Paper Title: Dual-Mode SSD Architecture for Next-Generation Hyperscale Data Centers

Paper Abstract: Next-generation hyperscale data centers pose new challenges to solid-state storage systems in terms of performance, flexibility, and TCO optimization. Standard SSDs tuned for generic workloads cannot meet these challenges, resulting in suboptimal performance. A new dual-mode SSD architecture has been developed in response. It allows for storage devices supporting both Open Channel mode and standard NVMe mode to be plugged into the platform and be exposed as software/hardware integrated solutions to applications. This not only ensures maximum coverage of different application scenarios, but also achieves optimal performance through software/hardware co-design. Our evaluation shows that the dual-mode SSD solution deployed in a hyperscale infrastructure reduces access latency by up to 75%, and improves 99th percentile latency by a factor of 6.

Paper Author: Ping Zhou, Staff Engineer, Alibaba

Author Bio: Ping Zhou is a Staff Engineer/Storage Architect at Alibaba Group, where he is the engineering leader and architect for a dual-mode SSD (allowing for both Open Channel and standard NVMe operation). He has managed product design and development, and introduced hardware/software co-design and co-optimization solutions. He is also working on persistent memory and has deployed many new memory/storage technologies including 3D XPoint, ReRAM, Z-NAND, and MRAM. Before joining Alibaba, he was an engineer at Intel where he worked on cutting-edge 3D XPoint technology and NAND SSDs. He was a key contributor of core firmware modules and led task forces on error recovery and power/thermal management. He received his PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh, where he focused on emerging memory/storage technologies and architecture.