New memory may give us object databases with little effort by developers

Hi Guys,

<a href="http://www.networkcomputing.com/storage/3d-xpoint-memory-game-changer/999918446" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onmousedown="this.href=&#39;http://www.google.com/url?q\x3dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.networkcomputing.com%2Fstorage%2F3d-xpoint-memory-game-changer%2F999918446\x26sa\x3dD\x26sntz\x3d1\x26usg\x3dAFQjCNHxGSEUS2FbXsXN0fgJWZ-aIWYy9w&#39;;return true;" onclick="this.href=&#39;http://www.google.com/url?q\x3dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.networkcomputing.com%2Fstorage%2F3d-xpoint-memory-game-changer%2F999918446\x26sa\x3dD\x26sntz\x3d1\x26usg\x3dAFQjCNHxGSEUS2FbXsXN0fgJWZ-aIWYy9w&#39;;return true;">New memory technology from Intel and Micron (and <a href="http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/3d-xpoint-technology-animation.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onmousedown="this.href=&#39;http://www.google.com/url?q\x3dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.intel.com%2Fcontent%2Fwww%2Fus%2Fen%2Farchitecture-and-technology%2F3d-xpoint-technology-animation.html\x26sa\x3dD\x26sntz\x3d1\x26usg\x3dAFQjCNFL9Jdk8rVtPtXGLeE8jPqz_nw-vg&#39;;return true;" onclick="this.href=&#39;http://www.google.com/url?q\x3dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.intel.com%2Fcontent%2Fwww%2Fus%2Fen%2Farchitecture-and-technology%2F3d-xpoint-technology-animation.html\x26sa\x3dD\x26sntz\x3d1\x26usg\x3dAFQjCNFL9Jdk8rVtPtXGLeE8jPqz_nw-vg&#39;;return true;">here) may give us object databases with little effort by developers.  For now this memory is being aimed at competing with SSD drives.  The claim is that the memory is byte addressable and not much slower than DRAM.  Once this memory is made to be plugged into the motherboard and is byte addressable, it can be assigned to a given program.  The VA Smalltalk VM for example.  Such a VM could keep it a a separate section of memory.  Lets call it persistent memory.  A developer would declare an instance of an object as persistent, the VM would move it to the persistent memory (and any other objects it needed to) and we would have an object database that is accessed as if it were ram.  Objects would not have to be serialized and de-serialized.

I know it is more complicated that this and that the OS would have to be able to police the memory and keep track of who owned it and what program(s) are allowed to access it but that shouldn't be a big deal, if Intel and Microsoft get together and work out a standard.

I know it is very early days but maybe Instantiations could keep any eye out for any news about this memory.

Lou

I'm sure Richard knows more about it that I do...but I will say...that is cool tech!

-- Seth

On Friday, July 15, 2016 at 12:37:36 PM UTC-4, Richard Sargent wrote:

On Friday, July 15, 2016 at 8:24:46 AM UTC-7, Louis LaBrunda wrote:

Hi Guys,

<a href="http://www.networkcomputing.com/storage/3d-xpoint-memory-game-changer/999918446" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" onmousedown="this.href=&#39;http://www.google.com/url?q\x3dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.networkcomputing.com%2Fstorage%2F3d-xpoint-memory-game-changer%2F999918446\x26sa\x3dD\x26sntz\x3d1\x26usg\x3dAFQjCNHxGSEUS2FbXsXN0fgJWZ-aIWYy9w&#39;;return true;" onclick="this.href=&#39;http://www.google.com/url?q\x3dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.networkcomputing.com%2Fstorage%2F3d-xpoint-memory-game-changer%2F999918446\x26sa\x3dD\x26sntz\x3d1\x26usg\x3dAFQjCNHxGSEUS2FbXsXN0fgJWZ-aIWYy9w&#39;;return true;">New memory technology from Intel and Micron (and <a href="http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/3d-xpoint-technology-animation.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" onmousedown="this.href=&#39;http://www.google.com/url?q\x3dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.intel.com%2Fcontent%2Fwww%2Fus%2Fen%2Farchitecture-and-technology%2F3d-xpoint-technology-animation.html\x26sa\x3dD\x26sntz\x3d1\x26usg\x3dAFQjCNFL9Jdk8rVtPtXGLeE8jPqz_nw-vg&#39;;return true;" onclick="this.href=&#39;http://www.google.com/url?q\x3dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.intel.com%2Fcontent%2Fwww%2Fus%2Fen%2Farchitecture-and-technology%2F3d-xpoint-technology-animation.html\x26sa\x3dD\x26sntz\x3d1\x26usg\x3dAFQjCNFL9Jdk8rVtPtXGLeE8jPqz_nw-vg&#39;;return true;">here) may give us object databases with little effort by developers.  For now this memory is being aimed at competing with SSD drives.  The claim is that the memory is byte addressable and not much slower than DRAM.  Once this memory is made to be plugged into the motherboard and is byte addressable, it can be assigned to a given program.  The VA Smalltalk VM for example.  Such a VM could keep it a a separate section of memory.  Lets call it persistent memory.  A developer would declare an instance of an object as persistent, the VM would move it to the persistent memory (and any other objects it needed to) and we would have an object database that is accessed as if it were ram.  Objects would not have to be serialized and de-serialized.

That's very interesting, Lou!
Of course, a real database needs to be sharable and provide transactional access to the data. As described in your synopsis, it would (have to) be a single access database.

I know it is more complicated that this and that the OS would have to be able to police the memory and keep track of who owned it and what program(s) are allowed to access it but that shouldn't be a big deal, if Intel and Microsoft get together and work out a standard.

I know it is very early days but maybe Instantiations could keep any eye out for any news about this memory.

Lou

Hi Seth and Richard,

As Richard says, there are limitations but I would bet that there are many small database applications that would be just fine with them.  And for larger things a VA Smalltalk program could become the DBMS.  It owns the database/memory and everything comes through it.

Lou

On Friday, July 15, 2016 at 1:43:45 PM UTC-4, Richard Sargent wrote:

On Friday, July 15, 2016 at 9:50:53 AM UTC-7, Seth Berman wrote:

I'm sure Richard knows more about it that I do...but I will say...that is cool tech!

(It's like using File I/O for accessing an ENVY repository: it must be single user mode, since you don't want to corrupt the file.)

-- Seth

On Friday, July 15, 2016 at 12:37:36 PM UTC-4, Richard Sargent wrote:

On Friday, July 15, 2016 at 8:24:46 AM UTC-7, Louis LaBrunda wrote:

Hi Guys,

<a href="http://www.networkcomputing.com/storage/3d-xpoint-memory-game-changer/999918446" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" onmousedown="this.href=&#39;http://www.google.com/url?q\x3dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.networkcomputing.com%2Fstorage%2F3d-xpoint-memory-game-changer%2F999918446\x26sa\x3dD\x26sntz\x3d1\x26usg\x3dAFQjCNHxGSEUS2FbXsXN0fgJWZ-aIWYy9w&#39;;return true;" onclick="this.href=&#39;http://www.google.com/url?q\x3dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.networkcomputing.com%2Fstorage%2F3d-xpoint-memory-game-changer%2F999918446\x26sa\x3dD\x26sntz\x3d1\x26usg\x3dAFQjCNHxGSEUS2FbXsXN0fgJWZ-aIWYy9w&#39;;return true;">New memory technology from Intel and Micron (and <a href="http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/3d-xpoint-technology-animation.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" onmousedown="this.href=&#39;http://www.google.com/url?q\x3dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.intel.com%2Fcontent%2Fwww%2Fus%2Fen%2Farchitecture-and-technology%2F3d-xpoint-technology-animation.html\x26sa\x3dD\x26sntz\x3d1\x26usg\x3dAFQjCNFL9Jdk8rVtPtXGLeE8jPqz_nw-vg&#39;;return true;" onclick="this.href=&#39;http://www.google.com/url?q\x3dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.intel.com%2Fcontent%2Fwww%2Fus%2Fen%2Farchitecture-and-technology%2F3d-xpoint-technology-animation.html\x26sa\x3dD\x26sntz\x3d1\x26usg\x3dAFQjCNFL9Jdk8rVtPtXGLeE8jPqz_nw-vg&#39;;return true;">here) may give us object databases with little effort by developers.  For now this memory is being aimed at competing with SSD drives.  The claim is that the memory is byte addressable and not much slower than DRAM.  Once this memory is made to be plugged into the motherboard and is byte addressable, it can be assigned to a given program.  The VA Smalltalk VM for example.  Such a VM could keep it a a separate section of memory.  Lets call it persistent memory.  A developer would declare an instance of an object as persistent, the VM would move it to the persistent memory (and any other objects it needed to) and we would have an object database that is accessed as if it were ram.  Objects would not have to be serialized and de-serialized.

That's very interesting, Lou!
Of course, a real database needs to be sharable and provide transactional access to the data. As described in your synopsis, it would (have to) be a single access database.

I know it is more complicated that this and that the OS would have to be able to police the memory and keep track of who owned it and what program(s) are allowed to access it but that shouldn't be a big deal, if Intel and Microsoft get together and work out a standard.

I know it is very early days but maybe Instantiations could keep any eye out for any news about this memory.

Lou