SNIA to open up Australian chapter
SNIA to open up Australian chapter
Australian storage vendor executives are in the midst of some furious back-room lobbying in planning for the establishment of a local chapter of the Storage Networking Industry Association.
The Australian chapter is being chaired on an interim basis by Rob Stirling, director of IT public relations firm Markom Marketing. Members of the interim steering committee include Fujitsu's Jock Crossing, Graeme Gleave from Hitachi Data Systems, EMC's Mark Heers, Andrew Manners from Hewlett-Packard, Quantum's Mike Sparkes, Scott Phillips from Legato Systems, and Narelle Wilson from Veritas Software.
"Our real aim for being is to overcome the 'we don't talk to each other' concept," said Mr Stirling. "Users have great difficulty in taking a one-vendor solution. They go to the press and analysts to understand the different technologies. Now they will be able to go to the SNIA because it is the main industry body."
Mr Stirling said that the establishment of a local SNIA chapter, with a scheduled launch date in the middle of next year with fully elected officials, would demonstrate to storage users that the industry was "not quite as competitive" as it was sometimes made out to be.
"In Australia, the message has been built up that one company bags another company. Perhaps at an individual sales level they may do, but at high level management, they do not," he said.
The main role of the local SNIA chapter would be to educate Australian users on the new techniques through compatibility laboratories and courses, including qualification courses to become SNIA-certified, according to Mr Stirling.
"The SNIA has two roles. One is as standards committee, for Bluefin, iSCSI, and things like that. That is not in our domain in Australia. Its other role is education, and that is certainly in our domain," he said.
Storage vendors in the US have also used the SNIA to evangelise standardised storage technologies, Mr Stirling said, and this would also fall under the responsibilities of the Australian chapter.
"Each of them has had to go out on their own and sell storage. They're out there being evangelists for storage. That's too expensive, so they can't continue to do it," he said.
Mr Stirling, who handles PR for Legato Systems and Quantum while wearing his Markom hat, said he was nominal chair because he initiated discussions on setting up the local chapter. When asked about perceptions of his independence from the companies he worked for, Mr Stirling said he had been "very careful to make sure" that the competitors of Legato and Quantum were present on the interim steering committee. Narelle Wilson from Veritas is the other prime mover behind the initiative.
"There are 25 vendors we have been talking to in Australia," he said. "A certain number put their hands up to take steering board positions. The others are involved on a 'keep me in the loop' basis."
Mr Stirling said there would be a briefing on November 20 when US SNIA chair Larry Krantz visited Australia. Mr Krantz will be here to speak at the Storage World show held by Terrapinn on November 18 and 19.
The establishment of the local SNIA chapter raises some tricky issues for storage conference organisers, since one of the main educational tools of the SNIA is its Storage Network World show, a joint venture with US publishing giant IDG which is the largest storage event in the US. Mr Stirling said the SNIA hoped to run an Australian version of the event next October. This could conceivably clash with Terrapinn's show in 2003, as well as supplanting the storage event run locally by IDG subsidiary IDC. Mr Stirling said he had been talking with both IDG Australia and Terrapinn, amongst other companies, about possibilities for organising the local version of the show.
"We are in discussion with all those people as we speak. SNIA is not an events company," he said.
Related Articles: