SNIA Announces Ethernet Storage Forum

At SNW, the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) announced a significant expansion in the charter of the SNIA IP Storage Forum, which is reflected in its new name – the SNIA Ethernet Storage Forum. The mission of the SNIA Ethernet Storage Forum (ESF) is to drive the broad adoption of all Ethernet-connected storage networking solutions.

Initially, the Forum will consist of two Special Interest Groups – the iSCSI SIG and the NFS SIG. The iSCSI SIG will focus on continuing the successful IP Storage Forum agenda to create marketing and educational materials explaining the features, benefits and best practices related to iSCSI solutions in a variety of IT environments: windows, virtual server, heterogeneous host, high performance, and Small/Medium Enterprises. The goal is to drive the continued rapid market growth and broad adoption of the technology. Member companies include Compellent, Dell, HP, Intel, Microsoft, NEC, NetApp and Sun.

The new NFS SIG will be focused on creating a portfolio of marketing and educational materials explaining the features, benefits, use cases and best practices related to NFS-based NAS solutions. Particular focus will be on applications and benefits of emerging new capabilities, such as pNFS. The goal is to drive the continued market growth and broad adoption of NFS, and a rapid market uptake as vendors bring their pNFS implementations to market. The founding members of the NFS SIG include EMC, NetApp, Panasas and Sun.

The Forum also intends to form a Special Interest Group focused on the CIFS/SMB protocol and ecosystem. For relevant technologies that are specifically promoted by other industry groups, the Ethernet Storage Forum intends to pursue strategic alliances with those groups to broaden the reach of marketing materials and educational initiatives, and ensure consistent positioning across the industry.

“As the SNIA’s first marketing Forum, the IP Storage Forum built a solid reputation for delivering effective, vendor-neutral marketing and educational materials via the web, at events, and through media outlets around the globe,” said David Dale, SNIA Ethernet Storage Forum Chair. “However, the Forum was chartered only to promote IP-based SAN technologies – iSCSI, FCIP and iFCP – and we were constantly being asked by IT professionals why we don’t cover other Ethernet-based storage, such as NAS. The change in charter is largely in response to those requests, together with increasing market demand for Ethernet-connected storage, and continued vendor support.”

In terms of market demand, the ubiquity of Gigabit Ethernet endpoints, the adoption of 10 Gigabit backbones in IT infrastructures, and the rapid growth of Ethernet-connected storage installations (NAS and iSCSI) is driving an accelerated need for information covering the whole topic of Ethernet storage. Analysts assess that more than 30% of the storage networking market in 2009 will be Ethernet-connected, with a growing number of enterprises implementing “Ethernet only data centers” with all storage traffic using an Ethernet infrastructure for SAN, NAS, and remote datacenter connectivity. Analysts also project this phenomenon is likely to become increasingly widespread in the coming years as 10 GbE is more aggressively deployed and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) solutions are brought to market.

About the SNIA Ethernet Storage Forum
The SNIA Ethernet Storage Forum (ESF) is a marketing organization within the Storage Networking Industry Association focused on driving the broad adoption of Ethernet-connected storage networking solutions by:

• Providing an industry focus on Ethernet-connected storage networking technologies and solutions
• Creating vendor-neutral education material for IT professionals
• Driving market awareness and positioning of the various Ethernet storage technologies
• Providing industry experts and thought leadership on Ethernet-connected storage networking technologies
• Leveraging SNIA and industry events, activities and end-user outreach programs around the globe