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NVMe over TCP (NVMe/TCP)

Terms related to simplyblock

SPDK Copy-On-Write (CoW) NVMe Latency Storage Latency IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) NVMe over TCP (NVMe/TCP) Thin Provisioning Distributed Storage System Write-Ahead Log (WAL) TiDB Interbase ArangoDB Memgraph TDengine Qdrant CouchDB Hazelcast DuckDB CockroachDB CrateDB SAP Hana Teradata Snowflake Databricks Weaviate Pinecone ScyllaDB Marqo RocksDB Aerospike Singlestore Timescale MariaDB Apache Cassandra Couchbase InfluxDB Neo4j Clickhouse Elasticsearch Redis MySQL Microsoft SQL Server Oracle MongoDB PostgreSQL Open-Source Storage MinIO Longhorn Amazon EBS Rook OpenEBS NVMe-oF Kubernetes OpenStack Ceph

Definition: NVMe over TCP (NVMe/TCP) is a storage networking protocol that enables NVMe-based storage devices to communicate over standard TCP/IP networks. It allows high-speed, low-latency data transfer across Ethernet networks, making it a cost-effective alternative to NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) using RDMA.

How NVMe/TCP Works

NVMe/TCP extends the NVMe protocol to operate over standard TCP/IP networks without requiring specialized hardware like RDMA. By encapsulating NVMe commands into TCP packets, NVMe/TCP ensures compatibility with existing Ethernet infrastructure while delivering near-direct-attach storage performance.

Benefits of NVMe/TCP

  • High Performance: Delivers low-latency, high-throughput storage access over standard networks.
  • Cost-Effective: Eliminates the need for expensive RDMA hardware while maintaining efficiency.
  • Scalability: Enables seamless scaling of storage clusters across data centers.
  • Compatibility: Works with existing TCP/IP networks without requiring major infrastructure changes.

NVMe/TCP vs. iSCSI: Key Differences

NVMe/TCP is a successor to iSCSI protocol and is much more efficient than the old protocol. Here is a short comparison table.

FeatureNVMe/TCPiSCSI
LatencySub-millisecondHigher latency
PerformanceHigh IOPS, low CPU usageLower IOPS, higher CPU overhead
EfficiencyOptimized for flash storageOriginally designed for HDDs
ScalabilityBetter suited for modern workloadsLess efficient in large-scale deployments

Use Cases of NVMe/TCP

  • Cloud Storage & Data Centers: High-performance storage for cloud-based applications.
  • Kubernetes Storage: Ideal for persistent storage in containerized environments.
  • High-Performance Databases: Accelerates transactional workloads and analytics.
  • AI/ML Workloads: Supports high-throughput storage access for data-intensive applications.

Simplyblock and NVMe/TCP

Simplyblock leverages NVMe/TCP to deliver high-performance, distributed block storage without complex infrastructure requirements. Our platform ensures sub-millisecond latencies and efficient resource utilization, making it ideal for modern, high-performance storage needs.

Explore More: Learn about NVMe Storage | What is Erasure Coding?