Formation of local SNIA chapter is rubberstamped
Formation of local SNIA chapter is rubberstamped
The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has officially approved the formation of the SNIA (Australia and New Zealand) as a regional affiliate to promote storage networking technologies throughout Australia and New Zealand.
The SNIA is an international not-for-profit organisation formed in the USA in 1997 and dedicated to advancing the adoption of storage networking technologies through education and solutions for the IT community.
The interim board of SNIA ANZ consists of EMC, HP, Imation and Markom Marketing, while the following companies have joined them in becoming Founding Members: Computer Associates, Hitachi Data Systems, IBM, Infinity I/0, Iomega, Legato Systems, Network Appliance, Quantum, Sun Microsystems and Veritas.
The SNIA ANZ has produced charter documents that set a clear future objective for storage networking in Australia and New Zealand. The organisation will develop educational and marketing programs to promote the use of storage networking solutions to IT professionals via the working together of vendors, developers and integrators.
A local steering committee has worked for more than a year formulating local plans and managing the formation process.
The SNIA ANZ will follow the SNIA's by-laws and policies but will act autonomously in conducting its activities and electing its own governing committee. Activities will include recruiting vendor and end user company members, participating in regional industry events, supporting regional press initiatives, creating educational presentations and programs and showcasing technology demonstrations.
"International expansion has been a major goal of the SNIA this year," stated Sheila Childs, chair of the Storage Networking Industry Association. "Following the expansion into China last month, the official launch of the SNIA Australia and New Zealand regional affiliate represents an exciting new chapter in our organisation's evolution. The commitment its founding members have shown to the organisation is evidence of the value of storage networking technologies in the overall business process."
Commenting on behalf of the SNIA ANZ, Andrew Manners, general manager for enterprise storage, HP, said, “We are pleased to accept our formal affiliation from the USA and look forward as an industry to being able to assist local storage users with education and certification built around cooperative, interoperable standards based solutions. Our local research clearly shows us that while storage networking is a growth market, users are not interested in isolated solutions. A primary objective for the SNIA ANZ will be to give consistent messages to users and address their concerns for greater simplicity and flexibility in storage management."
The interim board of SNIA ANZ will run the organisation until a full board from the existing membership can be elected in November 2003. It is expected that at this time SNIA ANZ will have 15 voting and 15 non-voting members.
Companies interested in joining the SNIA ANZ should contact Andrew Manners (andrew.manners@hp.com) or Mark Heers (heers_mark@emc.com) for membership information.
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