Toshiba Announces NVMe over Fabrics Software Technology for Cloud Data Centers

NVMe-oF Target Provides Performance of DAS1, Efficiency of Networked Storage and Seamless Orchestration Integration; Demonstrations with Mellanox and Lenovo at Flash Memory Summit 2017

IRVINE, Calif. — August 7, 2017 — Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC), a committed technology leader, today unveiled software technology essential to enabling deployment of NVMe-oF™ (NVM Express® over Fabrics)2. This sophisticated software stack deploys on storage servers, and provides critical solid state drive (SSD) abstraction, security and manageability currently lacking from existing open source implementations. Addressing cloud data centers with diverse and demanding storage requirements, Toshiba’s software is key to fully leveraging the capacity and performance of NVM Express® (NVMe™) SSDs and creating more dynamic and scalable infrastructures.

NVMe-oF is a storage architecture that runs NVMe commands over a fabric transport to enable NVMe based storage to be shared across network and scaled to thousands of devices with near DAS-like performance. Seamlessly integrating with popular orchestration and provisioning frameworks, Toshiba’s software abstracts the details of physical SSDs to enable them to rapidly assign virtual namespaces of any size and performance to any compute node making NVMe-oF truly deployable in cloud data centers. 

Future innovations will focus on additional enhancements to scalability, reliability, and high availability through flexible flash management and integrated security. 

“Toshiba sees NVMe-oF as an important near-term storage technology that very effectively utilizes flash across the data center by disaggregating storage and enabling dynamic, diverse applications to share high performance, high capacity NVMe SSDs,” said Steve Fingerhut, senior vice president and general manager of Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. SSD business unit. “Our software technology makes NVMe-oF attached flash easily deployable in the cloud data center. We’re proud to collaborate with Mellanox and Lenovo to demonstrate this groundbreaking technology at Flash Memory Summit.”

“As the performance of both networks and SSDs grows faster, new opportunities to utilize networked storage like NVMe-oF are emerging,” said Rob Davis, Vice President of Storage Technology from Mellanox. “Toshiba’s NVMe-oF software technology enables cloud data centers to easily deploy Toshiba’s NVMe SSDs with Mellanox ConnectX® Network Adapters, including ConnectX-5 and our new BlueField™3 SOC.”

Toshiba, Mellanox and Lenovo have teamed up to demonstrate Toshiba’s NVMe-oF software. The live demos will be at Toshiba’s booth, #407, at Flash Memory Summit, August 8-10, in Santa Clara, CA. Members from each company will be available to discuss the demonstrations and benefits of NVMe-oF in the data center.

Toshiba is the inventor of flash and a leading supplier of flash memory and SSDs with one of the broadest portfolios of SSDs in the industry. For more information, please visit: http://toshiba.semicon-storage.com/us/product/storage-products.html. To learn more about Toshiba’s storage solutions, follow @ToshibaStorage on Twitter.

*About Toshiba and Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC)
Through proven commitment, lasting relationships and advanced, reliable electronic components, Toshiba enables its customers to create market-leading designs. Toshiba is the heartbeat within product breakthroughs from OEMs, ODMs, CMs, VARs, distributors and fabless chip companies worldwide. A committed electronic components leader, Toshiba designs and manufactures high-quality flash memory-based storage solutions, solid state drives (SSDs), hard disk drives (HDDs), discrete devices, custom SoCs/ASICs, imaging products, microcontrollers, wireless components, mobile peripheral devices, advanced materials and medical tubes that make possible today’s leading smartphones, tablets, cameras, medical devices, automotive electronics, industrial applications, enterprise solutions and more. 

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. is an independent operating company owned by Toshiba America, Inc. For over 140 years, Toshiba Corporation has contributed to a sustainable future by applying innovative technologies to value creation. Today, our business domains are centered on the essential infrastructure that supports modern life and society. Guided by the principles of The Basic Commitment of the Toshiba Group, “Committed to People, Committed to the Future”, Toshiba promotes global operations that contribute to realization of a world where generations to come can live better lives.

To find out more about Toshiba, visit www.toshiba.co.jp/worldwide/about/index.html

1 Direct Attached Storage
2 NVM Express is a registered trademark and, NVMe-oF and NVMe are trademarks of NVM Express, Inc.
3 ConnectX is a registered trademark and BlueField is a trademark of Mellanox Technologies

  • Information in this press release, including product pricing and specifications, content of services, and contact information is current and believed to be accurate on the date of the announcement, but is subject to change without prior notice. Technical and application information contained here is subject to the most recent applicable Toshiba product specifications.