Paper Title: Optimizing NVMe Drives for Your Applications

Paper Abstract: IBM's Zurich Research Laboratory developed SALSA (SoftwAre Log Structured Array), a flexible Flash Translation Layer that aggregates and manages a group of inexpensive SSDs. It lives up to its name by adding a bit of spice to the managed SSDs! SALSA has a robust and simple LSA which allows for efficient garbage collection and reclamation, and in doing so can provide reduce write amplification to ensure higher endurance and performance. This talk will explain how SALSA has evolved to work effectively with Zoned Namespaces.

Paper Author: Andy Walls, Fellow/CTO/Chief Architect, Flash Storage, IBM

Author Bio: Andy Walls is Chief Architect and CTO for IBM's Flash Systems Division, and is widely recognized as an expert in storage and flash memory. He is an IBM Fellow, IBM's most prestigious honor. A 35-year storage industry veteran, Andy is a pioneer in enabling flash memory in the enterprise, including enabling TLC and QLC flash in the enterprise. He has developed an infrastructure for servers and storage which achieves the highest performance while still providing the endurance and availability that the enterprise and data center require. He was responsible for the Texas Memory Systems acquisition, and has since defined the architecture for all FlashSystem products including the very popular FlashSystem 840 and 900. He is currently defining next-generation products that can be used in traditional SAN environments and clouds, and also by emerging workloads. Andy has designed ASICs, PCBs, firmware stacks, and systems. Known as an innovator, he has filed over 100 patents. Andy earned a BSEE from UC Santa Barbara.