Michael Walker

Company Represented While Actively Involved with the SNIA:

IBM, Senior Technical Staff Member Anchor Farm, Distinguished Farmer (Retired)

Current Company:

Anchor Farm, Distinguished Farmer (Retired)

Years with the SNIA:

2003 – 2014 And Bluefin before that.

Committees, Forums, Initiatives, Board Seats Held at the SNIA:

• SMI Governing Board Secretary
• SMI Conformance Committee Chair
• SMI Marketing Committee Chair
• TSG Chair
• FSM TWG Chair
• MP TWG Chair
• SMI-S Core Chair

Fondest Memories of the SNIA:

Working with a great team of people from across the industry to make SMI-S happen.

Proudest Moments while Active with the SNIA:

I swallowed hard when I was asked to take over the TSG Chair position. It was even more challenging than I was expecting. But it also was very rewarding.

Being involved with the SMI Governing Board when SMI was formed was another challenge. Before the SMI, management of the standard was spread across a disparate set of committees. We pulled the work under the SMI. Coordinating the budgets and work across the technical, testing, lab work and marketing teams was very rewarding.

SNIA's Greatest Achievements:

While I may be biased, given the time and effort to create SMI-S, including the marketing and testing programs, as well pushing it though ANSI and ISO, I see SMI-S as the SNIA’s greatest achievement. In hindsight, creating the specification was the easy part. Developing the testing program, conducting SMI-Lab interoperability sessions, working the standardization process and marketing the end product required an incredible effort on the part of the whole SNIA organization.