NVMe Debuts NVMe Over Fabrics Compliance Testing

NVM Express, Inc. hosted its eighth NVMe Plugfest at the University of New Hampshire Interoperability Laboratory in Durham, NH, during the week of October 30-November 2, 2018.

The event offered the first official NVMe Over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) compliance and interoperability transport layer testing for RoCE, Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) over Converged Ethernet, and the FC.

The testing performed by the UNH-IOL, an independent testing provider of standards conformance solutions and multi-vendor interoperability, generated 14 new certified products for the base NVMe Integrators list and one for the NVMe-MI Integrators list. Eight inaugural products were also approved for the launched NVMe-oF Integrators list, which accepts RoCE initiators and targets, Ethernet switches, as well as FC initiator, targets and switches, and software.

“Since 2013, the UNH-IOL has certified over 112 NVMe-based products at the NVM Express Plugfests,” David Woolf, senior engineer, datacenter technologies, UNH-IOL, said. “By continuing to prioritize specification compliance and interoperability testing, companies can ensure faster time to market and seamless interactions with other devices NVMe-based solutions.“

Attendance at the NVMe Plugfest included 63 engineers from 19 different companies focused in enterprise, client, cloud storage and test equipment manufacturing. Participating NVMe member companies included Broadcom, Brocade, Cavium, Cisco, Intel, Lite-On, Mellanox, Microsemi, Oakgate, SANBlaze, Seagate, SerialTek, SK Hynix, Starblaze, Teledyne-LeCroy, Via Technologies, Viavi, Toshiba and Western Digital.

“The growth and success of NVMe Plugfests demonstrate maturing NVM Express technology and a readiness for Fabrics,” Ryan Holmquist, chair, interoperability and compliance committee (ICC), NVMe, said. “Our testing events have expanded as existing standards evolve, offering a diverse and multiplying set of transports to test NVMe technologies-from PCIe architecture to over SAN, from ROCE or FC. Beyond technology growth, the Plugfests foster a collaborative environment for device analyzer, test equipment manufacturers and industry experts to discuss issues and exchange ideas.“

The next NVMe Plugfest will be held in spring 2018 at the UNH-IOL in Durham, N.H.

With more than 100 members, NVM Express, Inc. is a non-profit organization focused on enabling ecosystem adoption of high performance and low latency NVM storage through a standards-based approach. The organization offers an open collection of NVMe specifications and information to expose the benefits of non-volatile memory in all types of computing environments from mobile to data center. NVMe-based specifications are designed to deliver high bandwidth and low latency storage access for current and future NVM technologies. The NVMe Promoter Group is comprised of the following member companies: Cisco, Dell EMC, Facebook, Intel, Micron, Microsemi, Microsoft, NetApp, Oracle, Samsung, Seagate, Toshiba and Western Digital.