HP say SMI-S program will aid SAN market
HP say SMI-S program will aid SAN market
Hewlett-Packard has made its management interfaces available to its software partners as it looks to drive forward the Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S), an emerging industry standard designed to improve interoperability of storage hardware and software.
The company has introduced a developers program to facilitate partner development of technologies based on the SMI-S, which allows storage management systems to identify, classify, monitor and control physical and logical resources in a network storage environment. HP partners currently involved in the program include BMC, Veritas and AppIQ.
"Customers want an open, standard way to manage their complex storage environments and HP has responded by establishing the first partner program for delivering management interoperability via SMI-S," says Don Langeberg, director of marketing, HP Storage Software Division. "Our partners share in this goal and look to HP's leadership to help them deliver standards-compliant products to market quickly and with the most efficient use of their resources."
The program will enable systems integrators and independent software and hardware vendors to shorten their time to market and reduce development and testing costs as they will no longer be required to integrate incompatible interfaces into their products.
SMI-S is expected to be ratified soon by the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA). Roger Reich, chairman of the SMI Committee and member of the SNIA board of directors, says: "The continued momentum of SMI-S has the potential to restructure the way the industry approaches storage management, shifting from proprietary fixes to standard SAN device interoperability and management. HP continues to drive industry collaboration toward delivering open, standards-based storage solutions. We applaud HP and its program partners in taking the lead to bring SMI-enabled management to market."
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