Storage becomes first class memory
Netanel Katzburg, Amit Golander, Shlomo Weiss · 2016
Computer architectures have always addressed memory and storage differently. The memory subsystem is an integral part of any processor design, while storage was placed on the I/O subsystem and accessed via several software layers. Emerging storage systems however, are challenging this fundamental and decades-old assumption. First class memory is an entity that supports all the operations generally available to main memory. This article describes how storage is becoming a first class memory. We explore the benefits of novel hardware and software technologies, demonstrating a speedup of ×280 at the storage layer - over modern Flash and file systems, which translated to a speedup of ×3.8 at the application layer, when measured SQL transactions on the PostgreSQL database. We then show that traditional data access tradeoffs become irrelevant and, as a result, application programming is significantly simplified.