Press Release: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Western Digital (Nasdaq: WDC) announced today that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) regarding a unique collaboration to standardize and drive widespread adoption of next-generation D2PF (Data Placement, Processing and Fabrics) data storage technologies. The companies will initially focus on unifying their efforts and creating a vibrant ecosystem for Zoned Storage solutions. These steps will enable us to focus on countless applications that will ultimately deliver greater value to customers.
This is the first time that Samsung and Western Digital have come together as technology leaders to create a broad consensus and raise awareness of important data storage technologies. The partnership, which focuses on enterprise and cloud applications, is expected to spark a number of collaborations in technology standardization and software development for D2PF technologies such as Zoned Storage. Through this collaboration, end users can be confident that these new data storage technologies will have support from multiple device vendors as well as vertically integrated hardware and software companies.
“Storage is a fundamental aspect of how people and businesses use data. To meet today's needs and realize tomorrow's next big ideas, as an industry we must innovate, collaborate and keep up with bringing new standards and architectures to life," said Rob Soderbery, executive vice president and general manager of Flash at Western Digital. "The success of a technology ecosystem requires alignment of overall frameworks and common solution models so that they do not suffer from fragmentation that delays adoption and unnecessarily increases complexity for software suite developers."
Rob Soderbery adds, “Western Digital has been building the foundation of the Zoned Storage ecosystem for years by contributing to the Linux kernel and open-source software communities. We are pleased to incorporate these contributions into a joint initiative with Samsung to facilitate the wider adoption of Zoned Storage by users and application developers.”
"This collaboration is a testament to our relentless pursuit of exceeding customer needs now and in the future, and is of particular significance as we anticipate it will actively grow into a broader base for the standardization of Zoned Storage," said Jinman Han, the company's executive vice president and division director. memory sales and marketing of Samsung Electronics. "Our collaboration will span hardware and software ecosystems so that as many customers as possible can take advantage of this very important technology."
The two companies have already launched storage initiatives Zoned Storage including ZNS (Zoned Namespaces) SSDs and Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) hard drives. Through organizations such as SNIA (Storage Networking Industry Association) and the Linux Foundation, Samsung and Western Digital will define high-level models and frameworks for next-generation Zoned Storage technologies. In order to enable open and scalable data center architectures, they established the Zoned Storage TWG (Technical Work Group), which was approved by SNIA in December 2021. This group already defines and specifies common use cases for Zoned Storage devices, as well as host and device architecture and programming models.
Furthermore, this collaboration is expected to serve as a starting point to expand the interface of zone storage devices (eg ZNS, SMR) and develop next-generation high-capacity storage with improved data placement and processing technologies. At a later stage, these initiatives will be expanded to include other new D2PF technologies such as compute storage and data storage fabrics including NVMe™ over Fabrics (NVMe-oF).
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