Architectures for High Performance Computing and Data Systems using Byte-Addressable Persistent Memory Adrian Jackson∗, Mark Parsonsy, Michele` Weilandz EPCC, The University of Edinburgh Edinburgh, United Kingdom ∗
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected] Bernhard Homolle¨ x SVA System Vertrieb Alexander GmbH Paderborn, Germany x
[email protected] Abstract—Non-volatile, byte addressable, memory technology example of such hardware, used for data storage. More re- with performance close to main memory promises to revolutionise cently, flash memory has been used for high performance I/O computing systems in the near future. Such memory technology in the form of Solid State Disk (SSD) drives, providing higher provides the potential for extremely large memory regions (i.e. > 3TB per server), very high performance I/O, and new ways bandwidth and lower latency than traditional Hard Disk Drives of storing and sharing data for applications and workflows. (HDD). This paper outlines an architecture that has been designed to Whilst flash memory can provide fast input/output (I/O) exploit such memory for High Performance Computing and High performance for computer systems, there are some draw backs. Performance Data Analytics systems, along with descriptions of It has limited endurance when compare to HDD technology, how applications could benefit from such hardware. Index Terms—Non-volatile memory, persistent memory, stor- restricted by the number of modifications a memory cell age class memory, system architecture, systemware, NVRAM, can undertake and thus the effective lifetime of the flash SCM, B-APM storage [29]. It is often also more expensive than other storage technologies.