What is NVMe in the Computer Network?


NVMe stands for Non-Volatile Memory Express. It is a new storage access and transport protocol for flash and next-generation solid-state drives (SSDs) that delivers the largest throughput and fastest response times yet for all types of enterprise workloads.

NVMe is a faster way for solid-state drives to communicate with their host systems. It is an optimized and high-controller scalable interface, which is mainly designed to address the need for Enterprise. It supports 64k of parallel command queues. It is much faster than hard disks, which are limited to a single command queue.

The main benefit associated with the NVM express is that it improves the performance and increases the IOPs. NVMe is an interface specification for connecting storage to servers via the PCI Express bus.

In layman’s terms, it is a faster way for SSDs to communicate with their host systems. It helps alleviate the bottleneck that occurred when connected to a high-speed flash connected to systems via the SAS or SATA connections initially designed for HDDs.

NVMe storage supports up to 64,000 queues with 64,000 entries each. In other words, it’s like going from a one-lane road to a 64,000-lane road with room for 64,000 cars in each lane.

The drivers of NVMe are much faster than the drivers of SATA. The input and output tasks performed using NVMe drivers begin and finish faster than the older drivers, such as AHCI.

The NVMe specification defines a register interface, command set and collection of features for PCIe-based SSDs with the goals of high performance and interoperability across a broad range of NVM subsystems. The NVMe specification does not stipulate the ultimate usage model, such as solid-state storage, main memory, cache memory or backup memory.

It allows organizations to provide scalable storage without having to change their network architecture fundamentally and provides latencies akin to that provided from conventional direct-attached storage.

NVMe technology allows the merits of flash-based storage to be performed at a much larger scale and is not limited to the boundaries of the PCIe backplane-based framework.

With NVMe-oF technology, it will be available to connect a huge number of SSDs in a network far more than the number that can be held by the way of PCIe backplanebased based frameworks. With NVMe-oF technology, high implementation, and low latency flash-based storage resources can be disaggregated from the servers and combined into a network-connected, shared resource.

In a local NVMe execution, NVMe commands and responses are mapped to shared memory in a host that has accomplished the PCIe interface. Fabrics are developed on the approach of transmitting and receiving messages without shared memory between the endpoints.

The NVMe fabric message transfers are created to encapsulate NVMe commands and responses into a message-based system by utilizing “capsules” that contain one or more NVMe commands or responses. The capsules, or set of capsules, and data are independent of the particular fabric technology and are transmitted and received over the desired fabric technology.

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Updated on: 05-May-2021

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