Remote Direct Memory Access
RDMA (Remote Direct Memory Access) is commonly used alongside NVMe-oF. It allows direct memory access from one computer to another without CPU involvement, dramatically reducing CPU utilization.
Key Benefits
- Provides significant advantages when computing and storage are disaggregated
- Enables compute nodes to retrieve information from remote storage directly into memory without CPU intervention
- Allows virtual machines on compute nodes to utilize more physical CPU resources
Implementation Considerations
- Requires RDMA-compatible NICs and drivers
- Hardware support must be verified before deployment
Storage Protocols
- Several RDMA-based storage protocols exist:
- NVMe-oF (NVMe over Fabrics)
- SRP (Storage RDMA Protocol)
- iSER (iSCSI Extension for RDMA)
- Mellanox has endorsed NVMe-oF as their development standard due to its superior performance
RDMA Protocol