OCP SSD Test Panel

An OCP Global Summit panel, moderated by Microsoft's Lee Puit, in which two test-tool vendors -- Rick Walsh (Senior VP, Sanblaze) and Nick Krosinski (VP of Products and Services, Austin Labs / Teledyne LeCroy) -- explain how OCP NVMe SSD compliance test suites let drive vendors 'shift left' and catch defects early in development rather than in the data center. The vendors cover their platforms, the test suite's scope and timing, ADP parameter files and compliance modes, FPGA pre-silicon testing, and what's new in OCP 2.6. A Q&A covers OCP's spec contribution/CLA process and the roughly 90-day lead time between a new spec and a matching test suite.

Key Takeaways

• Microsoft owns the OCP NVMe SSD test plan: OCP finalizes a spec, Microsoft (Lee Puit's team) authors the test plan requirements, and third-party vendors then build the test suites.
• Sanblaze ships a ~1,000-test 'Certified by Sanblaze' suite plus a 16-drive scaled rack and DT5 desktop; its OCP suite is at version 2.6 with ~125 of ~175 tests written.
• FPGA pre-silicon testing via Sanblaze's AIC slot saves big customers a couple of ASIC tape-outs per year, each costing over a million dollars.
• ADP/parameter files are required for accurate, fully compliant OCP results; Sanblaze added a conformance/ADP-override mode for faster debug but flags results run without a parameter file as 'bogus'.
• Austin Labs (Teledyne LeCroy's services arm) runs an OCP compliance suite of 400-500+ tests on OakGate platforms, approved by Microsoft for the Certified Device List, and operates an OCP Experience Center in Austin.
• A full OCP test suite run takes about 72 hours, and the lead time from a new OCP DCSD spec to a matching test suite is roughly a quarter (~90 days).
• OCP 2.6 adds TCG security, sanitize, and debuggability/telemetry features (smart logs, health info, telemetry profiles), with more security requirements expected in 2.7.