Ways Intel Optane Persistent Memory Showing Up in Enterprise Storage in 2019

This article, written by Ken Clipperton, lead analyst for storage, DCIG, LLC, was published on April 4, 2019.

Ways Persistent Memory is Showing Up in Enterprise Storage in 2019

Persistent Memory is bringing a revolution in performance, cost and capacity that will change server, storage system, data center and software design over the next decade. This article describes some ways storage vendors are integrating persistent memory into enterprise storage systems in 2019.

Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory Modules (PMM)
As noted in the second article in the series-NVMe-oF Delivering While Persistent Memory Remains Mostly a Promise – the lack of a standard DIMM format for persistent memory is a key barrier to the development of NVDIMMs. Nevertheless, Intel recently announced availability of pre-standard Optane DIMMs, branded Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory Modules.

Intel Corp. supports multiple modes for accessing Optane PMM. Each mode exposes different capabilities for systems to exploit. In ‘Memory Mode’, DRAM is paired with Optane. DRAM acts as a hot-data cache in front of the Optane capacity tier. Oddly, in memory mode the Optane is treated as volatile memory. A second mode for Optane PMM is called ‘App Direct Mode’. App Direct Mode uses Optane as persistent memory and writes to the Optane using load/store memory semantics.

NetApp, Inc. demonstrated one way this technology can be integrated into existing enterprise storage systems. It supports the use of Optane DIMMs in application servers as part of the NetApp Memory Accelerated (MAX) Data solution. It uses Optane PMM in App Direct Mode as a storage tier that integrates with NetApp AFF AFAs and data services. With NetApp MAX, applications do not need to be rewritten to take advantage of Optane. Instead, the solution presents the Optane memory as POSIX-compliant storage.

Optane SSDs
As noted in the first article in this series, multiple storage system providers are taking advantage of Optane SSDs. Some are using them to provide a large ultra-low-latency read cache. Some are using it as the primary storage layer. Still others are using it as the highest performing tier of storage in a multi-tiered storage environment.

MRAM replacing DRAM in SSDs
At the SNIA Persistent Memory Summit, one presenter said that the largest use of MRAM is already in AFAs. IBM Corp. uses MRAM in the SSDs of its AFAs. MRAM replaced prior DRAM in the SSDs, enabling more capacity in less space without the risk of data loss.

Persistent Memory Will Impact All Aspects of Data Processing
Technology companies have invested many millions of dollars in a variety of persistent memory technologies. Today, Intel’s Optane 3D XPoint and MRAM from multiple vendors are beginning to make their way into data center products.

We are in the very early phases of a revolution in performance, cost and capacity that will change server, storage system, data center and software design over the next decade.