What is NVMe-oF and How is it Changing Enterprise Data Storage?

NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) represents a more efficient method of connectivity between storage and servers, revolutionizing the all-flash array. It has the ability to unlock the potential everyone knew was there all along and to change enterprise data storage for good.

Previously, there were just three options when it came to a connection type for your storage area network (SAN): the internet protocol (IP)-based small computer systems interface iSCSI, serial attached SCSI (SAS) and Fibre Channel protocol (FCP).

Despite working well for hard-disk drives and tape storage systems, these options were found to cause a bottleneck when it came to the performance of solid-state drives (SSDs). This is where the NVMe protocol was brought in to solve the problem. It’s a tailor-made solution to connect SSDs to PCIe buses.

What is NVMe over Fabrics?

NVMe-oF functions by determining which of several network protocols to use and wrapping NVMe commands up into it. These range from Fibre Channel and iWARP to RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) and Infiniband. Recently, it’s also been expanded to include Transmission Control Panel (TCP).

While the Fibre Channel typically offers speeds of around 32Gbps, some of the other options are particularly impressive. It’s been suggested Infiniband and Ethernet can reach speeds of 100 Gbps.

NVMe benefits

The headline benefits of NVMe include:

• Low latency
• An ability to deal with extra parallel requests
• Improved overall performance
• Shorter OS storage stacks at the server end
• Better storage array performance
• Faster connectivity between SAS and Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) drives and SSDs
• Multiple uses for varying scenarios

Even though NVMe-oF is a relatively new technology, its many benefits are already being seen and incorporating it into network architectures has become widespread. It takes full advantage of modern SSDs to provide a state-of-the-art storage protocol.

Organizations that require high throughputs and low latencies are especially well-positioned to take advantage of NVMe-oF. The protocol supports such workloads by overcoming the gap between direct-attached storage (DAS) and SANs.

Those prepared to use third-party software tools to optimize write endurance and data services can use NVMe-oF flash cards to replace traditional SSDs. While there are a number of high-performance gains in this approach, they must be balanced against persistent bottlenecks.

Innovative new uses for NVMe-oF have included improving analytics in real time and integrating it into artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities. As the technology evolves, its integration into rack-scale flash systems will no doubt make it invaluable.

Is NVMe the future?

Despite the huge potential of NVMe, adopting new technologies is never straightforward and vast quantities of existing hardware will need to be updated in order to accommodate it. Research has shown that a relatively small number of organizations have started to use the protocol.

In fact, some studies have shown just 6.5% of respondents have connected 50% or more of their environment with NVMe. While this may seem like a slow start, the benefits outlined are likely to lead to greater deployment going forward.

When deploying NVMe, IT departments must decide which route to take in order to make the most of the technology:

• Utilizing Parallel I/O technology can improve storage performance by up to five times and has the ability to remove bottlenecks
• Just a small amount of NVMe storage combined with SDS and dynamic block-level auto-tiering can make a noticeable improvement to performance
• Migrations can be avoided by using Software-Defined Storage in conjunction with Fibre Channel Gen6 support and NVMe over a network-attached storage (NAS)

From early adopters to the mainstream

Current NVMe technology being used by early adopters is still overcoming hurdles, but it’s expected to enter the mainstream in the not-too-distant future. While NVMe isn’t always required, it’s likely to become the norm in new storage systems of the future.

IT professionals can expect NVMe to be the standard way to connect SSD drives, replacing SCSI and SAS in high-performance environments. Whether or not the tendency will be to lean towards high-end NVMe-oF with additional features or pared-back architecture with just enough storage to perform remains to be seen.