Five Big Storage Vendors to Pass SNIA SMI-S

The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) announced that
five vendors are now shipping products that conform to the latest
version of the SNIA’s Conformance Testing Program (SNIA-CTP) for the
Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S) Provider Test
suite. The program was developed to help ensure enterprise and storage
management products deliver on the benefits of the fast-evolving SMI-S
standard. In the history of the program, the SNIA-CTP has completed
provider testing of more than 500 vendor hardware products from 27
companies. The new SMI-S Provider Test suite now adds the capability to
test storage products for conformance to the SMI-S version 1.2. The
first vendors to pass the SNIA-CTP SMI-S Provider Test suite for
version 1.2 storage management include EMC Corporation, Hitachi Data
Systems, HP, IBM and NetApp.

The SNIA has expanded its testing of storage products that
conform to the recently completed draft of SMI-S version 1.2 that
includes functional enhancements to the array and storage virtualizer
support. The SNIA will also roll out additional programs to add testing
of additional storage products, such as Fabric and NAS, which conform
to SMI-S version 1.2 to further its multi-vendor or heterogeneous
storage management.

SMI Install Portals for Providers Launched

The SNIA also announced the availability of new SMI Install Portals for
Providers to assist end users in deploying SMI-S products in their
environments. Linked from the SNIA-CTP pages for conformant providers,
these vendor sites provide useful information for installing and
configuring SMI-S support for conformant products. These member company
websites contain information designed to help end users more
effectively deploy and manage native SMI-S enabled hardware and
software. The SMI Install Portals for Providers pages can be reached
from the SNIA-CTP pages for providers, which is located at http://www.snia.org/forums/smi/tech_programs/ctp/conformingproviders/.

The first vendors to provide their SMI Install Portals for Providers
include Brocade, Cisco, EMC, HP, IBM and NetApp. "The SMI Install
Portal for Providers is aimed at easing some of the pain customers have
experienced in trying to deploy SMI-S supported products in their
environments," said Mike Walker, Chair of the Storage Management
Initiative Conformance Committee. "When customers install an SMI-S
client in a multi-vendor SMI-S environment, they are faced with the
challenge of installing a variety of providers at various levels. The
SMI Install Portal for Providers will allow customers to readily find
installation and configuration information for the providers they need
in their environment."

Storage Networking Industry
Association