Query processing on smart SSDs: opportunities and challenges

Abstract

Data storage devices are getting "smarter." Smart Flash storage devices (a.k.a. "Smart SSD") are on the horizon and will package CPU processing and DRAM storage inside a Smart SSD, and make that available to run user programs inside a Smart SSD. The focus of this paper is on exploring the opportunities and challenges associated with exploiting this functionality of Smart SSDs for relational analytic query processing. We have implemented an initial prototype of Microsoft SQL Server running on a Samsung Smart SSD. Our results demonstrate that significant performance and energy gains can be achieved by pushing selected query processing components inside the Smart SSDs. We also identify various changes that SSD device manufacturers can make to increase the benefits of using Smart SSDs for data processing applications, and also suggest possible research opportunities for the database community.