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Preface
About This Book
Persistent memory is often referred to as non-volatile memory (NVM) or storage
class memory (SCM). In this book, we purposefully use persistent memory as an allencompassing term to represent all the current and future memory technologies that
fall under this umbrella. This book introduces the persistent memory technology and
provides answers to key questions. For software developers, those questions include:
What is persistent memory? How do I use it? What APIs and libraries are available?
What benefits can it provide for my application? What new programming methods do I
need to learn? How do I design applications to use persistent memory? Where can I find
information, documentation, and help?
System and cloud architects will be provided with answers to questions such as:
What is persistent memory? How does it work? How is it different than DRAM or SSD/
NVMe storage devices? What are the hardware and operating system requirements?
What applications need or could benefit from persistent memory? Can my existing
applications use persistent memory without being modified?
Persistent memory is not a plug-and-play technology for software applications.
Although it may look and feel like traditional DRAM memory, applications need to be
modified to fully utilize the persistence feature of persistent memory. That is not to say
that applications cannot run unmodified on systems with persistent memory installed,
they can, but they will not see the full potential of what persistent memory offers without
code modification.
Thankfully, server and operating system vendors collaborated very early in the
design phase and already have products available on the market. Linux and Microsoft
Windows already provide native support for persistent memory technologies. Many
popular virtualization technologies also support persistent memory.
For ISVs and the developer community at large, the journey is just beginning. Some
software has already been modified and is available on the market. However, it will
take time for the enterprise and cloud computing industries to adopt and make the
hardware available to the general marketplace. ISVs and software developers need time
to understand what changes to existing applications are required and implement them.
Preface
About This Book
Persistent memory is often referred to as non-volatile memory (NVM) or storage
class memory (SCM). In this book, we purposefully use persistent memory as an allencompassing term to represent all the current and future memory technologies that
fall under this umbrella. This book introduces the persistent memory technology and
provides answers to key questions. For software developers, those questions include:
What is persistent memory? How do I use it? What APIs and libraries are available?
What benefits can it provide for my application? What new programming methods do I
need to learn? How do I design applications to use persistent memory? Where can I find
information, documentation, and help?
System and cloud architects will be provided with answers to questions such as:
What is persistent memory? How does it work? How is it different than DRAM or SSD/
NVMe storage devices? What are the hardware and operating system requirements?
What applications need or could benefit from persistent memory? Can my existing
applications use persistent memory without being modified?
Persistent memory is not a plug-and-play technology for software applications.
Although it may look and feel like traditional DRAM memory, applications need to be
modified to fully utilize the persistence feature of persistent memory. That is not to say
that applications cannot run unmodified on systems with persistent memory installed,
they can, but they will not see the full potential of what persistent memory offers without
code modification.
Thankfully, server and operating system vendors collaborated very early in the
design phase and already have products available on the market. Linux and Microsoft
Windows already provide native support for persistent memory technologies. Many
popular virtualization technologies also support persistent memory.
For ISVs and the developer community at large, the journey is just beginning. Some
software has already been modified and is available on the market. However, it will
take time for the enterprise and cloud computing industries to adopt and make the
hardware available to the general marketplace. ISVs and software developers need time
to understand what changes to existing applications are required and implement them.