When it comes to mass data processing, one of the most challenging issues is finding solutions for maximal resource utilization (processor, memory, storage, network, and so on). The underutilization of resources (overprovisioning of disk capacity and low processor workloads) in data centers is a well-known phenomenon “leading to an increased total cost of ownership.”

One of the frequently used and flexible possibilities is resource disaggregation, which “decouples compute and storage to different nodes” and reduces resource waste. But resources are spread over a network, and every access generates some additional latencies. If hard disk drives (HDDs) are used, the performance of the solution is low due to high-access latencies. However, disaggregation based on non-volatile memory express solid state drives (NVMe-SSD) is even more challenging because network latency also becomes important. SSDs are orders of magnitude faster than HDDs. Thus, new communication protocols are required.

This paper is about NVMe-SSD disaggregation with the NVMe-over-fabrics (NVMe-oF) remote storage protocol. The presented NVMe-oF performance analysis and experiments (methodology is given in Section 3) show that this protocol minimizes the degradation of system performance. Section 4 presents a stress test of NVMe-oF latency breakdowns in comparison to Internet Small Computer Systems Interface (iSCSI) solutions. Section 5’s “real-world input/output (I/O) intensive workloads” are based on RocksDB and MySQL databases. When used with the NVMe-oF protocol, low-performance degradation is observed and better storage server scaling is seen (compared to iSCSI).

Section 6 presents interesting results related to server storage, processing efficiency, and scalability. The authors show, in a convincing manner, how the NVMe-oF protocol significantly supports NVMe-SSD disaggregation while also “preserv[ing] all the advantages discussed in previous literature.”