Users will benefit from SNIA

Storage is a vital component in the information and communications technology industry. It's encouraging to see that an industry body has been formed that represents the interests of a specific area of the storage industry, namely networked storage. Mark Heers, chairman of Storage Networking Industry Association's (SNIA) Australia/New Zealand affiliate outlines what SNIA is about and its goals in the area of standards and education.

It is now several months since we officially launched the Storage Networking Industry Association's (SNIA) Australia/New Zealand affiliate, and as chairman, I would like to detail the reasons for forming SNIA ANZ and our visions for 2004.

A number of storage users have commented to us that SNIA ANZ has come at the right time; Australian and New Zealand CIOs continue to list areas such as storage management, regulatory compliance, data security, business continuity and the seemingly endless growth of storage as major business concerns. Many make mention of the flood of conflicting information around storage, the plethora of acronyms and the constant stream of new technology announcements. The industry's move to networked storage has certainly been dramatic and has driven the requirements for standards and education, to ensure that the business benefits of storage networking can be realised.

Over the last few years, SNIA has become the accepted vendor-neutral authority on all matters relating to data storage in the United States. With the formation of SNIA ANZ (along with similar bodies in Europe, Japan, South-East Asia and China), it ensures that the local marketplace can be made aware of the SNIA developments and can assist with the mission to promote storage networks as complete and trusted solutions.

Recent developments include the expansion of our ANSI-accredited Storage Management Initiative (SMI) program, designed to assist with the efficient management of multi-vendor storage networks - a key concern for both end users and integrators. We are starting to see the fruits of this initiative as various hardware and software vendors are announcing compliant products. Alongside SMI, we will continue to focus on IP storage standards with the developing interest in iSCSI and other IP-related storage protocols. The SNIA Data Management Forum focuses on regulatory compliance, information lifecycle management, content management and data protection - major issues for nearly all Australian and New Zealand organisations.

Most importantly, the vast majority of storage vendors and those passionate about the promotion and advocacy of networked storage and storage standards in the Australian and New Zealand marketplace have become supporters and members of SNIA ANZ in its inaugural year. The local association already boasts twelve full members and nine general members. Whilst it may appear as a 'United Nations' membership, it is reassuring that everyone has been able to work so harmoniously in the promotion of the issues facing the storage user. Our major communication for all the issues mentioned above will be through eNewsletters and the www.snia.org.au website. We encourage everyone to sign-up and register for the SNIA ANZ newsletter and other updates. Visit the website to view technical and educational material both from SNIA and other local sources along with updates on events and seminars.

Infinity I/O, the local provider of SNIA certification (and exclusive developer of Fibre Channel SAN certification program for SNIA) have classes and e-classes available for training in storage area networking (SANs). We hope that you share our enthusiasm and excitement for this inaugural year of SNIA ANZ and look forward to hearing from you!