SPDK stands for Storage Performance Development Kit. It is an open-source software framework that provides a set of libraries and tools to help developers create high-performance storage applications. SPDK uses user-space drivers and provides access to hardware directly from the application, eliminating the need for kernel-level drivers and reducing overheads, resulting in higher performance. It supports various types of storage devices such as NVMe SSDs, SATA SSDs, HDDs, and network-attached storage (NAS) devices. SPDK is widely used in cloud computing environments, big data analytics, and other high-performance storage applications where low latency and high throughput are critical requirements.