Business Value for Vendor Participation in SMI-Lab

The SNIA provides a multi-faceted set of programs that includes participants from various storage management communities: vendors, integrators, customers, media and analysts. This represents direct access to and connection with business partners based on values other than competition for marketshare, for example, growing the total market and creating standards.

SNIA is a catalyst for technology programs focused on specific technologies and customer issues. Vendors can evaluate their approach and market position in comparison to other vendors who have products in the same technology segment.

Participation in the SMI-Lab and Technical Workgroups provides a unique environment for Technologists to interact with specialists across the industry working in harmony to solve customer problems. Investment of development resources into creating an industry standard protocol pays back in the ability to control the direction and pace of industry growth, as well as increasing the longevity of the products based on the standard.

Business partnerships that originate from successful cooperative development efforts offer a higher value to customer, because the products produced are based on synergistic design goals. Solutions that evolve from interoperability labs are superior to products developed in isolation.

The consolidation of discovery, access, reporting, and control features onto a single, standard architecture (SMI-S) offers a strong foundation for a broader set of management capabilities.

SMI-S will become a tool for customers to use to discuss their requirements with vendors (from an industry standard perspective.) The standard provides a common reference point for evaluating and comparing features and offers insight into vendor intentions (road map)

The implementation of the SMI-S standard into products gives vendors a framework for adding value to standardized conventions of storage device/management application interfaces. Because of the normalization of management interfaces, SMI-Lab accelerates the ability to bring products to market.

Contact:  Tom Mancuso, Senior Program Manager, SMI (Storage Management Initiative)