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Software-defined memory (SDM) is the new convergence of storage and memory, which previously were two separate computing domains. Storage is a multi-layer software implementation outside of the realm of Computer Architecture (i.e. I/O subsystem).
SDM was coined in 2014 by SanDisk for the software which leveraged their SSD and persistent memory devices. Both devices located on the processor's peripheral I/O subsystem, i.e. on PCIe-based cards.[1]
The following year (2015) was a crucial year for the standardization of plug-and-play DDR4-based NVDIMM cards. These persistent memory devices reside on the processor's memory subsystem, which requires broader platform support, but is a better fit, because it was designed for memory-like latencies and cache-line granular access. 2015 also saw several key announcements of new storage-class memory (SCM)[2] based devices, such as Intel & Micron 3D XPoint, HPE & SanDisk memristors, Samsung & Netlist NVDIMM-P[3] and Sony & Viking Technology.[4]
SDM is a software solution that can utilize standard heterogeneous off-the-shelf persistent memory devices and present them using standard APIs in a way that hides the internal complexity. It may support multi tiers (e.g. NVDIMM, SSD and HDD) in order to allow flexible price points, as well as other data services.