DAFS Collaborative Gains Momentum, Appoints Key Committee
Chairs At Successful Inaugural Meeting; Developers' Conference Scheduled for October 19-20
businesswire.com
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 19, 2000--The DAFS Collaborative (www.DAFScollaborative.org), an industry group established to specify and promote the Direct Access File System (DAFS) protocol, today announced that its first Developers' Conference will be held at Research Triangle Park in North Carolina on October 19-20. This meeting follows a highly successful inaugural meeting held in San Jose last month.
At the August 25 Inaugural Meeting more than 100 representatives from 52 leading international technology companies reviewed the draft specification and formed Working Groups. John Palmer from IBM was named as the Working Group chairman, and Mark Wittle from Network Appliance was named as the Technical Editor for the Specification. In addition, two co-chairmen were appointed
to direct the activities of the DAFS Collaborative: Mitch Shults, Director of Business Development for Intel's Fabric Component Division, and David Dale, Industry Evangelist, from Network Appliance.
The companies represented at the meeting include: Adaptec, Agilent, BanderaCom, Brocade, Cisco, Compaq, ComVault
Systems, Crossroads Systems, Dell, Earthlink Networks, EMC Corp, Emphora, Eurologic, ExaNet, Fujitsu, Giganet,
Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi Data Systems, IBM, Intel, LSI Logic Storage Systems, MTI, Network Appliance, Oracle, Pathlight, Pirus Networks, Procon Technology, Qlogic, SANlight, Seagate, Sendmail, Solution-Soft, Spinnaker Networks, Storage Tech, Sybase, Troika Networks, Veritas, Viathan, Vixel, and Zerowait Corp.
"We are delighted at the enormous amount of interest we are seeing for this important initiative," said Werner Glinka, Executive Director of the DAFS Collaborative. "Many companies are viewing DAFS as enabling technology for the data center of the future."
About DAFS
The Direct Access File System (DAFS) protocol is a new method for providing application servers with low-latency,
high-performance file access to shared pools of storage in data center environments. DAFS uses the Virtual Interface (VI) architecture (or a VI-like architecture) as its underlying transport mechanism, which allows applications to access VI-capable hardware without operating system intervention, and carry out bulk data transfers directly to or from application buffers. DAFS takes advantage of both of these capabilities to enable clusters of application servers in heterogeneous environments to efficiently share data, enhancing the performance and scalability of Internet, collaborative, e-commerce, and database applications.
"DAFS combines the performance advantage of direct-attached storage with the data-sharing and maintainability advantages of file access protocols," said Steve Kleiman, Chief Technology Officer at Network Appliance. "DAFS will be used as the basis for integrating the industry's best application software, compute servers, and storage systems into cohesive, massively scalable storage networks."
About the DAFS Collaborative
The DAFS Collaborative was formed in June 2000 by Network Appliance, Intel, and other leading systems and storage networking vendors, with the goal of making the Direct Access File System protocol available to the industry. The group is soliciting industry review and feedback before submitting the new file system to an appropriate standards body.
The companies who participated in the initial launch include: Agilent Technologies; Adaptec, Inc.; Ancor Communications, Inc.; ATTO Technology, Inc.; BROCADE; Chaparral Network Storage, Inc.; Cisco Systems; Crossroads Systems; Earthlink; Eurologic Systems; Fujitsu Limited; Gadzoox Networks; Giganet; HighGround Systems; Intel Corporation; Landmark Graphics Corp.; Media 100; NetLedger; Network Appliance, Inc.; Oracle Corporation; QLogic Corporation; QuantumATL; Red Hat, Inc.; Seagate; Spectra
Logic; StorageNetworks, Inc.; Troika Networks; VA Linux Systems; and Vixel Corporation.
The DAFS Collaborative encourages broad industry participation. Additional participants are welcome and can join online. For more information visit dafscollaborative.com.
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CONTACT: The Glinka Company
Werner Glinka, 650/851-5909
werner.glinka@attglobal.net
KEYWORD: CALIFORNIA NORTH CAROLINA
INDUSTRY KEYWORD: COMPUTERS/ELECTRONICS NETWORKING |
