#61 - Introduction to NVM Express with Amber Huffman

This is the second of a series of podcasts recorded at Flash Memory Summit 2018 in Santa Clara. In this episode, Chris talks to Amber Huffman, Intel Fellow and President and founder of NVM Express Inc. NVM Express is the standards body that governs the development of the NVMe base standard, NVMe-MI (Management Interface) and NVMe over Fabrics. Amber explains how standards’ bodies are initially established, including the ongoing ownership of intellectual property. The discussion continues, looking at how NVM Express standards are developed by committee, how the body is funded and how the process of wider education in the industry is managed.

More details on NVM Express can be found at https://nvmexpress.org/, or by following the NVM Express Twitter account (https://twitter.com/nvmexpress).

Update: Amber was awarded the inaugural SuperWomen in Flash Leadership Award at FMS 2018. Read more on this recognition here.

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Timeline

00:00:00 – Intros
00:02:00 – What is NVM Express?
00:03:30 – How does an industry body get funded?
00:04:30 – Who owns the standards?
00:05:30 – Is NVM Express hardware or software focused?
00:06:00 – What is NVMe-MI?
00:08:00 – What specifications exist?
00:09:00 – How are the standards developed?
00:10:30 – What details of specifications are available online?
00:11:30 – Training and education, how does NVM Express help?
00:12:20 – How well adopted is NVMe in the enterprise?

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Amber’s Bio

Amber Huffman is an Intel Fellow and the director of storage interfaces in the Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group at Intel Corporation. She leads the development of storage interfaces and works to integrate the resulting technology in Intel products, with a focus on furthering Intel’s non-volatile memory (NVM) business initiatives.

A respected authority on storage architecture, Amber has used her expertise and influence to lead Intel and the storage industry toward the definition and adoption of fast, streamlined, highly power-managed and low-latency storage interfaces. Her leadership role in industry standards efforts includes forming and chairing the NVM Express (NVMe) Workgroup (nvmexpress.org), a consortium of companies working to define a standardized interface for PCI Express-based solid-state drives.

Amber chairs the board of directors for the NVMe Workgroup and the Open NAND Flash Interface (ONFI) Workgroup (onfi.org); both groups are coalitions of more than 100 technology companies. Amber was lead author and editor on the NVMe specification, ONFI specification, and the Advanced Host Controller Interface specification.

Amber has been awarded over 20 patents in storage architecture. She holds a BSE in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan and an MSE from Stanford University in Electrical Engineering.

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