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This blog includes some material from a recent white paper on cloud gateways as well as some non-volatile memory technology releases around the 2019 IEEE IEDM conference.First some material from the white paper.

All the data that drives our civilization, records our history, and entertains us is kept in digital storage. The amount of data created and stored keeps growing due to the advent of the digital economy, sensor networks, and the Internet of Things (IoT), big science, astronomy, geological exploration, use of mobile devices, connected vehicles, and cameras with higher resolution, higher dynamic range, and higher frame rate images and video.All of these contribute to the generation of big data and the consequent use of artificial intelligence to understand and monetize it all.

Achieving useful work requires maintaining legacy and current applications and workflows while adopting new paradigms that exploit todays variety of storage devices, systems and architectures.Many of these applications work with files, but many cloud and hybrid cloud storage solutions use object storage instead of hieararchical file storage.Objects have a global unique identifier (GUID) and are stored in a flat rather than a hierarchical model.The objects can be accessed using this GUID, which makes finding data in object storage easier.Object storage can thus scale to hold a much higher number of objects than files in a file system.

The table below gives some details about the difference between hierarchical file storage and object storage.

Comparison of Object and File Storage

Generally, local object and cloud object storage are not compatible with traditional operating systems (OSs), such as Windows or Mac OS. Incompatibility of common file systems with object or cloud storage can be an issue for many workflows. Since many legacy and current applications are based upon file systems, these applications cannot directly access data in object storage. This is a challenge for creating a modern hierarchical storage system that can be managed and controlled with a single system that incorporates SSDs, HDDs, tape, object storage and the cloud.

IT managers need to find ways to cost effectively manage data placement, storage consumption and cost. To do this organizations currently deploy various systems dedicated cloud gateways, file sync and share, NFS/SMB, object abstraction layers, backup/archive, geo sync, disaster recovery, etc.The advantages of these approaches stem from their singularity of purpose, the disadvantages often include no system-wide integration, multiple vendors, proprietary formats, vendor lock-in, disrupted workflow, app incompatibility etc.

For many organizations who want to access the power of cloud storage, their pathway involves the use of a cloud gateway. A cloud gateway is a hybrid cloud connectivity platform and is an example of a Platform as a Service (PaaS). The gateway securely connects local file-based networks with multiple cloud service providers, creating a hybrid cloud that includes local storage and public cloud storage.

There are many cloud gateway products available in the market. Most gateway servers present the object storage as a new mount point for the file system which must be integrated into existing processes and workflows. In this case, performance and compatibility to the SMB/CIFS/NFS protocol is often sub-optimal because of the added overhead and complexity this creates.These cloud gateways differ in their ability to provide ready access to local and remote data, but generally require additional dedicated hardware, and are built on the idea that data permanently moves away from file system storage to object storage.

Some important requirements for a useful cloud gateway are that it work with established cloud providers (Amazon, Azure, IBM, Google, Backblaze, Wasabi, etc.), including integration with any storage layers in these public cloud offerings and cloud storage management capabilities. It should also help keep servers in synchronization, whether local or across the globe, so content written on one server will appear as a local file on all the other servers. A cloud gateway should also help organizations transition their legacy infrastructure to the cloud at their own pace.You can read more about cloud gateways and how best to match them with file-based software here.

At the 2019 IEEE IEDM there were a lot of papers and sessions on developing new semiconductor and nanotechnology.Several companies were working on smaller lithographies, including a TSMC keynote about their use of 5nm EUV.There were talks on new materials and processes for logic and memory including neuromorphic computing that emulates the ways that the synapses in a brain operate using various emerging memories.Following are a few announcements around the 2019 IEDM on non-volatile emerging memories.

Spin tunnel torque magnetic random access memory (STT MRAM) is ramping up into volume in standalone chip and embedded applications.There is work underway to create even faster non-volatile memory to replace fast SRAM and DRAM.One of these technologies is spin orbit torque (SOT) MRAM.Researchers at Tohoku University demonstrated a high-speed SOT MRAM memory compatible with 300 mm Silicon CMOS technology.The SOT device achieved high-speed switching (down to 0.35 ns).The device can withstand annealing at 400 C.In 2018, and announced at the 2018 IEDM, researchers from Imec fabricated SOT-MRAM on 300mm waers using CMOS compatible processers, for the first time.

Intel researchers demonstrated 2MB STT-MRAM arrays that could be used for high level L4 cache applications (replacing slower SRAM).The image below is from Intels announcement.

Intel STT-MRAM Developments

Intels STT-MRAM features 20 ns write times and 4 ns read times with an endurance of 10 to the 12thcycles and memory retention of one second at 110 C.These bit rates are good enough to be handled with error correction (ECC) techniques.Intel reduced the magnetic junction size to 55 nm (from its earlier 70-80 nm parts).

Weebit Nano said that it is working with XTX Technology (a Chinese provider of high quality memory solutions for consumer electronics, industrial embedded systems, telecom and networking markets to incorporate Weebits silicon oxide ReRAM technology into XTX products.An XTX team verified Weebits ReRAM technology, reproducing results previously achieved with French development partner Leti (a well known microelectronics development center, based in France).

Cloud gateways can provide ways to use object storage for file-based applications.New non-volatile technology from IEDM enable low power high performance applications.

Read the rest here:
Cloud Gateways For File-Based Applications And IEDM Announcements - Forbes