HPE Injects New 'Persistent' Memory Into Server Race

HP Enterprise unveiled Gen9 Proliant servers with a non-volatile form of memory modules that extend server memory

Charles Babcock

April 1, 2016

1 Min Read
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HP Enterprise is embedding a new form of memory in its next-generation ProLiant Gen9 servers to create a hardware building block for private clouds and other data-intensive enterprise uses.

HP has dubbed the category, which its Non-Volatile Dual Inline Memory Modules (NVDIMMs) belong to, "persistent memory," an emerging memory category with the persistence characteristic usually associated with tape, spinning disks, or USB-like devices built on solid-state flash. At the same time, the NVDIMMs have the speed of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) on the server.

The NVDIMMs' memory modules are DRAM-style memory with an automated ability to capture and persist volatile data, as needed, say in the event of a power outage. So they can be used with sensitive and frequently changing data, held in a large cache without the risk of losing that data in a power failure.

The NVDIMMs sit on the ProLiant's internal memory bus and can be used as a supplement to random access memory for caching, in-memory database operations, analytics, or other data-intensive uses requiring high speed I/O.

As NVDIMMs become generally available on servers, they'll enable a new era of "memory-driven computing," a type of computing that can toss out thousands of lines of software instructions regarding how to manage memory with a given application, said Bret Gibbs, persistent memory product manager at HPE.

Instead, a few lines of code will invoke NVDIMM use without risk of losing large amounts of data in the event of power loss or other failure.

Read the rest of this article on InformationWeek.

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