SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--FLASH MEMORY SUMMIT – The Gen-Z Consortium, an organization developing an open systems interconnect designed to provide high-speed, low latency, memory-semantic access to data and devices, today announced the world’s first Gen-Z multi-vendor technology demonstration, connecting compute, memory, and I/O devices at Flash Memory Summit, Santa Clara, August 8-10. Gen-Z technology enables increased performance and scalability for existing enterprise applications and future memory-centric computing applications.
The demonstration utilizes FPGA-based Gen-Z adapters connecting compute nodes to memory pools through a Gen-Z switch, creating a fabric connecting multiple server vendors and a variety of memory vendors. The multi-vendor participation reflects strong industry support for Gen-Z and showcases how future data centers can leverage this technology to attain a unified, high-performance and scalable fabric/interconnect. Additionally, a separate demonstration will show the scalable prototype connector defined by the Gen-Z Consortium, running at 112 giga-transfers/sec.
“At Bloomberg, we provide information that powers the global capital markets and our customers depend on us to quickly deliver accurate data, despite exponentially increasing volumes,” said Justin Erenkrantz, head of compute architecture for the finance, media and tech company based in New York City. “Gen-Z's memory-centric standards-based approach will allow us to bring even more powerful analytics to our customers through a distributed memory and compute fabric.”
“We are excited to showcase the first technology demonstration of Gen-Z that includes solutions from multiple member companies, including a variety of servers, memory and I/O devices, all connected with a Gen-Z fabric,” said Kurtis Bowman, President of the Gen-Z Consortium. “The consortium continues to meet the planned development schedule and we expect to see initial Gen-Z products in the 2019-2020 timeframe. As an open consortium, we encourage all companies to join us in our collaborative effort to develop the architecture and products that will provide the performance required for housing and analyzing the incredible amount of information coming into the data center.”
The Gen-Z Consortium has doubled its member base since inception and now includes more than 40 companies. It has released four draft specifications to date, all of which are available openly on its website: Gen-Z Core Specification, SFF 8639 2.5” Connector Specification, SFF 8639 2.5” Compact Connector Specification, and Gen-Z Scalable Connector Specification. To watch the world’s first Gen-Z demonstration, please visit the Gen-Z Consortium booth #739 at the Flash Memory Summit, August 8-10. To see what member companies are saying about Gen-Z at FMS 2017, visit the website here.
Supporting Resources:
- Gen-Z Consortium: http://genzconsortium.org/
- Gen-Z member list: http://genzconsortium.org/membership/
- Follow Gen-Z Consortium on: LinkedIn & Twitter
About Gen-Z Consortium
Gen-Z is an open systems interconnect designed to provide memory semantic access to data and devices via direct-attached, switched or fabric topologies. The Gen-Z Consortium is made up of leading computer industry companies dedicated to creating and commercializing a new data access technology. The consortium’s 12 initial members were; AMD, ARM, Broadcom, Cray, Dell EMC, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Huawei, IDT, Micron, Samsung, SK hynix, and Xilinx with that list expanding as reflected on our Member List.
The Gen-Z Consortium strongly believes in developing an open ecosystem where members, the broader industry, and customers can work together to deliver robust, high-quality specifications that meet solution needs. The Gen-Z Consortium will periodically publicly post draft specifications and technical concepts to elicit input from the broader industry and directly from customers. For more information visit www.genzconsortium.org.
