University Lab Provides Interoperability Testing

The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL), an independent provider of broad-based testing and standards conformance services for the networking and storage industries, is accepting founding members for the laboratory’s new Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) Consortium.

The NVMe Consortium will focus on developing an interoperability test suite for NVMe compliant software and devices. Founding members will join industry leaders Dell, EMC, IDT, Intel, LSI Corporation, NetApp, Oracle and SanDisk to create new high-performance storage solutions based on the NVMe standard for PCIe SSDs.

NVMe is a standard interface for PCIe SSDs that will accelerate industry adoption of those devices and enables optimized performance (latency and throughput) for both client and enterprise applications. To develop an ecosystem for PCIe SSDs, the NVMe Promoters Group turned to the UNH-IOL to form the NVMe Consortium. The laboratory provides a vendor neutral location for members to test conformance of their products to the NVMe specification and to test interoperability of their motherboards and drives utilizing the NVMe interface with other members.

As the first laboratory to offer testing for the NVMe specification, the UNH-IOL gives members a first mover advantage in preparing their products for market. Member companies have early access to the lab’s NVMe test suite and custom test tools, and also have the opportunity to provide input into the testing process. As an independent organization, the UNH-IOL is committed to neutral testing of open standards technology to ensure credible results.

"NVMe is focused on delivering an open architecture with unparalleled performance and scalability. The NVMe Promoters are pleased to collaborate with the UNH-IOL to ensure that a robust compliance and interoperability program is available for all NVMe elements of PCIe SSD based solutions. This will enable everyone involved in the development of NVMe based products to deliver solutions that meet customers’ expectations of dependability, reliability and interoperability," said Don Walker, Systems Architect in the Dell Enterprise Office of the CTO, on behalf of the NVMe Promoters Group.

The NVMe specification, developed cooperatively by more than 80 companies from across the industry, was released on March 1, 2011 by the NVMe Work Group. The NVMe 1.0 specification defines an optimized register interface, command set and feature set for PCIe SSDs utilized in both enterprise and client systems. The NVMe specification is the only interface specification optimized for PCIe SSDs that has been released and is publicly available.

The UNH-IOL collaborative testing model distributes the cost of performing trusted, independent testing and validation through an annual membership.