Durham, NH. The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL), an independent provider of broad-based testing and standards conformance services for the networking industry, today announced the launch of its NVM Express over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) testing services and the release of its NVMe-oF Integrators List.
The first successful compliance and interoperability testing of NVMe-oF occurred at the NVM Express (NVMe) Plugfest held October 30 to November 2, 2017, in conjunction with NVMe Express Inc. and the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA). During the event three separate test scenarios were conducted: NVMe, NVMe-oF Ethernet and NVMe-oF Fibre Channel (FC). Testing of NVMe-oF solutions provides confidence in the maturity of the technology and the interoperability of products across multivendor networks regardless of the transport fabric, as well as ensuring a faster time to market for companies.
“With an increasing demand for lower latency and higher application performance, the storage industry has been moving towards NVMe and NVMe-oF solutions. As NVMe-oF solutions reach maturity, our new NVMe-oF testing services and NVMe-oF Integrators List assure customers that their products are interoperable and serve as a building block for a successful future of testing additional capabilities,” said David Woolf, senior engineer, Datacenter Technologies, UNH-IOL. “The UNH-IOL is pleased to continue supporting the on-going efforts of NVM Express Inc. to drive NVMe technology, through our neutral venue that continuously tests the specifications as the technology develops and matures.”
The plethora of NVMe-oF controllers, storage management software, and storage target solutions at the recent NVMe Plugfest reveals the maturity of the technology and the need for interoperability to speed time to market. The UNH-IOL NVMe-oF testing services and NVMe-oF Integrators List ensure interoperability between the components for building an NVMe-oF solution, including drive enclosures, host bus adapters (HBA), switches, and the internal NVMe storage devices. As NVMe-oF solutions allow fabric access to flash storage over existing and reliable transports, such as FC and RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE), it is important to test for interoperability across the entire stack. The UNH-IOL provides third-party validation that all components are interoperable to ensure products achieve their end goal whether using FC or RoCE transport.
Testing at the recent NVMe Plugfest certified three inaugural products from the following companies for the NVMe-oF Integrators List: Cavium, Mellanox, and Toshiba. Designed to create confidence among customers that products are interoperable, qualifying devices will continue to be added to the NVMe-oF Integrators List.
“UNH-IOL testing gives us the confidence that our hardware and software products are interoperable and provides external validation through its NVMe-oF Integrators List to our customers that it will work across multi-vendor networks,” said Cameron Brett, director of marketing, Toshiba Memory America Inc. “The ability to capitalize on the new and innovative method of accessing storage media through NVMe and NVMe-oF is vital to meet our customers’ demands.”
Invested in the growth of NVMe technology, the UNH-IOL hosted the NVMe Plugfests for NVM Express (NVMe) and the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) that offered three separate testing tracks. First, the UNH-IOL continued its efforts to test NVMe SSDs for the NVMe and NVMe-MI Integrators Lists. Further, the UNH-IOL hosted separate tracks for both Fibre Channel-based and RoCE-based NVMe-oF products to qualify for the NVMe-oF Integrators List.
To learn more about the UNH-IOL’s NVMe Testing Services visit the NVMe Testing Services page. Testing for NVMe-oF for RoCE solutions and testing for NVMe-oF for FC solutions are available through annual memberships. To join a testing service, visit the UNH-IOL Request a Quote page. Additionally, the UNH-IOL can provide test software, so companies can pre-test and validate their products in-house.
UNH-IOL will be holding the next NVMe Plugfest in Spring 2018 and will announce details on the Upcoming Events page.