Welcome to the FarSighted Newsletter
From Wayne Adams, Chair, SNIA Board of Directors

Welcome to this quarterly issue of the FarSighted newsletter. You’ll find many SNIA activities detailed in the Spotlight on SNIA section. I want to let you know about a number of other news and activities not covered inside the issue. First, we have rapidly addressed the question “How will SNIA address Cloud computing and storage?” We completed a series of activities including a three day Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) Cloud summit at the SNIA Winter Symposium, we hosted an evening Cloud BOF at the FAST conference, we established a provisional Cloud Storage Technical Work Group (TWG), and we will be speaking at the upcoming OMG–hosted cross-industry workshop on consortia standards and Cloud computing. SNIA welcomes you to join the 90–plus Cloud Storage TWG members and the SNIA Cloud Google Group at http://groups.google.com/group/snia-cloud.

SNIA has reintroduced the SNIA Qualified Storage Sales Professional credential, oriented to sales and marketing professionals who demonstrate knowledge in networked storage found in data centers and small-medium businesses. SNIA has provided a series of training classes designed for sales and marketing professionals at the Colorado Technology Center. Recently DataSPAN, a large valued-add reseller and system integrator, made an investment for their entire sales and marketing organization to be trained by SNIA and its training partners to earn the professional credential.

A few other activities to note include a large financial institution staging a series of proof-of-concept network storage solutions at the Technology Center to pick the best of breed configuration to deploy in their production operations later this year. SNIA moved its San Francisco headquarters to a new downtown location as part of our ongoing cost reduction activities. With many companies curtailing the amount of travel employees may take for training and education, SNIA has tapped the BrightTALK Webcast platform as a cost- effective way to reach an international audience of IT professionals.

Within this issue, the Only in FarSighted section features exclusive articles on "Beyond the Hype: SNIA's Green Power Measurement Specification Offers Clarity;" "Getting to Know Your Solid State Storage," and "Encryption and Key Management Take on New Meaning in 2009." In the Spotlight on SNIA, learn more on the organization's green storage announcement; read about the activities at the upcoming Storage Networking World (SNW) and Storage Developer Conference, and get a re-cap of the Winter Symposium; find out about SNIA's reduced fee for individual members; and get an update from the International Council. As always, FarSighted's Analyst Watch section highlights the latest storage research from leading firms.

Please enjoy this edition of FarSighted, and we look forward to seeing you at April SNW, SNIA Technical Symposiums, and other industry events in the months ahead.