SNIA Cloud Storage Initiative Expands Its Industry Membership

Dallas, Texas (October 12, 2010) — The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) Cloud Storage Initiative (CSI) announced today at SNW that leading cloud computing vendors and managed service providers CA Technologies, Cisco, CoreVault, Iron Mountain, Recovery Networks and Terremark Worldwide have joined the CSI, bringing its membership to 23 companies worldwide.

In addition to member momentum, the CSI has also just completed the first SNIA CloudBurst Summit where more than 200 attendees gathered to understand how cloud standards are changing the industry. Attendees witnessed the first joint demonstration of SNIA’s first cloud standard CDMI (Cloud Data Management Interface) and OGF’s OCCI (Open Cloud Computing Interface).

Summit Keynote speaker Geoffrey Moore and author of Crossing the Chasm, Dealing with Darwin, echoed the Summit’s message. “SNIA’s Cloud Data Management Standard CDMI is playing two key roles in the storage industry. It tackles the complex data stores surrounding multiple decades of systems of record, streamlining their management and making them more amenable to cloud environments.” Moore continued, “At the same time, CDMI looks forward to next–generation systems of engagement, whose data store requirements are orders of magnitude larger than conventional systems but need much simpler interfaces. As more and more enterprises find themselves committed to both architectures, appreciation and support for CDMI can only grow.”

SNW October 2010 will include several activities around Cloud, including:

• A first–hand look at the Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI) and the ability for attendees to interact live in a Cloud Storage Hands-On Lab featuring Asigra, Rackspace, Symantec and Terremark.


• The SNIA Cloud Pavilion in the ExpoHall will feature CSI members Asigra, Cleversafe, CSI, EMC, Iron Mountain, NetApp and Oracle.


• A CDMI/OCCI demo in the Pavilion will show how to manage service levels associated with data when it is stored in the cloud.


• There will be a session devoted to the CDMI standard, “Interoperable Cloud Storage with the CDMI Standard,” taking place October 12 at 3:05 p.m. Central Daylight Time.

Expanding worldwide, CSI continues its educational and technical efforts that include the recently–launched SNIA Cloud Backup and Recovery Special Interest Group and participation in the global standards coordination group cloud–standards.org.

As a practical step toward standards adoption, SNIA Cloud Storage Technical Working Group (TWG) released the Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI) specification earlier this year. As another proof point of relevance, an accompanying CDMI Reference Implementation (CDMI RI) of the CDMI specification is now released. To facilitate adoption, CSI is socializing and encouraging the wide distribution and inspection of the CDMI RI.

Since 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.

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 or http://groups.google.com/group/cloudstorage. A CSI whitepaper on implementing, serving and using Cloud Storage can also be downloaded here.

About the SNIA CSI

The SNIA Cloud Storage Initiative (CSI) fosters the growth and success of the market for cloud storage for vendors, service providers, and users. Members of the CSI work together to advance the adoption of the SNIA Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI) standard, educate the IT communities about cloud storage, perform market outreach that highlights the virtues of cloud storage, and collaborate with other industry associations on cloud storage technical work. Founding members of the CSI, representing a variety of segments of the IT industry, include Actifio, Bycast, Cleversafe, CloudOptix, Dell, Desktone, EMC, Hitachi Data Systems, HP, LSI Corporation, Mezeo, NetApp, Olocity Corporation, Oracle, Symantec Corp and Xiotech Corporation. New members include Asigra, CA Technologies, Cisco, CoreVault, Iron Mountain, Recovery Networks and Terremark Worldwide. For more information on SNIA’s Cloud Storage activities, visit snia.org/cloud or get involved in the conversation at twitter.com/SNIACloud or http://groups.google.com/group/snia-cloud.

About the SNIA

The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) is a not–for–profit global organization, made up of some 400 member companies spanning virtually the entire storage industry. SNIA’s mission is to lead the storage industry worldwide in developing and promoting standards, technologies, and educational services to empower organizations in the management of information. 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 additional information, visit the SNIA web site at www.snia.org.