SNIA Earns International Standardization

The Storage Networking Industry
Association (SNIA) announced that its Cloud
Data Management Interface (CDMI) specification, the industry-developed
open standard for storage as a service as part of cloud
computing, has been designated an International Standard (IS) by the Joint
Technical Committee 1 (JTC 1), a joint effort of the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO) and the International
Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) for the purpose of standardization in the
field of IT.

The specification received the necessary support from participating national members
under the JTC 1 Publicly Available Specification (PAS) Process and has been
designated ISO/IEC 17826.

"There is strong demand for Cloud
Computing standards and to see one of our most active consortia partners
contribute this specification in such a timely fashion is very gratifying,"
said Karen Higginbottom, chair of ISO/IEC JTC 1. "The standard will improve cloud interoperability and is a great result
of the cooperation that exists between JTC 1 and SNIA."

Michael Hogan, of the National
Institute of Standards and Technology and co-chair of NIST’s public cloud computing
standards roadmap working group, stressed the importance of the international
voluntary consensus standards to the U.S. Government stating: "A high priority to further USG cloud
computing technology adoption is the availability of international voluntary
consensus-based standards for interoperability, performance, portability,
security, etc… We’re glad to see the JTC 1 PAS Transposition process working
as intended to quickly gain consensus and approval of an international
voluntary consensus standard."

The use of the CDMI standard by cloud computing and cloud storage
providers enhances the types of storage services they can offer their customers
and allows interoperability and portability between service providers. Based on
a RESTful HTTP protocol, CDMI provides both a data path and control path for
cloud storage and standardizes a common interoperable data exchange format for
securely moving data and its associated data requirements from cloud to cloud. The
standard is applicable to public, private and hybrid deployment models for
storage clouds.

The CDMI standard and a CDMI Reference Implementation (CDMI RI) are
developed by the SNIA Cloud Storage Technical Work Group (TWG) which includes
more than 230 members from more than 60 different organizations around the
world. The SNIA Cloud Storage Initiative promotes the standard to advance the adoption
and educates the IT communities about cloud storage. CSI member companies
represent a variety of segments in the IT industry and include Basho
Technologies, CA Technologies, Cisco Systems, Cleversafe, EMC, Evaluator Group,
Hewlett Packard, Hitachi Data Systems, Huawei, IBM, LSI Corporation, Mezeo
Software, NetApp, Oracle, Scality, Sepaton, SpectraLogic, SwiftTest, Terremark
Worldwide, XIO, Xyratex, and ZTE Corporation.

Mark Carlson and Alex McDonald, co-chairs of SNIA’s Cloud Storage
Initiative added: "Recognition by the
ISO/IEC community is confirmation that the many thousands of hours put into
development of CDMI by SNIA member volunteers has produced a high quality
international specification on which vendors and customers can depend. We are
pleased storage vendors and cloud providers have already announced
implementations and we expect recognition as an ISO/IEC standard will further
accelerate adoption."

Well regarded in the industry, SNIA standards provide benefits to both vendors and end users. Vendors gain the benefits of quicker
time to market, reduced costs, and greater customer acceptance than if each
company were to attempt to create its process for every
technical interaction, while end users of products that comply with SNIA
standards enjoy greater interoperability, reduced training, and lower
TCO.

Ben Woo, MD of Neuralytix, Inc., a NYC-based
strategy consultancy specializing in the information industry added: "Standards from industry consortia such as
SNIA are absolutely key to removing the roadblocks that customers are seeing in
cloud computing. CDMI makes it not only possible for customers to move data
from one cloud to another, it makes it secure and easy. Adoption of the CDMI
standard by Cloud Storage service providers should pick up significantly now
that ISO and IEC have adopted it."

The standard will be available for purchase from the ISO Store
website when JTC 1 completes its administrative and publication processes. 

The SNIA Cloud Storage Initiative (CSI) fosters the growth and
success of the market for cloud storage for vendors, service providers, and
users. Members of the CSI work together to advance the adoption of the SNIA CDMI standard, educate the IT communities
about cloud storage, perform market outreach that highlights the virtues of
cloud storage, and collaborate with other industry associations on cloud
storage technical work. CSI member companies represent a variety of segments
in the IT industry and include Basho Technologies, CA Technologies, Cisco
Systems, Cleversafe, EMC, Evaluator Group, Hewlett Packard, Hitachi Data
Systems, IBM, LSI Corporation, Mezeo Software, NetApp, Oracle, Scality,
Sepaton, SpectraLogic, SwiftTest, Terremark Worldwide, XIO, Xyratex, and ZTE
Corporation. 

Industry Support for the CDMI Standard

Dennis Martin, Demartek, LLC,
said: "Since starting the storage cloud
work less than a year ago, the SNIA has delivered a string of very important
educational and technical assets to the industry. Being able to deliver the
Cloud Data Management Interface specification in such a short amount of time
will reset the market dynamics for current and emerging service providers. By
establishing this concise standard within the industry, the SNIA continues to
deliver both the technology and the education to help accelerate the acceptance
and adoption of Cloud Storage."

Joseph Martins, Data
Mobility Group, LLC, said: "The SNIA
has delivered on its promise, made a year ago, to deliver a Data Storage as a
Service standard. With the availability of the CDMI specification, providers
and storage vendors can augment their current interfaces to enable data
portability across clouds. Cloud customers should now start demanding their
cloud vendors and equipment providers show plans for implementing this
important SNIA standard."

Arun Taneja, Taneja Group,
Inc., said: "The SNIA CDMI enables
the development of rich storage clouds and realizes those benefits in a standard
fashion. Anytime a standard such as this is utilized, the winner is the end
user, as the functionality and added value can be the differentiating factor
among providers. With broad CDMI adoption, the cloud market can reach its
fullest potential."

Geoffrey Moore, noted author of Crossing the Chasm and Dealing
with Darwin, said: "SNIA’s Cloud Data
Management Standard CDMI is playing two key roles in the storage industry. It
tackles the complex data stores surrounding multiple decades of systems of record,
streamlining their management and making them more amenable to cloud
environments. At the same time, CDMI looks forward to next-generation systems
of engagement, whose data store requirements are orders of magnitude larger
than conventional systems but need much simpler interfaces. As more and more
enterprises find themselves committed to both architectures, appreciation and
support for CDMI can only grow."

Richard Soley, executive director, Cloud Standards Customer Council,
said: "Cloud standards will increase
adoption, interoperability and portability of cloud solutions. Recognition by
ISO of SNIA’s important work in cloud computing is a recognition of the
importance of open, neutral, international standards for end-user adoption."

Russ Kennedy, VP of product strategy, marketing and customer solutions, Cleversafe, Inc., said: "Cloud for storage represents a vast
opportunity. CIOs and IT managers are trying to survive the avalanche of new
data being created by users and companies and they need more cost effective
solutions. The adoption of the CDMI standard by the International Standards
Organization represents a significant milestone in our industry. We strongly
believe in and are committed to supporting industry standards that further the
growth of cloud solutions for storage."

Russ Fellows, senior partner, Evaluator
Group, Inc., said: "The SNIA has been
actively driving standards for nearly a decade. They have gained a reputation
for vendor neutral collaboration, while developing and promoting standards that
benefit the entire storage community. The release of the CDMI specification
provides a critical building block for the cloud storage industry. This
specification provides the interoperability needed to enable vendors and users
alike to take the next step towards widespread cloud computing."

Todd Moore, director of infrastructure standards and partnerships. IBM Corporation, said: "With CDMI reaching the significant milestone
of becoming an ISO standard, implementations appearing in the Cloud community
(e.g. support for Openstack’s Swift), we’re seeing the momentum of Cloud
standards for interoperability continuing to build. As customer demands for
interoperable and portable solutions increase, specifications such as CDMI are
playing a crucial role in meeting their needs."

John Eastman, CTO, Mezeo Software
corporation, said: "Mezeo Software’s
vision has always been to support open, industry standard interfaces – which is
one of the reasons we selected CDMI for our cloud storage and data management
platform two years ago. Mezeo is pleased to see the recent adoption of the CDMI
standard by other leading software and hardware vendors. The formal acceptance
of CDMI as an international standard begins the next phase for enabling service
providers and enterprises to seamlessly implement a non-proprietary industry
standard interface, allowing them to benefit from interoperability and a
variety of leading partners and solutions."

Gary Lyng, senior director, product management, NetApp, Inc., said: "Using the CDMI open standard, NetApp enables end-users to reduce risk,
drive efficiencies in the cloud, and realize data as a business asset. When
NetApp released StorageGRID 9.0 earlier this year, we became the first major
storage management company to implement CDMI and reaffirmed our commitment to
providing standard access to, and interoperability with, Cloud based data.
NetApp believes that CDMI will become the standard protocol for Big Data and
enable our customers to manage extremely large data sets across distributed and
cloud environments."

Philippe Nicolas, director of product strategy, Scality, Inc., said: "Scality is a true supporter of SNIA CDMI since the launch of the CSI
Initiative a few years ago. As a company, we believe that such a standard is
the missing piece to boost the massive adoption of the Cloud and deliver real
interoperability. We see more and more mentions of CDMI in the field; this is
confirmed by the recent presence of large vendors at the CDMI plugfest. Scality
integrates CDMI as a fundamental piece of our Open Cloud Access strategy with
server, clients and various tools available."