Test KMIP Implementations at SNIA

SNIA's Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP) Conformance Test Program is now fully operational at the SNIA Technology Center in Colorado Springs, CO.  KMIP, its profiles, and test cases are defined by the OASIS (The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) KMIP Technical Committee.
 
According to SNIA's KMIP Test Program Manager David Thiel, the KMIP Test Program provides independent verification from a trusted third party that a given KMIP implementation conforms to the KMIP standard.  Verification gives confidence to both vendors and end users of KMIP solutions that a product will interoperate with other similarly tested KMIP products. KMIP support has become a prerequisite requirement for organizations looking to acquire storage and security key management solutions. 
 
If you are a vendor with a product that supports KMIP, having the product successfully complete SNIA's KMIP Conformance Test Program is the best way to instill customer confidence. Any organization with a KMIP implementation can test in the SNIA's vendor-neutral, non-competitive environment.  For KMIP Server testing, the vendor places the Server in the SNIA Technology Center and trains the KMIP Test Program staff on its use.  For KMIP Client testing, the vendor connects the Client over the Internet to the test apparatus at the SNIA Technology Center or installs the Client in the SNIA Technology Center.  The KMIP Test Program staff then tests the Server or Client and reports results to the vendor. All information regarding vendor testing and test results is confidential until the vendor releases successful test results for publication.
 
To date, products from Cryptsoft, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and IBM have successfully passed KMIP Conformance Tests.  Test results can be found on the KMIP Conformance Testing Results page.  Visit the KMIP Test Program to learn more.

SNIA and DMTF Continue to Work Together on Storage Initiatives

Call for Presentations is Now Open for Storage Developer Conference 2016

Showcase Your New Solution at the Data Storage Innovation Conference

Storage Performance Benchmarking: Block Components
March 8, 2016
Ken Cantrell, Manager Performance Engineering, NetApp
Mark Rogov, Advisory Systems Engineer, EMC
David Fair,  Chair, SNIA-Ethernet Storage Forum, Intel
 
The third installment of SNIA’s performance benchmarking Webcast series, “Storage Performance Benchmarking: Block Components” aims to continue educating anyone untrained in the storage performance arts to ascend to a common base with the experts. You will gain an understanding of the block components of modern storage arrays and learn block storage terminology.
 
Exploring the Software Defined Data Center
March 15, 2016
Eric Slack, Sr. Analyst, Evaluator Group
Alex McDonald, Chair SNIA’s Cloud Storage Initiative, NetApp
Glyn Bowden, SNIA Cloud Storage Board, HPE
 
A Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) is a compute facility in which all elements of the infrastructure - networking, storage, CPU and security - are virtualized and removed from proprietary hardware stacks. Deployment, provisioning and configuration, as well as the operation, monitoring and automation of the entire environment is abstracted from hardware and implemented in software.
 
If you’re interested in Software Defined Data Centers and how such a thing might be implemented – and why this concept is important to IT professionals who aren’t involved with building data centers – then please join us on March 15^th. 

f4: Facebook’s Warm BLOB Storage System
March 16, 2016
Satadru Pan, Software Engineer, Facebook
 
As the massive footprint of Facebook’s Binary Large Objects (BLOBs) BLOBs increases, storing them in our traditional storage system, Haystack, is becoming increasingly inefficient. To increase our storage efficiency, measured in the effective-replication-factor of BLOBs, we examine the underlying access patterns of BLOBs and identify temperature zones that include hot BLOBs that are accessed frequently and warm BLOBs that are accessed far less often. This Webcast will discuss f4 - a new system that lowers the effective-replication-factor of warm BLOBs while remaining fault tolerant and able to support the lower throughput demands, providing low latency, resiliency to disk, host, rack, and datacenter failures, and sufficient throughput for warm BLOBs.
 
What Is NFS: An NFS Primer
March 23, 2016
Alex McDonald, Vice Chair, SNIA Ethernet Storage Forum, NetApp
Chad Hintz, SNIA Ethernet Storage Forum Board Member, Cisco

The popular and ubiquitous Network File System (NFS) is a service that allows applications to store and manage data on a remote computer or server. NFS provides two services: a network part that connects users or clients to a remote system or server, and a file-based view of the data. Together these provide a seamless environment that masks the differences between local files and remote files. This Webcast is an introduction and overview presentation of NFS for technologists and tech managers interested in understanding:

• NFS history and development
• The facilities and services NFS provides
• Why NFS rose in popularity to dominate file based services
• Why NFS continues to be important in the cloud

Practice Exam Now Available for SNIA Storage Foundations Certification

For storage professionals interested in obtaining SNIA’s new SNIA Certified Storage Professional Certification, SNIA has developed a practice exam that will help determine if you have the skill set to pass the Certification exam. The practice exam is free of charge, and is available here.  
 
Other training options for SNIA’s Foundations Certification are available here.

• Q&A – The Impact of International Data Protection Laws on the Cloud
• Storage Performance Benchmarking – Q&A
• A Different Approach to Solid State Storage in the Cloud
• An Updated Overview of NFSv4
• Storage Security: Encryption and Key Management
• Towards a CDMI Health Care Profile

Open Server Summit  - Santa Clara, CA – April 13-14, 2016 

Interop – Las Vegas, NV – May 2-6, 2016