[nvmewin] NVMeoF Windows project - let's start one!

[Robert Randall (rrandall)]

Greetings all,

Now that Microsoft has officially released the Network Direct Kernel Consumer API (NDKCI) we are now free to collaborate on Windows drivers for NVMeoF.  We have some experience with the NDKCI and I'm volunteering to lead the effort.  From a Windows in-kernel architecture perspective the NDKCI is the consumer side of the NDKPI.  The NDKPI is documented here 

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/drivers/network/network-direct-kernel-programming-interface--ndkpi-

The NDKPI is implemented as part of the NDIS mini-port driver for the network adapter.  Any network adapter that supports SMB-Direct implements the NDKPI and may also be used for NVMeoF.  This is a large list and includes RoCE and iWARP enabled adapters just to name a few.

The NDKCI is officially released and sample code is available at 

https://github.com/Microsoft/SDN/NDKCI

Please take a look at the examples.  IMHO we've never found the NDKCI examples very helpful.  We've used the NDKCI and it takes an understanding of RDMA and an understanding of the NDKPI and a fair amount of experimentation to discover the behavioral rules of using the NDKCI.  We are happy to contribute our experience with the NDKCI and code to the open source effort.

I've sent emails to the Linux NVM Express over Fabrics folks for advice on how to get this started but they are Linux focused with minimal interest in Windows.

So what is the best TWG in NVM Express to track this or is that even necessary?

What repository should we use so we can begin work?

If you are interested in participating, please let me know and please help us all establish the best practices to make this effort a success.

Best regards,
Robert


ROBERT RANDALL
Manager & Principal Engineer
NVE Device Drivers
rrandall at micron.com  
Micron Technology, Inc.