SNIA/FCIA Summit At Storage Networking World Yields Cooperation Agreement On Interoperability
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 20, 1999--Executives from the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) and the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) held a summit meeting yesterday at the Storage Networking World Conference here that addressed IT concerns over interoperability. The two groups created a joint task force headed by Brad Stamas, chair of the SNIA's Technical Council, and Howie Chin, chair of the FCIA interoperability committee, to focus on three areas of mutual concern:
-- Create well-thought-out interface specifications
-- Develop a common set of market requirements to feed into design groups
-- Jointly address SAN interoperability requirements
The organizations recognize that the IT community needs conformance testing and validation through tests such as the FCIA interoperability plugfests to demonstrate the reliability of heterogeneous storage networking systems.
This is the first in a series of technical alliances that the SNIA plans to develop to maintain the momentum of the enterprise networking industry.
``It is important to reach out to the IT community to demonstrate that enterprise storage is ready for prime time,' said Dr. Paul Borrill, SNIA chair. The SNIA's overriding goal is to educate the market on storage networking issues and technologies and to provide the technical forum to oversee the development of truly interoperable standards and protocols throughout the industry. We need to work with groups such as the FCIA to achieve results in a manageable time period, thus continuing to set the pace for the industry. IT departments need the security that heterogeneous SAN and NAS products will reliably interoperate before they can take wholesale advantage of the benefits of storage networking -- this is to everyone's interest vendor and user alike.``
``The FCIA and the SNIA are working toward the same end from different starting points. In many ways this agreement simply formalizes an exchange of information and ideas that has been underway since the inception of the organizations,' said Mike Fitzpatrick, FCIA chair. ``Under this agreement, the FCIA will develop specific Fibre Channel protocols at the physical link layer and below. The SNIA will focus on management and system-wide interactions. Together we will cooperate in network and transport layers defining areas such as discovery.'
The first meeting of Special Joint Task Force is scheduled for November.
ABOUT FCIA
The Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) is an international organization of manufacturers, systems integrators, developers, systems vendors, industry professionals, and end users. With more than 200 members and affiliates in the United States, Europe and Japan, the FCIA is committed to delivering a broad base of Fibre Channel infrastructure to support a wide array of industry applications within the mass storage and IT-based arenas. FCIA working groups focus on specific aspects of the technology that target both vertical and horizontal markets, including storage, video, networking, and SAN management.
For information, please contact the FCIA at 415/750-8355 or via e-mail at fcia@fibrechannel.com, or visit the FCIA web site at fibrechannel.com.
ABOUT SNIA
The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) is a not-for-profit organization, made up of more than 110 companies and individuals spanning virtually the entire storage industry. SNIA members share a common goal, to set the pace of the industry by ensuring that storage networks become efficient, complete, and trusted solutions across the IT community. To this end the SNIA is uniquely committed to delivering standards, education, and services that will propel open storage networking solutions into the broader market. For information, contact the SNIA at 650/949-6720 or via e-mail at robin@tfginc.com, or visit the SNIA web site at snia.org.
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