The merger of networking, storage, RAM, and cache | EDN

https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/eye-on-standards/4460689/The-merger-of-networking–storage–RAM–and-cache
Since the dawn of civilization, the computing bottleneck has been the tawdry I/O relationship between disk drives and RAM (random access memory). The emergence of SSDs (solid state drives) loosened but didn’t alter this I/O bottleneck.

With fast networks computers can move data onto their disks from remote systems as fast as they can access their own disks.
RoCE is a compound acronym: RDMA over converged Ethernet. RDMA allows the network interface controller (NIC) to access RAM directly.
When 3D XPoint and other new persistent memory technologies (like 3D Super-NOR) merge RAM memory with what we think of as disk storage, everything changes.
Instead of the supply chain: remote disk to local disk to RAM to cache to data processing, we’ll have “disk” to data processing over high speed networks (RoCE running on the 400 Gbits/s networks).
The distinction between local and cloud computing will start to disappear and speed of light determines what to do where.