SNIA Creates Technical Work Group to Enhance NDMP Standard Through Software Development

Significant Code Contributions from EMC and NetApp to Accelerate the Update of the NDMP Software Development Kit to Latest Version of Standard

San Francisco, Calif. (December 5, 2007) - The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) today announced a new Technical Work Group (TWG) to create SNIA software to implement version 4.0 of the Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP) standard. This software will help accelerate the already widespread adoption of the NDMP standard by storage vendors and Information Technology (IT) users in all markets worldwide. NDMP addresses the challenges associated with backing up multivendor network attached storage systems with backup solutions.

Significant software code contributions, comprising the complete NDMPv3 reference implementation code base, have been donated to the SNIA by EMC and NetApp based on the specification available through the ndmp.org organization. Both EMC and NetApp were active members of the original NDMP task force and were influential in the early specification development. Vendors joining the NDMP TWG include Hitachi Data Systems, Pillar Data Systems, and Sun Microsystems.

"The new ability of the SNIA to work on software efforts and the resulting work of this new TWG will help enhance the adoption and maturity of the NDMP standard," said Vincent Franceschini, Chair of the SNIA. "NDMP was created as a technology to make the backup of NAS devices interoperable, and the combination of the code donation from EMC and NetApp with the TWG formation gives us a head start with our software development effort to help achieve the goal of delivering a mature, consistent, and strong Software Development Kit for version 4 of the standard."

The NDMP standard has evolved over time and has continued to mature with version 4; however, there is currently no consistent Software Development Kit (SDK) that developers can use to implement this version of the specification. This has posed challenges to vendors and IT users looking for a consistent and complete approach to developing their NAS backup hardware and software solutions. This SNIA effort, spearheaded by the TWG, will enhance the existing version 3 SDK implementation to conform to the latest version of the NDMP standard.
"EMC's software contribution to SNIA for its planned NDMP SDK is one of several important technology contributions EMC has made to SNIA in recent years," said Jeff Nick, EMC Senior Vice President and CTO. "SNIA's SDK will enable the current version of the NDMP standard to be more rapidly and consistently deployed by all storage vendors, including EMC's NAS and NAS backup offerings. Interoperable NAS backup is essential for enterprise data centers worldwide."
"NetApp has been a leading developer of the NDMP specification since the late 90s," said Brian Pawlowski, VP and CTO of NetApp. "In addition, we have a strong history in contributing software into multivendor development efforts, particularly in the FreeBSD and Linux communities. We believe that the software that we are contributing to the SNIA effort will increase the adoption of NDMP among storage vendors and will provide enterprises with more choices in data protection solutions."

About the SNIA

The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) is a not-for-profit global organization, made up of some 400 member companies and 7,000 individuals 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.