Zoned Namespace (ZNS) SSDs have replaced the work on OCSSDs, and is now a standardized interface.

Please see ZNS: Avoiding the Block Interface Tax for Flash-based SSDs presented at USENIX ATC 2021

New development has moved to the zoned storage eco-system.

Watch the Open-Channel SSDs to ZNS SSDs presentation from OCP Global Summit 2019

Zoned Namespaces at OCP

ZonedStorage.io provides the latest updates on the zoned storage eco-system.

Open-Channel SSDs

I/O Isolation

Enable I/O isolation between tenants by allocating your SSD into separate parallel units.

Predictable Latency

No more guessing when an IO completes. You know which parallel unit is accessed on disk.

Non-Volatile Memory

Manage your non-volatile memory as a block device, through a file-system or inside your application.

News

16th June, 2020:
The NVM Express Zoned Namespace Command Set specification has been released

18th March, 2019: From Open-Channel SSD to Zoned Namespaces. NVMe is standardizing the Open-Channel SSD concepts.

See the presentation from OCP Global Summit 2019

29th January, 2018: Revision 2.0 of the specification is released. Get It

Documentation

LightNVM is a full-stack initiative from interface specification, operating system support, user-space management tools, I/O libraries, to examples of their use.

Introduction
Getting started
liblightnvm
pblk

Publications & Presentations

Selected publications and talks using the LightNVM subsystem

  • The Open-Channel SSD Paper
    • LightNVM: The Linux Open-Channel SSD Subsystem - 15th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies (FAST 2017) (Link)
  • 2018
    • The case of FEMU: cheap, accurate, scalable and extensible flash emulator - 15th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies (FAST 2018) (Link)
  • 2017
    • FlashBlox: Achieving Both Performance Isolation and Uniform Lifetime for Virtualized SSDs - 15th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies (FAST 2017) (Link)
    • Tiny-Tail Flash: Near-Perfect Elimination ofGarbage Collection Tail Latencies in NAND SSDs - 15th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies (FAST 2017) (Link)
    • Multi-Tenant I/O Isolation for Open-Channel SSDs - Non-Volatile Memory Workshop (Link)
  • 2016
    • Open-Channel SSDs - LSF Vault (Link)
    • Open-Channel SSDs - LinuxCon North America (Link)
  • 2015
    • Towards Application Driven Storage: LinuxCon North America (Link)
    • Linux Kernel Abstractions for Open-Channel Solid State Drives - Non-Volatile Memory Workshop (Link)

Available Hardware

Open-Channel SSD hardware available or announced.

  • Software Development Kits
    • OpenSSD Cosmos+ (Link)
    • CNEX Labs - Westlake SDK (Link)
    • EMC Dragon Fire Board Open-Channel OX Controller (Link)
    • Radian Memory Systems RMS-325 (Link)

Get Involved

The Open-Channel SSD community is made up of individuals, researchers and companies that each utilize Open-Channel SSDs in their work. We welcome anyone who would like to get involved in the project.

  • Open-Channel SSD Specification
  • LightNVM Subsystem General
    • If you would like to contribute code to the LightNVM subsystem in the Linux kernel. Please visit our Github Linux kernel repository.
    • Github
  • liblightnvm
    • Or maybe you like to integrate your application with Open-Channel SSDs, and/or loves to write library code. This is the place.
    • Github
  • Mailing Lists