KV Block Manager#

The Dynamo KV Block Manager (KVBM) is a scalable runtime component designed to handle memory allocation, management, and remote sharing of Key-Value (KV) blocks for inference tasks across heterogeneous and distributed environments. It acts as a unified memory layer for frameworks like vLLM, SGLang, and TRT-LLM.

It offers:

  • A unified memory API that spans GPU memory, pinned host memory, remote RDMA-accessible memory, local or distributed pool of SSDs and remote file/object/cloud storage systems.

  • Support for evolving block lifecycles (allocate → register → match) with event-based state transitions that storage can subscribe to.

  • Integration with NIXL, a dynamic memory exchange layer used for remote registration, sharing, and access of memory blocks over RDMA/NVLink.

The Dynamo KV Block Manager serves as a reference implementation that emphasizes modularity and extensibility. Its pluggable design enables developers to customize components and optimize for specific performance, memory, and deployment needs.