Diablo Technology helped to redefine the use case for storage by placing flash directly on the memory bus and presenting it as a block-based storage device with its Memory Channel Storage technology (MCS). Now, Diablo aims to bring that same level of innovation into the memory market by expanding into utilizing flash as system memory with its new DDR4-compliant Memory 1 DIMMs.
In truth, the industry hasn't been utilizing flash to its fullest capabilities since its inception. The main hindrance has been the goal of maintaining compatibility with existing storage protocols and form factors, but Diablo's new technology takes advantage of the low latency and inherent high-performance characteristics of flash to augment system DRAM.
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In-memory processing is used heavily in big data, HPC, and distributed and relational databases. These increasingly popular applications have a nearly insatiable appetite for more DRAM capacity. Diablo's Memory 1 product fuses NAND onto a standard DDR4-compliant module and allows the system to communicate with the NAND as memory, thus increasing the addressable memory density by 10x. Each Memory 1 module can pack up to 256 GB of capacity, and the system supports up to 4 TB of memory in a standard 2-socket server configuration.
DRAM economics have always been a key roadblock for expanding in-memory processing applications; simply put, DRAM is expensive. The Memory 1 modules will cost roughly 1/10th the standard price of DRAM. They also require a mere 1.3 watts-per-GB, which helps keep ongoing expenses in check.
Unfortunately it is not just as simple as installing all-flash memory modules. Memory 1 modules serve as an adjunct to DRAM, so there will still be DRAM present in the system. This requires a translation layer to effectively route access to the correct areas of memory for the operating system and applications. Diablo created a thin software layer that manages the complexities without user intervention, which allows for seamless use without changes to the hardware, operating system or applications.
Each memory module is byte-addressable, which increases reliability because the system doesn't require RAID configurations to provide enough performance to supplement the existing DRAM pool. The system is compatible with Windows, VMware and Linux systems.
The concept of using flash as memory isn't entirely new; industry watchers have long touted the benefits of Flash As a Memory Extension (FAME) architectures, and a recent MIT project illustrated how it used NAND to reduce DRAM capacity and power requirements while simultaneously boosting performance. Over the years, several different techniques to supplement (or replace) DRAM with NAND have been proposed, but a clear solution to the problem has not emerged as of yet. Diablo is positioning its new technology to be the vehicle for the large-scale transition by easing design complexity, but any new approach will take a significant amount of support to emerge the victor.
The company indicated that its new technology can result in 90 percent fewer servers for some applications. The company is launching the product with large cloud and hyperscale companies at first, largely because they have the scale to leverage the benefits of the platform.
Diablo will have the new product on display at booth #413 at the upcoming Flash Memory Summit in Santa Clara, California.
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