NVMe-oF Booting, Industry Update - It's Real!

Targeted at radical simplification and ease of management for large deployments, the NVMe Boot Specification provides a standardized approach to boot computer systems from OS images stored on NVMe devices across a network. This presentation will bring an update on the industry implementation of the first technologies instrumented for NVMe boot, NVMe-oF/TCP, boot and some discussion of learnings moving this new design from a specification to a technology shipping from multiple vendors. A condensed overview of the NVMe-oF/TCP boot design will be presented as foundational and review material. That will be followed by highlights of implementations from multiple vendors demonstrating industry support for this capability. Learnings from the implementation and qualification of the feature along with an overview of host those learnings have been, or are being addressed, with enhancements to the NVMe-oF boot specifications and the reference code.

Abstract

Targeted at radical simplification and ease of management for large deployments, the NVMe Boot Specification provides a standardized approach to boot computer systems from OS images stored on NVMe devices across a network. This presentation will bring an update on the industry implementation of the first technologies instrumented for NVMe boot, NVMe-oF/TCP, boot and some discussion of learnings moving this new design from a specification to a technology shipping from multiple vendors. A condensed overview of the NVMe-oF/TCP boot design will be presented as foundational and review material. That will be followed by highlights of implementations from multiple vendors demonstrating industry support for this capability. Learnings from the implementation and qualification of the feature along with an overview of host those learnings have been, or are being addressed, with enhancements to the NVMe-oF boot specifications and the reference code.

Learning Objectives

1. Awareness that NVMe-oF/TCP boot has transitioned from an industry spec to shipping feature that could be deployed in datacenters
2. Understanding of some of the learnings and how those are addressed working through the specification bodies
3. Understanding a more condensed version of the capability and design suitable for reuse in educating others

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