January 19, 2025 • 36 mins
Explore the collaborative efforts and expertise of SNIA in advancing data transport technologies. Key topics include the rise of NVMe, innovations like CXL, Fibre Channel's ongoing significance, and the role of standards in creating efficient data solutions. Hear from industry experts, Bill Martin, Craig Carlson, Fred Knight, and Anthony Constantine as they discuss:
• SNIA's role in data transport technologies and collaboration with industry partners
• Key trends in SAS, NVMe, and Fibre Channel technologies
• The impact of CXL on memory efficiency and architecture
• The significance of UltraEthernet and its future applications
• Understanding SFF and its importance in evolving storage solutions
• The role of STA and industry partnerships in setting standards
• How SNIA Swordfish has emerged as a key player in managing storage within the Redfish ecosystem
SNIA is an industry organization that develops global standards and delivers vendor-neutral education on technologies related to data. In these interviews, SNIA experts on data cover a wide range of topics on both established and emerging technologies.
About SNIA:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the SNEA Experts on Data podcast.
Each episode highlights keytechnologies related to data.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome everybody to the SNEA Experts on Data podcast
.
My name is Eric Wright.
I'm the co-founder of GTM Deltaand the host of the SNEA
Experts on Data podcast, veryexcited to be able to bring an
amazing team of folks togetherhere.
We've really looked at SNEA insome of the previous chats,
(00:34):
about some of the specific topicareas and innovation areas and
research that's going on.
This is a real great chance forus to go back and what's the
core of SNEA and we thoughtabout what are the different
areas in which we look at SNEAin how data and being
data-centric in a storagemindset and storage-centric in a
(00:58):
data mindset when we look athow data works in the SNEA
context.
If you go to the SNEA website,you'll see lots of great updated
information on the differentpractice areas.
Some will line up with some ofthe technical working groups and
we'll talk a lot about thattoday.
So I'm not going to pre-podcastthe podcast because I got the
greatest folks on the mic withme.
(01:18):
With that, I'm going to do aquick ask of some introductions
along the way.
So if we want to get started,just have a quick intro about
yourself for folks that are newto you, bill, if you want to
kick us off.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Great.
Thank you, Eric, and I'm BillMartin.
I am co-chair of the SNEATechnical Council and I work for
Samsung as my day job and kindof facilitating this overall
podcast with these experts inthese various areas.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Excellent and Craig as well, Hi, I'm Craig Carlson.
I'm on the SNEA TechnicalCouncil and my day job is I work
for AMD.
I do storage and networking.
I've been involved in storageand networking Standards for
over 20 years, including FiberChannel and VME and many others.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
All right, team FC.
I'm old school, I love thatstuff.
Fred, you're next up.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
Thank you, Eric.
My name is Fred Knight.
I work for Kioxia and I'm partof the SNEA Technical Council.
I've been in that role for anumber of years and have oh, I
hate to admit it 30 to 40 yearsof experience in the industry
and, going back to some of theearly fiber, channel up through
the latest and greatest NVMetechnologies.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
We all have this amazing thing where we used to
cut off part of our leg andcount the rings, and there's a
lot of time and technologyamongst those years, so I love
it.
But looking to the youngest ofthe crew and last but certainly
not least, anthony, you want todo a quick intro for the folks.
Speaker 6 (02:55):
Sure, and everyone's making me feel so young right
now.
So this is great.
My name is Anthony Constantine.
I'm an engineer at Intel.
Anthony Constantine, I'm anengineer at Intel, and what I do
for Senea is I'm on thetechnical council as well as I'm
the co-chair of the SFFtechnical affiliate.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Excellent.
Well, thank you everybody, andtoday we're going to talk about
transport.
Transport is an interestingsection of the overall SeneA
practice areas and I think thebest way to lead it off let's
talk about what does it meanwhen we talk about SNEA being
experts on transported data?
Bill, let's have you kick usoff.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Great Thanks, Eric.
So what is it that SNEA isexperts on transport?
What does it that SNEA isexperts on transports?
What does it really mean?
So what it means is we worktogether with a lot of different
organizations within theindustry who develop transport
standards.
We try to bring some of thattogether.
We try to provide education,Part of what SNEA has.
We have a SNEA forum calledSTAY, or the SCSI Trade
(04:02):
Association that is now part ofSNEA.
Forum called STAY, or the SCSITrade Association that is now
part of SNEA.
They do all of the what doesthe market need for SCSI?
And they're looking forward toSCSI.
They're arranging plug posts.
We'll get into a lot of that alittle more later in the podcast
.
And then we also have, asAnthony mentioned, he is
(04:24):
co-chair of the SFF TechnologyAffiliate, where we develop
standards for storage devices interms of connectors and form
factors.
And then, finally, we have alarge number of alliance
partners.
Number of alliance partners.
(04:48):
Among those alliance partnersin the area of transporting data
are FCIA, NVME, CXL, as well ashaving liaison arrangements
with all of the Insights Tcommittees, which have recently
been renamed by Insights to nowbe the ATA committee, the SCSI
(05:09):
committee and the Fiber Channelcommittee, although I'm not
getting the Insights names rightfor those.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Well, I think it's a really great kickoff for us too,
bill, because if we look at howSNEA in general works, it
really is.
There's what work we dointernally across different
sections of SNEA practice areas,and then the alliance partners,
and we're seeing stuff like CXLand some of the external
partnerships that are coming in.
(05:36):
So that's one of the thingsI've really enjoyed about SNEA's
approach is that not justdefining standards internally
but looking to the industry andhelping to give guidance, and
then we're seeing more and morepartnership come up.
And when we talk abouttransports of the day, let's
start by going through and Isaid Team FC.
I'm going to go old school,Craig Fred let's talk about what
(06:01):
are some of the importanttransports that are in play
today, and let's talk aboutFibre Channel and SAS and where
that's it, where it is and evenpotentially where it's going
well, fibre Channel probablywould be considered one of the
original and the oldest SANstorage area network technology.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
the the Fibre Channel specification goes back 30
years and I was part of it for agood portion of that probably
longer than I want to admit.
I chaired the protocolcommunity and a lot of the other
work groups.
The thing about Fibre Channelis that it has stuck around
(06:48):
despite the fact that peopleevery few years declare it dead.
It's still in there.
It's still being deployed inenterprise data centers.
It's still a very importanttechnology for a lot of the
enterprise customers who areusing Fiber Channel, basically
because it's been around for along time.
It's reliable, stable, fast andthey trust it.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
We should do a dedicated one.
Just called Fiber Channel isdead.
Long live Fiber Channel right.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Now on the SaaS side, fred what's happening and
what's happened, and where do wesee SaaS being really prevalent
today?
Speaker 5 (07:28):
Now on the SaaS side Fred, what's happening and
what's happened and where do wesee SaaS being really prevalent
today?
Well, saas came about from theoriginal parallel SCSI days as
part of a smaller, more localfiber channel area and using a
serial protocol rather than theparallel technology.
(07:50):
But it has still continued,gone through a number of speed
bumps, getting faster, addingnew capabilities, improving the
performance, still offering allof the full features that SCSI
offers, all of the capabilitiesthat enterprise environments
have come to depend on.
So it's still a significantarea of storage devices, both
(08:16):
SSDs and hard disk drives, soit's something that still is
important today.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
And this is always I used to well, I still say all
the time is you know, you callit legacy, I call it production
Quite often.
We get sometimes caught up inthe hype of things that are
coming and forgetting how broadand widely adopted a lot of
these technologies are.
They're still going to be inplay for a long time, are
(08:45):
they're still going to be inplay for a long time?
And as fast as technology movesand workloads change AI
workloads being the hottestthing lately, of course what
we're seeing is that more andmore innovation in other areas
allows these technologies tocontinue to add value and
actually come to the fore.
So what we're going to see,even on the software side,
database technologies, whichwere very limited before now,
(09:05):
are suddenly moving back to thefront because of capabilities
that are happening with some ofthe stuff that's going on the
protocol side to allow softwareto kind of latch on to better
capabilities and use more ofwhat's there.
With that, I guess we'll talkabout the real hot topic, and
the most prevalent I think thatwe see is NVMe.
(09:25):
So, fred, let's talk aboutwhere that came from and, again,
what's coming up in the NVMeworld.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
So NVMe is a technology targeting the
solid-state drives, ssds.
It's a protocol that's builtspecifically to achieve the
maximum performance that thattechnology offers.
So its primary transporttechnology is the PCI bus and
the different speeds that thatis available in different
(09:55):
generations to get as muchperformance as possible out of
those SSD drives, out of thoseSSD drives.
So in addition, that wasexpanded into the network world
with NVMe-OF, where thetransport can be any number of
different things.
We have the ability to use RDMA, the ability to use fiber
(10:17):
channel as the transport tocarry the NVMe protocols.
We have several others usingTCP IP that can carry that as
well.
So the fabric technologies arestill a very large part of the
NVMe environment.
In fact, second only to the PCIarea is the fiber channel area.
That that is a very largeadoption area for the NVMe
(10:40):
protocol.
So we have it both in thedirect connect technology of PCI
as well as the fabrictechnologies everywhere, from
TCP through fiber channel,through RDMA or many other kinds
of wires that can carry thoseprotocols.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Now I guess the next one.
When we talk about thedistributed workloads and the
hyperscalers and what we'reseeing with more disaggregated
infrastructure.
This launched also the need forwhat came to be CXL
infrastructure.
We're seeing new innovation andideation coming around
ultra-Ethernet.
(11:21):
So, craig, do you want to sharewhat is CXL at its core and UEC
, and what are you seeing that'sbeing done in the SNEA
community related to both ofthose things?
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Well, cxl is a new technology.
It's both a bus and a network.
Potentially, as the CXL matures, it's becoming more and more.
It's reaching out more and moreto allow for broader
configurations.
(11:55):
The one thing that really is aninteresting promise of CXL is
to use memory more efficiently,to be able to have pools of
memory.
You might have tiers of memorywhere you have your local host
memory, which is your fastestaccess, and then the idea is you
have CXL pool, which is maybe abigger pool but it will be a
(12:16):
little bit slower access because, of course, latency going out.
You always have higher latencywhen you go out on the machine,
but you still have a higherspeed memory out there than you
might have for other storagetechnologies.
And then UltraEthernet is thenew kid in the block.
It's taking a lot of thelessons learned over 20, 30
(12:40):
years in networking and applyingto a whole new set of features
for congestion, very, very largedeployments in terms of
millions of nodes, data lossprotection and the idea is to
deploy this in HPC as well as AIworkloads and there have been
(13:05):
existing technology that can dothis PCB data set of bridging
and Ethernet is one of them, andyou would see where it takes
that to the next step and usesthe most recent technologies.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
There's definitely a lot of stuff and we're going to
have independent podcasts andsome of the conversation.
There's information that youcan find as well.
So I recommend folks that aredabbling with looking ahead look
for a lot more.
That's going to come up withwhat SNEA and the UEC folks are
doing.
So pretty cool there.
Now, since we're talking aboutdown to the form factor and
(13:41):
we've got these wild newdeployment patterns and
operational patterns, we'rechanging how we're physically
deploying.
So let's talk about SFF, my BFF, anthony.
What does SFF do for us andwhat has SNE sort of created
(14:02):
with the work that you and theteam are doing?
Speaker 6 (14:07):
Yeah, so.
So Fred and Craig talkedearlier about the transport
layer.
What we're trying to do isbasically build the, the
electromechanical interconnectbetween, you know, a host and a
device, and so what SFF doesessentially?
We create those cables, thoseconnectors, form factors, all of
(14:30):
those bits and pieces that areneeded so you can physically
assemble these devices togetherto go talk to each other.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
And one thing that popped up was EDSFF, because we
never have enough acronyms inour world, so tell us more.
Speaker 6 (14:51):
Yeah.
So EDSFF which I guess a word ofwarning, never have engineers
design a name for a device butEDSFF was built as a ground-up
solution to basically solve aproblem around existing storage
form factors.
(15:15):
A lot of the form factors forstorage were built around the
hard disk drive and as we wentinto the SSD era I mean not that
our hard disk drives aren'tstill around, but going into the
SSD era we needed new formfactors to be able to cool them,
to be able to fit more into acertain form factor or the
(15:36):
certain server or device.
And so what we did is wecreated this uh ground up
standard to be able to talk to,to be able to fit into some of
these uh servers and new serverusages, um, and so we created
edsff in order to go solve thatproblem and it's kind of taken
off on on on its own, becausenow it's not only being used for
(16:01):
SSDs but we're also using itfor, like, a CXL memory module.
It's being looked at from anetwork form factor as well.
So it has it's kind of takenoff into its own usages.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
And because of that you know what else are you
seeing in general in theindustry that is making use of
this in the SSF world.
Speaker 6 (16:31):
Yeah, so I mentioned the SSDs, cxl memory and the
network devices.
Really, some of the otherthings are what are we doing
about AI, basically, what do youdo about some of the processors
for that?
And so we've been looking atsolutions for that.
We've been looking at cablingto connect to some of those
(16:54):
devices, whether it's copper oroptical interconnects, and so
our transceivers group has beenworking on updating
specifications to not only hit,like the current speeds, but
what are we doing in the future?
For you know, 224, 448 plus,right, so a lot of these higher
speeds.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
I'm still holding out for ATM at the desktop.
I'm old school.
I remember working at thefinancial world and we actually
had ATM cards going to traderdesks.
So it's been surprising where Iguess that's for me as an
outsider looking in.
That's what's been fantastic tosee the birth of these
standards in SNEA and then theinnovation that occurs through
(17:37):
the industry partnerships, thatoccurs through the industry
partnerships, and then sometimeswhat's old becomes new again
and we see, because of changesin patterns of applications and
infrastructure, none of thesestandards are there for a reason
, because then we have awell-defined method and group of
folks that contributed to thatcollective standard.
(17:58):
It's very, very difficult in ourworld where people can just pop
up a startup, come up with abrand new idea and then go
completely independent andproprietary and then the risk
there is, then the ability toinnovate is kind of capped.
You can do a lot, butultimately it's whatever the
proverb would be is that we getthere faster by going as a group
(18:20):
than going alone.
So it's been interesting to seeand let's move on.
We'll talk about, because Ihaven't got enough puns left in
my world.
Should I stay or should I go?
Sta, anthony, what is STA andwhat does that come into play
around the SNEA world?
Speaker 6 (18:38):
So ST sta is the scuzzy trade association um, but
basically their mission is topromote the understanding and
use of uh, serial attachedscuzzy um.
And really what they're doingis they're trying to influence
the evolution of scuzzystandards to meet future
industry needs now, what do wedo?
Speaker 2 (18:58):
you know what are some are some of the meetups and
things that we do in order todrive some of those
conversations, because folks maynot, if they're brand new to
SNEA, they may not know kind ofwhat type of stuff.
I know we've got plug fests,we've got other things that we
do.
What are ways that peopleactually collaborate on these
(19:18):
ideas?
Speaker 6 (19:20):
I mean, I think the biggest one is probably the plug
fest.
Right, there's SAS plug feststhat occur every so often that
people can kind of come in intoa room and do effectively a you
know, does my device work withthis, does my device work with
(19:41):
that, you know, and kind of comein and go and flush some of
those, you know, maybe flushproblems out, maybe flush out
some concerns that they've hadand being able to go see that.
And then of course there's alsoobviously joining stay.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
And luckily it's super easy to do.
That's one thing I found SNE isfantastic of being able to
reach beyond your current columnof people you talk to.
It's easy to spread across thepractices and pillars obviously
(20:21):
a big area of work.
So, fred Craig, what are SNEA'sactivities that are using NVMe
and innovating and buildingaround that?
Speaker 5 (20:31):
Well, there are several activities that SNEA has
partnered with NVMe.
An interesting one is thecomputational storage area, or
having compute near the data,and NVMe has worked on the
project at the protocol level toenable the interaction between
(20:53):
the operating system, the host,the applications and the
computation that lives in thestorage device and the
computation that lives in thestorage device.
And SNEA has been working onapplication layer APIs so that
applications can take advantageof those capabilities in a
standard way.
So we have at the SNEA layer,the SNEA organization, we build
(21:15):
the standards for the layer ofthe applications, for the device
drivers, for all thecommunication within the host,
the layer of the applicationsfor the device drivers, for all
the communication within thehost, and then NVMe is working
on the protocol to carry thatinformation from the host over
to the storage device where theoperations can actually occur.
So it's a very nice kind ofcooperative effort between SNEA
and NVMe on how that having thecompute near the data, the
(21:39):
computational storage, worktogether between the two
organizations.
We've also developed withinSNEA something called the NVMeOF
drive specification, which is acommon connector, a common way
to put a bunch of NVMe OF drivestogether and have those
(22:01):
connected up over Ethernet orsomething such as that, and that
is a common specification thatSNEA built but which operates
with NVMe drives in thatpackaging.
So you can imagine a shelf thathas a bunch of either straight
PCI NVMe drives that has anEthernet front end to talk to a
(22:24):
host, or maybe it's a bunch ofEthernet NVMe OF drives that are
all in that shelf, that are allconnected then to a host where
SNEA has been the designer ofthat specification, packaging
and connector, whereas it's thestandard NVMe protocol that's
used to communicate to thatshelf of devices.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
So it also, as I say, on the management side.
Now then that becomes the.
You're not even just at theprotocol layer, but the
management layer, which ispretty nifty.
So I saw Swordfish pop up inthe talk track.
I'm like, oh, rochelle's earswill be burning in a great way.
What's the connection withSwordfish and NVMe?
Speaker 5 (23:09):
Well, swordfish is the storage part of the Redfish
management operations that arefor entire platforms.
So the Swordfish part is thestorage part and that is
developed by the SNEAorganization and so we interact
with a number of the protocols.
Nvme is, of course, the latest,but we also include management
(23:34):
of SCSI and other storageprotocols in that Swordfish
management capability protocolsin that Swordfish management
capability.
So we also have somethingcalled SDP that we're working on
within SNEA.
That's storage data placement.
Everyone probably remembers fromthe hard drive days when we
talked about cylinder track andsector, where you could design
(23:57):
applications that knew somethingabout the geometry of the
hardware and you could takeadvantage of that to build a
faster access to that storage.
Well, with solid-state driveswe don't have cylinders track in
sectors anymore, but we dostill have fancy hardware
components involved, and havingsome level of knowledge about
(24:19):
that or being able to provideknowledge to the drive about the
data itself are ways thatadditional performance can be
eked out of those drives.
So the SDP program is a way oflooking at the zone storage
that's provided by both SMRdrives as well as the zone
devices within SSDs.
(24:40):
It can also apply to theindividual die level within an
SSD through something called.
Oh help me, bill, what's thename of the?
Is it FDP?
The name within NVMe.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Yes, flexible data placement.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
Yes, the flexible data placement, where the host
can indicate to the device thatthere are certain sets of data
that are related to each otherand so they should be placed
close together within the SSDarchitecture so that the
management operations within thedevice can get some better
performance by knowing thatinformation.
(25:21):
So the way to To do that isagain through an application
layer API, which is what SNEA isdeveloping in its storage data
placement specification, to beable to provide a way to
interface to the storage levelprotocols, which are either the
(25:42):
zoned devices or the FTP, theflexible data placement devices,
the FTP, the Flexible DataPlacement Devices.
So, again, a cooperationbetween SNEA managing and
operating the data and providinginformation and attributes
about the data to the lowerlevel protocols, which could be
either be SCSI or NVMe.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
One of the things that was fun about SDC.
A couple years ago I rememberbringing some folks who were,
you know, I'd been working within the industry, who were on the
software side, in andintroducing them to folks at SDC
and it was neat to see wherework like stuff that's happening
with FTP, there were somepeople trying to tackle it on
the software side not realizingthere's opportunity where
(26:24):
there's work that's being doneon the hardware layer and it's.
I guess we look over decades.
Right, when everything came offat first of Flash, we worried
about what's the life cycle ofit, and then the more and more
that we drive this innovation onincreasing the ability, we can
reduce wear, we can increasesustainability.
(26:47):
And for the folks that werearound two years ago, when
sustainability was everybody's,it was dripping off the tongues
of every vendor marketer, wehave always been working on
sustainability and at theprotocol and at the placement
layer.
That's where I think is reallycool that people don't always
see this stuff on the outsides,you know, in the consumer market
(27:10):
.
But this is the kind of workthat allows us to really stretch
the life of hardware and have atrue impact on sustainability.
And since I'm old school andI'm going to go back to my FC
(27:31):
world.
Let's talk, craig, on what hasbeen done with around FC and
what is going on with stuff thatmakes FC and the definition of
some of those specs important inwhat SNEA is doing.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
So SNEA and Fiber General have worked together for
a long time, going back to someoriginal management profiles
that were done, and this wasprobably 15, 20 years ago.
All the way up to today, thework is taking place around
security.
Snea and Fiber Channel havebeen working on a joint security
(28:03):
white paper.
It's actually an update of thewhite paper that's been around
for a while and securityprotocols change based on best
practices and so um, currentlyum, they've been working in our
general community, have beenworking together to update the
existing white paper, um, andand that the knowledge around
that with the existing bestpractices, that that, that um,
(28:26):
the security community is, andthe good thing too is for folks
that maybe don't even recognizeall this stuff that's going
practices that the securitycommunity is using.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
And the good thing too is for folks that maybe
don't even recognize all thestuff that's going on.
We're going to make referenceto some of the white papers and
other work that's been published.
If you go to the SNEA site, ofcourse you can check through the
document library.
There's lots of informationthere.
We'll include some links in thepodcast notes as well and, of
course, anybody that wants toreach out just always hit up the
(28:52):
folks at SNEA and you'll findthere's a lot of stuff that's
been done and great reading andresearch that we can tap into
before we think we've got a newidea going forward.
And then it goes beyond thisbecause it's not just within
SNEA but the partnerships.
And that's why CXL wasinteresting, because of course
CXL is fairly far along in someof the work that's been done.
(29:14):
You know the specification hasmoved up in version numbers
quite a bit since I've beenwatching it and since it's been
around.
So, craig Anthony, if you guyswant to sort of pick and choose
who wants to talk about what isthe relationship with SNEA and
CXL and what you see as kind ofneat things that are coming
ahead for us.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
Well, you know it's still being explored for CXL,
but some possible future tie-insmight be into the SDXI
workgroup, which is a SNEA datamover.
There might be some interestingthings working with CXL and
that, and so SDXI is astandardized data mover that
(29:59):
allows you to have a hardwaredata mover that software, more
than just a proprietary driver,knows how to use, and when
you're talking about moving datain between pools of memory in
CXL, that could be a good fit,and so that's just one of the
areas that are possible fits forCXL.
But it's a new technology soit's still open as to what
(30:25):
exactly all the differentapplications could be.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
It's still open as to what exactly?
all the different applicationscould be.
So let me jump in there withone other thought on that as
well.
One of the things we arelooking at in SNEA is we're
looking at how do you mergethree different things, how do
you merge CXL, computationalstorage and SGXI storage and
(30:52):
SGXI and you can take all threeof these things and merge them
together to provide anenvironment where you have
different types of data movement, you have coherency and all
three protocols working together.
And we're looking at thatcurrently within SNEA.
But we're looking at taking twoof our technical workgroups the
computational storage workgroupand the STXI workgroup and
(31:13):
working together on that and howwe incorporate CXL with that as
well.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Nice and Anthony, you had something to add as well.
Speaker 6 (31:23):
Yeah, and we've had a little bit of collaboration
there on terms of the CXL memoryside.
I mean, I mentioned the CXLmemory module before.
That was a collaborationbetween the SFF portion of CINEA
and JADEC, jadec doing thememory side and then CXL being
involved from the protocoltransport side and then us from
(31:45):
the physical hardware side, fromthe protocol transport side and
then us from the physicalhardware side.
So it was a really goodindustry collaboration and a
really good example of what wecan do when we kind of all put
our heads together to kind of gosolve a problem.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Exactly, and this is again why I've been a longtime
fan of SNEA.
It's a bloody honor to be ableto be the host of the podcast
because I get to hang out withamazing folks, like all of you,
and see as we go, to watch thisevolution over time.
And, as you said, even theorganization evolves as we see
working groups begin to sort ofmerge and collaborate and cross
(32:19):
over.
It can't be done in a vacuumand certainly can't be done in
an ivory tower.
So it's great to see I knowwe've got one more quick thing
to hit because we've got to wrap, and I wish I could do this all
day with you folks.
But let's talk about the farfuture and very early work.
What about UEC, craig?
(32:40):
We mentioned it a bit before.
What is the state today of thework with the UltraEthernet
Consortium and what do you seeas the next stages for folks to
be able to watch and getinvolved?
Speaker 4 (32:54):
So right now UEC and SNEA are working on an alliance
agreement and UEC is in adevelopment phase.
Right now no specificationshave been released so at this
point I can't talk aboutspecifics within UEC Coming up.
(33:17):
In the next six months or soyou'll start seeing some more
public information on that.
But some areas that I thinkthat SNEA and UEC can really
work together on SNEA juststarted a task force to look at
AI applications for SNEA and UECcan really work together on.
Snea just started a task forceto look at AI applications for
SNEA and UEC.
I believe could be a big partof that, especially in some of
(33:40):
the storage areas.
But you know, without havingeverybody sign an NDA,
unfortunately I can't talk moreabout that at this point.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Well and again, I think this is why this has been
such a fantastic chat and I knowit's been a bit of a speed run
through things.
But if I would go back to whywe did this and why this is such
a great discussion to have, wecan see the breadth of coverage
that's happening within SNEA,the amount of people that are
collaborating and being there aswe define what's the future.
(34:10):
What will UEC look like?
What will the collaborationlook like, being able to get
involved and to spend time withfine folks like yourselves.
I tell people, just go jump in.
Being a part of SNEA is abeautiful thing, it's not costly
at all and it's also justnothing but positive as far as
I've seen, and now that we'redoing more and stuff back in
(34:34):
person.
We saw SDC in Austin, so we'reseeing maybe even some more
quarterly and more often andmore regional events where we
can collaborate.
It's a great chance for peopleto get involved and jump in.
And again I want to thankeverybody.
You've all been great today,bill.
Just one last thing.
What's if you could collapse itinto a couple of sentences why
(34:57):
is all of this awesome and whatis being an expert on data in
the transport world mean to you.
Oh, we got you muted there.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Thank you.
I think the biggest thing isit's been said over and over we
are collaborating with a largenumber of organizations that are
all related to the transport ofdata and we bring them together
, we work together with them, webring them together, we work
together with them and, asAnthony mentioned, it's even a
(35:32):
matter of kind of being thecenterpiece that brings other
organizations together toenhance the overall industry in
terms of how we transport dataand we will continue moving
(35:53):
forward with that as we moveinto the next generation in the
UEC.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Amazing, yeah, and it's been an inspiration to
watch.
Thank you all for taking thetime to share today.
Again, for folks that are brandnew to us, make sure you do go
head on over to the SNEA website, get yourself signed up, join
the community Watch.
We've got the Experts on Datapodcast is both in audio format.
It's also on the YouTubechannel, so if you're listening,
pop on over and you can seethese fantastic, beautiful faces
directly.
(36:16):
And if you want to see them inperson, we've got lots of events
that are coming up.
Head to the SNEA page.
Check out what's ahead andwatch for more as we talk about
all of the different practiceareas.
Thank you all, folks.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
My name is Eric Wright.
Again, thank you for listeningto the SNEA Experts on Data
podcast.
Thank you for listening.
For additional information onthe material presented in this
podcast.
Be sure and check out oureducational library at sniaorg
slash library.
Welcome to the SNEA Experts on Data podcast.
Each episode highlights keytechnologies related to data.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome everybody to the SNEA Experts on Data podcast
.
My name is Eric Wright.
I'm the co-founder of GTM Deltaand the host of the SNEA
Experts on Data podcast, veryexcited to be able to bring an
amazing team of folks togetherhere.
We've really looked at SNEA insome of the previous chats,
(00:34):
about some of the specific topicareas and innovation areas and
research that's going on.
This is a real great chance forus to go back and what's the
core of SNEA and we thoughtabout what are the different
areas in which we look at SNEAin how data and being
data-centric in a storagemindset and storage-centric in a
(00:58):
data mindset when we look athow data works in the SNEA
context.
If you go to the SNEA website,you'll see lots of great updated
information on the differentpractice areas.
Some will line up with some ofthe technical working groups and
we'll talk a lot about thattoday.
So I'm not going to pre-podcastthe podcast because I got the
greatest folks on the mic withme.
(01:18):
With that, I'm going to do aquick ask of some introductions
along the way.
So if we want to get started,just have a quick intro about
yourself for folks that are newto you, bill, if you want to
kick us off.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Great.
Thank you, Eric, and I'm BillMartin.
I am co-chair of the SNEATechnical Council and I work for
Samsung as my day job and kindof facilitating this overall
podcast with these experts inthese various areas.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Excellent and Craig as well, Hi, I'm Craig Carlson.
I'm on the SNEA TechnicalCouncil and my day job is I work
for AMD.
I do storage and networking.
I've been involved in storageand networking Standards for
over 20 years, including FiberChannel and VME and many others.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
All right, team FC.
I'm old school, I love thatstuff.
Fred, you're next up.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
Thank you, Eric.
My name is Fred Knight.
I work for Kioxia and I'm partof the SNEA Technical Council.
I've been in that role for anumber of years and have oh, I
hate to admit it 30 to 40 yearsof experience in the industry
and, going back to some of theearly fiber, channel up through
the latest and greatest NVMetechnologies.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
We all have this amazing thing where we used to
cut off part of our leg andcount the rings, and there's a
lot of time and technologyamongst those years, so I love
it.
But looking to the youngest ofthe crew and last but certainly
not least, anthony, you want todo a quick intro for the folks.
Speaker 6 (02:55):
Sure, and everyone's making me feel so young right
now.
So this is great.
My name is Anthony Constantine.
I'm an engineer at Intel.
Anthony Constantine, I'm anengineer at Intel, and what I do
for Senea is I'm on thetechnical council as well as I'm
the co-chair of the SFFtechnical affiliate.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Excellent.
Well, thank you everybody, andtoday we're going to talk about
transport.
Transport is an interestingsection of the overall SeneA
practice areas and I think thebest way to lead it off let's
talk about what does it meanwhen we talk about SNEA being
experts on transported data?
Bill, let's have you kick usoff.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Great Thanks, Eric.
So what is it that SNEA isexperts on transport?
What does it that SNEA isexperts on transports?
What does it really mean?
So what it means is we worktogether with a lot of different
organizations within theindustry who develop transport
standards.
We try to bring some of thattogether.
We try to provide education,Part of what SNEA has.
We have a SNEA forum calledSTAY, or the SCSI Trade
(04:02):
Association that is now part ofSNEA.
Forum called STAY, or the SCSITrade Association that is now
part of SNEA.
They do all of the what doesthe market need for SCSI?
And they're looking forward toSCSI.
They're arranging plug posts.
We'll get into a lot of that alittle more later in the podcast
.
And then we also have, asAnthony mentioned, he is
(04:24):
co-chair of the SFF TechnologyAffiliate, where we develop
standards for storage devices interms of connectors and form
factors.
And then, finally, we have alarge number of alliance
partners.
Number of alliance partners.
(04:48):
Among those alliance partnersin the area of transporting data
are FCIA, NVME, CXL, as well ashaving liaison arrangements
with all of the Insights Tcommittees, which have recently
been renamed by Insights to nowbe the ATA committee, the SCSI
(05:09):
committee and the Fiber Channelcommittee, although I'm not
getting the Insights names rightfor those.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Well, I think it's a really great kickoff for us too,
bill, because if we look at howSNEA in general works, it
really is.
There's what work we dointernally across different
sections of SNEA practice areas,and then the alliance partners,
and we're seeing stuff like CXLand some of the external
partnerships that are coming in.
(05:36):
So that's one of the thingsI've really enjoyed about SNEA's
approach is that not justdefining standards internally
but looking to the industry andhelping to give guidance, and
then we're seeing more and morepartnership come up.
And when we talk abouttransports of the day, let's
start by going through and Isaid Team FC.
I'm going to go old school,Craig Fred let's talk about what
(06:01):
are some of the importanttransports that are in play
today, and let's talk aboutFibre Channel and SAS and where
that's it, where it is and evenpotentially where it's going
well, fibre Channel probablywould be considered one of the
original and the oldest SANstorage area network technology.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
the the Fibre Channel specification goes back 30
years and I was part of it for agood portion of that probably
longer than I want to admit.
I chaired the protocolcommunity and a lot of the other
work groups.
The thing about Fibre Channelis that it has stuck around
(06:48):
despite the fact that peopleevery few years declare it dead.
It's still in there.
It's still being deployed inenterprise data centers.
It's still a very importanttechnology for a lot of the
enterprise customers who areusing Fiber Channel, basically
because it's been around for along time.
It's reliable, stable, fast andthey trust it.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
We should do a dedicated one.
Just called Fiber Channel isdead.
Long live Fiber Channel right.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Now on the SaaS side, fred what's happening and
what's happened, and where do wesee SaaS being really prevalent
today?
Speaker 5 (07:28):
Now on the SaaS side Fred, what's happening and
what's happened and where do wesee SaaS being really prevalent
today?
Well, saas came about from theoriginal parallel SCSI days as
part of a smaller, more localfiber channel area and using a
serial protocol rather than theparallel technology.
(07:50):
But it has still continued,gone through a number of speed
bumps, getting faster, addingnew capabilities, improving the
performance, still offering allof the full features that SCSI
offers, all of the capabilitiesthat enterprise environments
have come to depend on.
So it's still a significantarea of storage devices, both
(08:16):
SSDs and hard disk drives, soit's something that still is
important today.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
And this is always I used to well, I still say all
the time is you know, you callit legacy, I call it production
Quite often.
We get sometimes caught up inthe hype of things that are
coming and forgetting how broadand widely adopted a lot of
these technologies are.
They're still going to be inplay for a long time, are
(08:45):
they're still going to be inplay for a long time?
And as fast as technology movesand workloads change AI
workloads being the hottestthing lately, of course what
we're seeing is that more andmore innovation in other areas
allows these technologies tocontinue to add value and
actually come to the fore.
So what we're going to see,even on the software side,
database technologies, whichwere very limited before now,
(09:05):
are suddenly moving back to thefront because of capabilities
that are happening with some ofthe stuff that's going on the
protocol side to allow softwareto kind of latch on to better
capabilities and use more ofwhat's there.
With that, I guess we'll talkabout the real hot topic, and
the most prevalent I think thatwe see is NVMe.
(09:25):
So, fred, let's talk aboutwhere that came from and, again,
what's coming up in the NVMeworld.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
So NVMe is a technology targeting the
solid-state drives, ssds.
It's a protocol that's builtspecifically to achieve the
maximum performance that thattechnology offers.
So its primary transporttechnology is the PCI bus and
the different speeds that thatis available in different
(09:55):
generations to get as muchperformance as possible out of
those SSD drives, out of thoseSSD drives.
So in addition, that wasexpanded into the network world
with NVMe-OF, where thetransport can be any number of
different things.
We have the ability to use RDMA, the ability to use fiber
(10:17):
channel as the transport tocarry the NVMe protocols.
We have several others usingTCP IP that can carry that as
well.
So the fabric technologies arestill a very large part of the
NVMe environment.
In fact, second only to the PCIarea is the fiber channel area.
That that is a very largeadoption area for the NVMe
(10:40):
protocol.
So we have it both in thedirect connect technology of PCI
as well as the fabrictechnologies everywhere, from
TCP through fiber channel,through RDMA or many other kinds
of wires that can carry thoseprotocols.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Now I guess the next one.
When we talk about thedistributed workloads and the
hyperscalers and what we'reseeing with more disaggregated
infrastructure.
This launched also the need forwhat came to be CXL
infrastructure.
We're seeing new innovation andideation coming around
ultra-Ethernet.
(11:21):
So, craig, do you want to sharewhat is CXL at its core and UEC
, and what are you seeing that'sbeing done in the SNEA
community related to both ofthose things?
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Well, cxl is a new technology.
It's both a bus and a network.
Potentially, as the CXL matures, it's becoming more and more.
It's reaching out more and moreto allow for broader
configurations.
(11:55):
The one thing that really is aninteresting promise of CXL is
to use memory more efficiently,to be able to have pools of
memory.
You might have tiers of memorywhere you have your local host
memory, which is your fastestaccess, and then the idea is you
have CXL pool, which is maybe abigger pool but it will be a
(12:16):
little bit slower access because, of course, latency going out.
You always have higher latencywhen you go out on the machine,
but you still have a higherspeed memory out there than you
might have for other storagetechnologies.
And then UltraEthernet is thenew kid in the block.
It's taking a lot of thelessons learned over 20, 30
(12:40):
years in networking and applyingto a whole new set of features
for congestion, very, very largedeployments in terms of
millions of nodes, data lossprotection and the idea is to
deploy this in HPC as well as AIworkloads and there have been
(13:05):
existing technology that can dothis PCB data set of bridging
and Ethernet is one of them, andyou would see where it takes
that to the next step and usesthe most recent technologies.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
There's definitely a lot of stuff and we're going to
have independent podcasts andsome of the conversation.
There's information that youcan find as well.
So I recommend folks that aredabbling with looking ahead look
for a lot more.
That's going to come up withwhat SNEA and the UEC folks are
doing.
So pretty cool there.
Now, since we're talking aboutdown to the form factor and
(13:41):
we've got these wild newdeployment patterns and
operational patterns, we'rechanging how we're physically
deploying.
So let's talk about SFF, my BFF, anthony.
What does SFF do for us andwhat has SNE sort of created
(14:02):
with the work that you and theteam are doing?
Speaker 6 (14:07):
Yeah, so.
So Fred and Craig talkedearlier about the transport
layer.
What we're trying to do isbasically build the, the
electromechanical interconnectbetween, you know, a host and a
device, and so what SFF doesessentially?
We create those cables, thoseconnectors, form factors, all of
(14:30):
those bits and pieces that areneeded so you can physically
assemble these devices togetherto go talk to each other.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
And one thing that popped up was EDSFF, because we
never have enough acronyms inour world, so tell us more.
Speaker 6 (14:51):
Yeah.
So EDSFF which I guess a word ofwarning, never have engineers
design a name for a device butEDSFF was built as a ground-up
solution to basically solve aproblem around existing storage
form factors.
(15:15):
A lot of the form factors forstorage were built around the
hard disk drive and as we wentinto the SSD era I mean not that
our hard disk drives aren'tstill around, but going into the
SSD era we needed new formfactors to be able to cool them,
to be able to fit more into acertain form factor or the
(15:36):
certain server or device.
And so what we did is wecreated this uh ground up
standard to be able to talk to,to be able to fit into some of
these uh servers and new serverusages, um, and so we created
edsff in order to go solve thatproblem and it's kind of taken
off on on on its own, becausenow it's not only being used for
(16:01):
SSDs but we're also using itfor, like, a CXL memory module.
It's being looked at from anetwork form factor as well.
So it has it's kind of takenoff into its own usages.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
And because of that you know what else are you
seeing in general in theindustry that is making use of
this in the SSF world.
Speaker 6 (16:31):
Yeah, so I mentioned the SSDs, cxl memory and the
network devices.
Really, some of the otherthings are what are we doing
about AI, basically, what do youdo about some of the processors
for that?
And so we've been looking atsolutions for that.
We've been looking at cablingto connect to some of those
(16:54):
devices, whether it's copper oroptical interconnects, and so
our transceivers group has beenworking on updating
specifications to not only hit,like the current speeds, but
what are we doing in the future?
For you know, 224, 448 plus,right, so a lot of these higher
speeds.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
I'm still holding out for ATM at the desktop.
I'm old school.
I remember working at thefinancial world and we actually
had ATM cards going to traderdesks.
So it's been surprising where Iguess that's for me as an
outsider looking in.
That's what's been fantastic tosee the birth of these
standards in SNEA and then theinnovation that occurs through
(17:37):
the industry partnerships, thatoccurs through the industry
partnerships, and then sometimeswhat's old becomes new again
and we see, because of changesin patterns of applications and
infrastructure, none of thesestandards are there for a reason
, because then we have awell-defined method and group of
folks that contributed to thatcollective standard.
(17:58):
It's very, very difficult in ourworld where people can just pop
up a startup, come up with abrand new idea and then go
completely independent andproprietary and then the risk
there is, then the ability toinnovate is kind of capped.
You can do a lot, butultimately it's whatever the
proverb would be is that we getthere faster by going as a group
(18:20):
than going alone.
So it's been interesting to seeand let's move on.
We'll talk about, because Ihaven't got enough puns left in
my world.
Should I stay or should I go?
Sta, anthony, what is STA andwhat does that come into play
around the SNEA world?
Speaker 6 (18:38):
So ST sta is the scuzzy trade association um, but
basically their mission is topromote the understanding and
use of uh, serial attachedscuzzy um.
And really what they're doingis they're trying to influence
the evolution of scuzzystandards to meet future
industry needs now, what do wedo?
Speaker 2 (18:58):
you know what are some are some of the meetups and
things that we do in order todrive some of those
conversations, because folks maynot, if they're brand new to
SNEA, they may not know kind ofwhat type of stuff.
I know we've got plug fests,we've got other things that we
do.
What are ways that peopleactually collaborate on these
(19:18):
ideas?
Speaker 6 (19:20):
I mean, I think the biggest one is probably the plug
fest.
Right, there's SAS plug feststhat occur every so often that
people can kind of come in intoa room and do effectively a you
know, does my device work withthis, does my device work with
(19:41):
that, you know, and kind of comein and go and flush some of
those, you know, maybe flushproblems out, maybe flush out
some concerns that they've hadand being able to go see that.
And then of course there's alsoobviously joining stay.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
And luckily it's super easy to do.
That's one thing I found SNE isfantastic of being able to
reach beyond your current columnof people you talk to.
It's easy to spread across thepractices and pillars obviously
(20:21):
a big area of work.
So, fred Craig, what are SNEA'sactivities that are using NVMe
and innovating and buildingaround that?
Speaker 5 (20:31):
Well, there are several activities that SNEA has
partnered with NVMe.
An interesting one is thecomputational storage area, or
having compute near the data,and NVMe has worked on the
project at the protocol level toenable the interaction between
(20:53):
the operating system, the host,the applications and the
computation that lives in thestorage device and the
computation that lives in thestorage device.
And SNEA has been working onapplication layer APIs so that
applications can take advantageof those capabilities in a
standard way.
So we have at the SNEA layer,the SNEA organization, we build
(21:15):
the standards for the layer ofthe applications, for the device
drivers, for all thecommunication within the host,
the layer of the applicationsfor the device drivers, for all
the communication within thehost, and then NVMe is working
on the protocol to carry thatinformation from the host over
to the storage device where theoperations can actually occur.
So it's a very nice kind ofcooperative effort between SNEA
and NVMe on how that having thecompute near the data, the
(21:39):
computational storage, worktogether between the two
organizations.
We've also developed withinSNEA something called the NVMeOF
drive specification, which is acommon connector, a common way
to put a bunch of NVMe OF drivestogether and have those
(22:01):
connected up over Ethernet orsomething such as that, and that
is a common specification thatSNEA built but which operates
with NVMe drives in thatpackaging.
So you can imagine a shelf thathas a bunch of either straight
PCI NVMe drives that has anEthernet front end to talk to a
(22:24):
host, or maybe it's a bunch ofEthernet NVMe OF drives that are
all in that shelf, that are allconnected then to a host where
SNEA has been the designer ofthat specification, packaging
and connector, whereas it's thestandard NVMe protocol that's
used to communicate to thatshelf of devices.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
So it also, as I say, on the management side.
Now then that becomes the.
You're not even just at theprotocol layer, but the
management layer, which ispretty nifty.
So I saw Swordfish pop up inthe talk track.
I'm like, oh, rochelle's earswill be burning in a great way.
What's the connection withSwordfish and NVMe?
Speaker 5 (23:09):
Well, swordfish is the storage part of the Redfish
management operations that arefor entire platforms.
So the Swordfish part is thestorage part and that is
developed by the SNEAorganization and so we interact
with a number of the protocols.
Nvme is, of course, the latest,but we also include management
(23:34):
of SCSI and other storageprotocols in that Swordfish
management capability protocolsin that Swordfish management
capability.
So we also have somethingcalled SDP that we're working on
within SNEA.
That's storage data placement.
Everyone probably remembers fromthe hard drive days when we
talked about cylinder track andsector, where you could design
(23:57):
applications that knew somethingabout the geometry of the
hardware and you could takeadvantage of that to build a
faster access to that storage.
Well, with solid-state driveswe don't have cylinders track in
sectors anymore, but we dostill have fancy hardware
components involved, and havingsome level of knowledge about
(24:19):
that or being able to provideknowledge to the drive about the
data itself are ways thatadditional performance can be
eked out of those drives.
So the SDP program is a way oflooking at the zone storage
that's provided by both SMRdrives as well as the zone
devices within SSDs.
(24:40):
It can also apply to theindividual die level within an
SSD through something called.
Oh help me, bill, what's thename of the?
Is it FDP?
The name within NVMe.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Yes, flexible data placement.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
Yes, the flexible data placement, where the host
can indicate to the device thatthere are certain sets of data
that are related to each otherand so they should be placed
close together within the SSDarchitecture so that the
management operations within thedevice can get some better
performance by knowing thatinformation.
(25:21):
So the way to To do that isagain through an application
layer API, which is what SNEA isdeveloping in its storage data
placement specification, to beable to provide a way to
interface to the storage levelprotocols, which are either the
(25:42):
zoned devices or the FTP, theflexible data placement devices,
the FTP, the Flexible DataPlacement Devices.
So, again, a cooperationbetween SNEA managing and
operating the data and providinginformation and attributes
about the data to the lowerlevel protocols, which could be
either be SCSI or NVMe.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
One of the things that was fun about SDC.
A couple years ago I rememberbringing some folks who were,
you know, I'd been working within the industry, who were on the
software side, in andintroducing them to folks at SDC
and it was neat to see wherework like stuff that's happening
with FTP, there were somepeople trying to tackle it on
the software side not realizingthere's opportunity where
(26:24):
there's work that's being doneon the hardware layer and it's.
I guess we look over decades.
Right, when everything came offat first of Flash, we worried
about what's the life cycle ofit, and then the more and more
that we drive this innovation onincreasing the ability, we can
reduce wear, we can increasesustainability.
(26:47):
And for the folks that werearound two years ago, when
sustainability was everybody's,it was dripping off the tongues
of every vendor marketer, wehave always been working on
sustainability and at theprotocol and at the placement
layer.
That's where I think is reallycool that people don't always
see this stuff on the outsides,you know, in the consumer market
(27:10):
.
But this is the kind of workthat allows us to really stretch
the life of hardware and have atrue impact on sustainability.
And since I'm old school andI'm going to go back to my FC
(27:31):
world.
Let's talk, craig, on what hasbeen done with around FC and
what is going on with stuff thatmakes FC and the definition of
some of those specs important inwhat SNEA is doing.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
So SNEA and Fiber General have worked together for
a long time, going back to someoriginal management profiles
that were done, and this wasprobably 15, 20 years ago.
All the way up to today, thework is taking place around
security.
Snea and Fiber Channel havebeen working on a joint security
(28:03):
white paper.
It's actually an update of thewhite paper that's been around
for a while and securityprotocols change based on best
practices and so um, currentlyum, they've been working in our
general community, have beenworking together to update the
existing white paper, um, andand that the knowledge around
that with the existing bestpractices, that that, that um,
(28:26):
the security community is, andthe good thing too is for folks
that maybe don't even recognizeall this stuff that's going
practices that the securitycommunity is using.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
And the good thing too is for folks that maybe
don't even recognize all thestuff that's going on.
We're going to make referenceto some of the white papers and
other work that's been published.
If you go to the SNEA site, ofcourse you can check through the
document library.
There's lots of informationthere.
We'll include some links in thepodcast notes as well and, of
course, anybody that wants toreach out just always hit up the
(28:52):
folks at SNEA and you'll findthere's a lot of stuff that's
been done and great reading andresearch that we can tap into
before we think we've got a newidea going forward.
And then it goes beyond thisbecause it's not just within
SNEA but the partnerships.
And that's why CXL wasinteresting, because of course
CXL is fairly far along in someof the work that's been done.
(29:14):
You know the specification hasmoved up in version numbers
quite a bit since I've beenwatching it and since it's been
around.
So, craig Anthony, if you guyswant to sort of pick and choose
who wants to talk about what isthe relationship with SNEA and
CXL and what you see as kind ofneat things that are coming
ahead for us.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
Well, you know it's still being explored for CXL,
but some possible future tie-insmight be into the SDXI
workgroup, which is a SNEA datamover.
There might be some interestingthings working with CXL and
that, and so SDXI is astandardized data mover that
(29:59):
allows you to have a hardwaredata mover that software, more
than just a proprietary driver,knows how to use, and when
you're talking about moving datain between pools of memory in
CXL, that could be a good fit,and so that's just one of the
areas that are possible fits forCXL.
But it's a new technology soit's still open as to what
(30:25):
exactly all the differentapplications could be.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
It's still open as to what exactly?
all the different applicationscould be.
So let me jump in there withone other thought on that as
well.
One of the things we arelooking at in SNEA is we're
looking at how do you mergethree different things, how do
you merge CXL, computationalstorage and SGXI storage and
(30:52):
SGXI and you can take all threeof these things and merge them
together to provide anenvironment where you have
different types of data movement, you have coherency and all
three protocols working together.
And we're looking at thatcurrently within SNEA.
But we're looking at taking twoof our technical workgroups the
computational storage workgroupand the STXI workgroup and
(31:13):
working together on that and howwe incorporate CXL with that as
well.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Nice and Anthony, you had something to add as well.
Speaker 6 (31:23):
Yeah, and we've had a little bit of collaboration
there on terms of the CXL memoryside.
I mean, I mentioned the CXLmemory module before.
That was a collaborationbetween the SFF portion of CINEA
and JADEC, jadec doing thememory side and then CXL being
involved from the protocoltransport side and then us from
(31:45):
the physical hardware side, fromthe protocol transport side and
then us from the physicalhardware side.
So it was a really goodindustry collaboration and a
really good example of what wecan do when we kind of all put
our heads together to kind of gosolve a problem.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Exactly, and this is again why I've been a longtime
fan of SNEA.
It's a bloody honor to be ableto be the host of the podcast
because I get to hang out withamazing folks, like all of you,
and see as we go, to watch thisevolution over time.
And, as you said, even theorganization evolves as we see
working groups begin to sort ofmerge and collaborate and cross
(32:19):
over.
It can't be done in a vacuumand certainly can't be done in
an ivory tower.
So it's great to see I knowwe've got one more quick thing
to hit because we've got to wrap, and I wish I could do this all
day with you folks.
But let's talk about the farfuture and very early work.
What about UEC, craig?
(32:40):
We mentioned it a bit before.
What is the state today of thework with the UltraEthernet
Consortium and what do you seeas the next stages for folks to
be able to watch and getinvolved?
Speaker 4 (32:54):
So right now UEC and SNEA are working on an alliance
agreement and UEC is in adevelopment phase.
Right now no specificationshave been released so at this
point I can't talk aboutspecifics within UEC Coming up.
(33:17):
In the next six months or soyou'll start seeing some more
public information on that.
But some areas that I thinkthat SNEA and UEC can really
work together on SNEA juststarted a task force to look at
AI applications for SNEA and UECcan really work together on.
Snea just started a task forceto look at AI applications for
SNEA and UEC.
I believe could be a big partof that, especially in some of
(33:40):
the storage areas.
But you know, without havingeverybody sign an NDA,
unfortunately I can't talk moreabout that at this point.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Well and again, I think this is why this has been
such a fantastic chat and I knowit's been a bit of a speed run
through things.
But if I would go back to whywe did this and why this is such
a great discussion to have, wecan see the breadth of coverage
that's happening within SNEA,the amount of people that are
collaborating and being there aswe define what's the future.
(34:10):
What will UEC look like?
What will the collaborationlook like, being able to get
involved and to spend time withfine folks like yourselves.
I tell people, just go jump in.
Being a part of SNEA is abeautiful thing, it's not costly
at all and it's also justnothing but positive as far as
I've seen, and now that we'redoing more and stuff back in
(34:34):
person.
We saw SDC in Austin, so we'reseeing maybe even some more
quarterly and more often andmore regional events where we
can collaborate.
It's a great chance for peopleto get involved and jump in.
And again I want to thankeverybody.
You've all been great today,bill.
Just one last thing.
What's if you could collapse itinto a couple of sentences why
(34:57):
is all of this awesome and whatis being an expert on data in
the transport world mean to you.
Oh, we got you muted there.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Thank you.
I think the biggest thing isit's been said over and over we
are collaborating with a largenumber of organizations that are
all related to the transport ofdata and we bring them together
, we work together with them, webring them together, we work
together with them and, asAnthony mentioned, it's even a
(35:32):
matter of kind of being thecenterpiece that brings other
organizations together toenhance the overall industry in
terms of how we transport dataand we will continue moving
(35:53):
forward with that as we moveinto the next generation in the
UEC.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Amazing, yeah, and it's been an inspiration to
watch.
Thank you all for taking thetime to share today.
Again, for folks that are brandnew to us, make sure you do go
head on over to the SNEA website, get yourself signed up, join
the community Watch.
We've got the Experts on Datapodcast is both in audio format.
It's also on the YouTubechannel, so if you're listening,
pop on over and you can seethese fantastic, beautiful faces
directly.
(36:16):
And if you want to see them inperson, we've got lots of events
that are coming up.
Head to the SNEA page.
Check out what's ahead andwatch for more as we talk about
all of the different practiceareas.
Thank you all, folks.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
My name is Eric Wright.
Again, thank you for listeningto the SNEA Experts on Data
podcast.
Thank you for listening.
For additional information onthe material presented in this
podcast.
Be sure and check out oureducational library at sniaorg
slash library.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.