HPE Injects New 'Persistent' Memory Into Server Race

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.

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