He was a very fast talker and i had some problem following what he said from time to time(my native language is not english). The upside is that i can watch the recorded material :)
- Mikael Eriksson
About the materials
- It was definitely TMI for someone never reading about these topics, but overall - great work.
- (Anonymous)
- I might have gained more if i was actually working with storage. I gained a lot of valuable information regarding demands on network/network design when it comes to storage that will help me when talking to storage technicians. I will atleast understand what they are saying :)
- Mikael Eriksson
- Very explanative slides.
- Marcin Lebiecki