Paper Title: Improved Drive Qualification Methods for Enterprise SSDs

Paper Abstract: SSD suppliers are bringing improved products and new technologies such as NVMe to market at a breathtaking pace. How do we keep qualification procedures up-to-date? Enterprise OEMs must partner with SSD suppliers to accelerate the cycle time of drive qualifications, improving time-to-market. Joint Drive Qualification (JDQ) activities are essential and benefit both OEMs and SSD suppliers. Critical issues include determining test system requirements, sharing qualification drives, and developing common test strategies. In particular, OEMs should share their early, non-production systems and application specific test scripts with drive suppliers. In turn, drive suppliers should share early-ship versions of their drives with the OEMs for the purpose of starting qualification activity earlier. The outcome will be earlier discovery and resolution of problems during the qualification process, which will lead to higher-quality product introductions, even in a fast-changing, highly competitive marketplace.

Paper Author: Jeffrey Fritzjunker, Manager, Supply Chain Engineering, Storage Device Qualification, IBM

Author Bio: Jeff Fritzjunker is a Senior Engineering Manager at IBM focused on leading a worldwide team of engineers in qualification of enterprise HDDs and SDDs for all IBM brands. He has also led test engineering teams for POWER systems servers and for several IBM supercomputers, including serving as a lead engineer for the IBM/LANL Roadrunner supercomputer project, which produced the world’s first Petaflop supercomputer in 2008. He has published articles in the IBM Journal of Research and Development and has given presentations at previous Flash Memory Summits. A 30-year veteran of IBM, he earned an MSEE from the University of Minnesota and a BS in computer engineering from Iowa State University.