Paper Title: NVMe-oF: Enabling the Next Generation Infrastructure

Paper Abstract: With NVMe poised to take over as the interface of choice for connecting super-fast storage devices to servers, the next logical question is: "What about the network between servers and storage?" Enter NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF), the high-bandwidth, low-latency protocol for enabling shared (multi-host) access to NVMe storage. This talk will describe the system-level performance improvements that has been experienced so far by way of NVMe-oF. While speed and throughput are compelling, additional capabilities are required for NVMe-oF to serve as a robust, general-purpose, enterprise-class storage fabric. As such, this talk will also review the state of these capabilities for NVMe-oF over Fibre Channel and Ethernet fabrics. NVMe-oF over Fibre Channel is maturing quickly into a solid offering in the near-term, whereas NVMe-oF over Ethernet will take more time. The talk will close with some surprising side-effects in the SCSI world that have been induced with the advent of NVMe technology.

Paper Author: David Black, Distinguished Engineer, Dell EMC

Author Bio: David L. Black, Ph.D., is a Distinguished Engineer in the Dell EMC Office of the CTO, where he works on storage networking standards and technology, including NVMe and NVMe over Fabrics. An important current focus is on effective use of NVMe over Fabrics at scale in networked storage systems. He was one of the original architects and designers of both iSCSI and NVMe over fabrics and a long-time leader in the standardization of these and related technologies in storage and networking. Dr. Black holds both a Ph.D. and an M.S. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University along with an M.A. in Mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania.