NVM Express, Inc. Announces NVMe-MI 1.1 Specification in Ratification

Awaited Specification Defines a Standard for NVMe™ Enclosure Management and More

BEAVERTON, Ore. – December 05, 2018 – NVM Express, Inc. today announced the pending availability of the NVMe™ Management Interface (NVMe-MI™) specification. The NVMe-MI 1.1 release standardizes NVMe enclosure management, provides the ability to access NVMe-MI functionality in-band and delivers new management features for multiple NVMe subsystem solid-state drive (SSD) deployments.

NVM Express Inc., offering an open collection of NVM Express® (NVMe™) specifications and resources on the benefits of non-volatile memory, completed technical work on NVMe-MI 1.1 and the specification is in the ratification process with wide availability anticipated in 60 days. The new management features offer NVMe end-users and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) more control and flexibility.

“The NVMe-MI 1.1 specification defines essential management elements requested by the growing NVMe ecosystem,” said Peter Onufryk, NVMe Board Member and NVMe-MI Workgroup Chair. “For example, we didn’t have a defined standard to manage NVMe enclosures, and now we have a standard that member companies can map to.”

The in-band NVMe-MI feature allows operating systems and applications to tunnel NVMe-MI Commands through an NVMe driver. The primary use for in-band NVMe-MI is to allow operating systems and applications to achieve parity with the management capabilities that are available out-of-band with a Baseboard Management Controller (BMC).

“NVMe-MI 1.1 furthers the management capabilities for NVM Express devices by enabling enclosure management for NVMe storage arrays (like JBOFs) and provides unified management for multi-NVMe device subsystems, like multiple M.2 NVMe SSDs on a PCIe carrier add-in-card,” said Jonmichael Hands, Product Manager, Intel Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group, NVM Express, Inc. Marketing Co-Chair.

“The types of NVMe devices that are being developed and the use cases for NVMe continue to expand as NVMe gains popularity in the industry,” said Austin Bolen, NVMe-MI Workgroup Vice Chair and Server Storage Technologist for Dell EMC. “The NVMe Management Interface is evolving with the release of the 1.1 version of the specification to meet the manageability needs and reduce the total cost of ownership related to these new NVMe device types and use cases.”