The NVMe protocol is not limited to simply connecting flash drives, it may also be used as a networking protocol. When used in this context, a “fabric” enables any-to-any connections among elements. This is to distinguish it from a network, which may restrict the connections possible among the attached elements.

NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) are enabling organizations to create a very high performance storage network with latencies that rival direct attached storage (DAS). As a result, flash devices can be shared, when needed, among servers.