CAREER: Architectural Support for Integrating NAND Flash Solid State Disks into Enterprise-Class Storage Systems

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。随着容量、带宽和耐用性的最新进展，NAND闪存已成功应用于PDA和笔记本电脑等移动的设备，并开始取代台式机系统中的硬盘。然而，将NAND闪速存储器集成到服务器域应用（其通常需要高水平的数据可靠性和卓越的随机I/O性能）中更具挑战性，因为NAND闪速存储器由于有限的擦除周期而展现出相对差的随机写入性能和不足的可靠性。为了解决这些问题，必须设计对闪存SSD的架构支持，以便通过软件/硬件组合的努力从根本上提高其性能和寿命。在这个项目中，我们将开发一种新的闪存盘存储架构，利用RAM和专用软件方案将闪存SSD纳入企业级存储系统。我们计划实现一个闪存磁盘阵列原型，并将其部署在现实世界的数据密集型应用。此外，我们还将开发新的软件技术，如双缓冲区写入顺序管理方案和磁盘间损耗均衡技术。该项目将通过开发闪存磁盘阵列存储架构以及一系列新的软件方案，为企业级存储系统的节能、性能增强、数据管理和可靠性技术做出贡献。该项目还将促进教学，学习，培训，让本科生和代表性不足的学生接触服务器级存储系统领域的技术和科学基础。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).With recent advances in capacity, bandwidth, and durability, NAND flash memory has been successfully employed in mobile devices like PDAs and laptops and it is starting to replace hard disks in desktop systems. Integrating NAND flash memory into server domain applications, which normally demands a high level of data reliability and exceptional random I/O performance, however, is much more challenging because NAND flash memory exhibits relatively poor random write performance and insufficient reliability due to limited erasure cycles. To address these problems, an architectural support for flash SSD must be devised in order to fundamentally boost its performance and longevity by a software/hardware combined effort. In this project, we will develop a novel flash disk storage architecture that exploits the addition of RAM and dedicated software schemes to incorporate flash SSDs into enterprise-class storage systems. We plan to implement a flash disk array prototype and deploy it in real-world data-intensive application. In addition, we will develop new software techniques such as a double-buffer write ordering management scheme and an inter-disk wear-leveling technique. This project will contribute to energy conservation, performance enhancement, data management, and reliability technology for enterprise-class storage systems by developing the flash disk array storage architecture, accompanied by an array of new software schemes. This project will also promote teaching, learning, an training by exposing both undergraduate and underrepresented students to technological and scientific underpinnings in the field of server-class storage systems.