SNIA in the Clouds

The SNIA Cloud Storage Initiative (CSI) and Technical Work Group (TWG) have delivered on the promises made in 2010, and are continuing this momentum into 2011.

As a practical step toward standards adoption, SNIA Cloud Storage Technical Working Group (TWG) released the Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI) specification last year, and an accompanying CDMI Reference Implementation (CDMI RI) of the CDMI specification has also been released. CDMI is more than just a data path to the cloud – it also includes the ability to manage service levels that data receives when it is stored in the cloud. The CDMI enables a common interoperable data exchange format for securely moving data and its associated data requirements from cloud to cloud.

Building on these deliverables, 2011 activities include Plugfests, with the first taking place in April 2011 at the SNIA Technology Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. The Cloud Plugfest allows vendors to bring their implementations of CDMI and the Open Grid Forum’s Open Cloud Computing Interface (OCCI) to test, identify, and fix bugs in a collaborative setting with the goal of providing a forum in which companies can develop interoperable products. For additional details on participating in a Cloud Plugfest, contact Arnold Jones at Arnold.jones@snia.org.

CSI continues to expand its educational and technical efforts worldwide, including the recently-launched SNIA Cloud Backup and Recovery Special Interest Group, and participation in the global standards coordination group cloud–standards.org. At SNW Spring, CSI will once again host a Cloud Pavilion, and the group has participated in two Cloud summits, with Webcasts available online. In addition, CSI recently published a whitepaper on implementing, serving and using Cloud Storage.

For more information on SNIA’s Cloud Storage activities, please visit www.snia.org/cloud or get involved in the conversation at www.twitter.com/SNIACloud and http://groups.google.com/group/cloudstorage.