#117 – Introduction to Computational Storage with NGD Systems

This week’s episode is the final recording from Flash Memory Summit 2019. Chris is joined by the team from NGD Systems for a discussion on Computational Storage. On this podcast are Scott Shadley, VP of Marketing, Nader Salessi, CEO and Ashok Savdharia who has the lovely title of “technologist”.

Computational storage uses the processing power of modern SSD controllers to run application workloads directly on the SSD itself. Imagine each drive being a mini blade server, with compute, memory and storage. In the case of NGD Systems, this means a range of devices and form factors in a product family called Newport.

Aside from the fascinating ability to run applications directly on an SSD, what could be really attractive about in-situ processing with computational storage is the ability to use the local compute capability with little or no power overhead. The team explains how this is achieved and explain some of the use cases that make computational storage devices an interesting area to watch, especially for edge computing.

In the recording, Scott references the SNIA working group, which can be found online here – https://www.snia.org/computational.

Elapsed Time: 00:29:22

Timeline

• 00:00:00 – Intros
• 00:01:30 – What is Computational Storage?
• 00:02:40 – How real are the products & solutions today?
• 00:03:55 – Form factors – what is available?
• 00:07:30 – Running Containers & Linux for applications
• 00:10:00 – Products should be as cheap as standard drives
• 00:12:00 – ASIC than FPGA is a cheaper solution at scale
• 00:13:30 – What applications run on a computational device?
• 00:15:43 – Cluster file system – share the data with the host
• 00:17:30 – Drives can run databases like MongoDB and TensorFlow
• 00:20:00 – What manages workload processing across multiple devices?
• 00:22:25 – Computational devices will have strong edge use cases
• 00:26:00 – Customer creativity will generate new and interesting solutions
• 00:28:00 – Where are the gaps?  What needs to be done?
• 00:29:20 – Wrap Up

Related Podcasts & Blogs

• #57 – Storage on the Edge with Scott Shadley
• #37 – State of the Storage Union with Chris Mellor
• The Practicality of In-Situ Processing

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