Storage 'plug fest'
The Storage Networking Industry Association is celebrating the grand opening of the SNIA Technology Center Feb. 1-2 in Colorado Springs, Colo.
The SNIA Technology Center is a physical manifestation of the SNIA vision to facilitate cooperation among its vendor members and accelerate storage network technologies and education.
The technology center will have laboratory space for interoperability and standards tests, housing a permanent "Plug Fest," or functioning storage network, to simulate customer environments. The test facility will also provide for vendor prototype testing as well as new technology testing. As an example, the Common Information Model (CIM) prototype that the SNIA working groups are trying to advance through standards committees will be permanently housed there.
The SNIA believes that education, as well as technology, is a large part of its mission. The technology center will provide a forum for educational symposiums, both for IT professionals and industry specialists. IT professionals, from chief information officers to storage administrators, can learn about what storage networks are and what they can provide to businesses. For industry specialists, these symposiums will provide focus groups for testing and test metrics associated with networked storage.
In "Storage Area Networks, SAN Migration and Management Strategies," a study published last summer by Enterprise Management Associates, 59% of the respondents expected significant difficulties implementing storage network technologies due to the lack of interoperability and standards. Understandably, IT professionals did not want to incur the costs of building a networked storage infrastructure if they had little confidence the solution would work within the time required. The SNIA’s dedication to promoting industry standards and validating interoperability among network storage products will provide those IT professionals with the information and comfort they require to proceed with implementation.
As an industry association, the SNIA relies on member companies to help promote and further its mission. One SNIA-member company that has been key to making the technology center a reality is Compaq.
Compaq saw the need for the center and promoted the vision within the SNIA. Compaq was able to convince Dona Stever, director of advanced technology at Highground Systems and SNIA board member, of the importance of the project. Stever, with the support of the Interoperability Committee chairs Tom Clark of Nishan Systems and Sheila Childs of StorageProvider, took hold of the vision and has been tenacious in turning the vision into reality. Compaq donated the facility. The SNIA is currently in the process of defining other types of sponsorship programs, in which both member and nonmember companies and organizations are welcome to participate.
» posted by ITworld staff
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