Software runs on data, obviously. This means that it usually makes sense to put data as close to where it is being processed as possible, in order to reduce latency for performance-hungry processing tasks.
Some software application and data management architectures are designed with large amounts of memory-like storage located close to the compute function. Conversely, for some application and data use cases, it makes more sense to move the compute nearer to the bulk storage, a technology paradigm usually known as computational storage.
The Storage Network Industry Association (SNIA) defines computational storage as where Computational Storage Functions (CSF) can be coupled to storage to enable the offloading of host processing or reducing data movement.
