As the SNIA Cloud Storage Initiative (CSI) starts our 2016 with a new set of educational programs and webcasts on topics of interest to those developing, implementing & managing cloud storage, I thought it might be a good time to remind everyone of the vendor-neutral educational work the CSI has delivered in 2015. I’m particularly proud of the work the CSI has done through BrightTalk (a web based content delivery platform) in producing live hour-long tutorials on a wide variety of subjects. What you may not know is that these are also recorded, and you can play them back when it’s convenient to you. I know that we have a global audience, and that when we deliver the live version it may be in the middle of your busy working day – or even in the middle of the night. As part of SNIA, the CSI supports the development of technical storage standards; and that means some of our audience are developers. For those of you that are interested in more technical presentations we had two developer focussed BrightTalks: Hierarchical Erasure Coding: Making Erasure Coding Usable This talk covered two different approaches to erasure coding – a flat erasure code across JBOD, and a hierarchical code with an inner code and an outer code; it compared the two approaches on different parameters that impact the IT business and provided guidance on evaluating object storage solutions. Expert Panel: Cloud Storage Initiatives – An SDC Preview At the 2015 Storage Developer Conference (SDC) we presented on a variety of topics:

• Mobile and Secure - Cloud Encrypted Objects using CDMI
• Object Drives: A new Architectural Partitioning
• Unistore: A Unified Storage Architecture for Cloud Computing
• Using CDMI to Manage Swift, S3, and Ceph Object Repositories

We discussed how encrypted objects can be stored, retrieved, and transferred between clouds, how Object Drives allow storage to scale up and down by single drive increments, end-user and vendor use cases of the Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI), and we introduced Unistore - an innovative unified storage architecture that efficiently integrates heterogeneous HDD and SCM devices for Cloud storage systems. (As an added bonus, all these SDC 2015 presentations and others can be found here http://www.snia.org/events/storage-developer/presentations15.) OpenStack has had a big year, and the CSI contributed to the discussion with: OpenStack File Services for High Performance Computing We looked at how OpenStack can consume and control file services appropriate to High Performance Compute in a cloud and multi-tenanted environment and investigated two approaches to integration. One approach is to have OpenStack manage the storage infrastructure services using Cinder, Nova and Neutron to provide HPC Filesystem as a Service. We also reviewed a second option of using Manila file services for OpenStack to control the HPC File system deployment and manage the exports etc. We discussed the development of the Lustre Manila driver and its current progress. Hybrid clouds were also in the news. We delivered two sessions, specifically targeted at end users looking to understand the technologies: Hybrid Clouds: Bridging Private & Public Cloud Infrastructures Every IT consumer is using cloud in one form or another, and just as storage buyers are reluctant to select single vendor for their on-premises IT, they will choose to work with multiple public cloud providers. But this desirable "many vendor" cloud strategy introduces new problems of compatibility and integration. To provide a seamless view of these discrete storage clouds, Software Defined Storage (SDS) can be used to build a bridge between them. This presentation explored how SDS, with its ability to deploy on different hardware and supporting rich automation capabilities, can extend its reach into cloud deployments to support a hybrid data fabric that spans on-premises and public clouds. Hybrid Clouds Part 2: Case Study on Building the Bridge between Private & Public There are significant differences in how cloud services are delivered to various categories of users. The integration of these services with traditional IT operations remains an important success factor but also a challenge for IT managers. The key to success is to build a bridge between private and public clouds. This Webcast expanded on the previous Hybrid Clouds: Bridging Private & Public Cloud Infrastructures webcast where we looked at the choices and strategies for picking a cloud provider for public and hybrid solutions. Lastly, we looked at some of the issues surrounding data protection and data privacy (no, they’re not the same thing at all!). Privacy v Data Protection: The Impact Int'l Data Protection Legislation on Cloud Governments across the globe are proposing and enacting strong data privacy and data protection regulations by mandating frameworks that include noteworthy changes like defining a data breach to include data destruction, adding the right to be forgotten, mandating the practice of breach notifications, and many other new elements. The implications of this and other proposed legislation on how the cloud can be utilized for storing data are significant. This webcast covered:

• EU “directives” vs. “regulation”
• General data protection regulation summary
• How personal data has been redefined
• Substantial financial penalties for non-compliance
• Impact on data protection in the cloud
• How to prepare now for impending changes

Moving Data Protection to the Cloud: Trends, Challenges and Strategies This was a panel discussion; we talked about various new ways to perform data protection using the Cloud and many advantages of using the Cloud this way. You can access all the CSI BrightTalk Webcasts on demand at the SNIA Website. Many of you will also be happy to learn that PDFs of the Webcast slides are also available there. We had a good 2015, and I’m looking forward to producing more great educational material during 2016. If you have a topic you’d like to see the CSI cover this year, please comment below in this blog. We value input from all. Thanks for your support and hopefully we’ll see you some time this year at one of our BrightTalk webcasts.