SNIA announces standards for data protection
SNIA announces standards for data protection
September 08, 2005: The Storage Networking Industry Association has released advanced features for standards-based data protection and management services based on the Storage Management Initiative-Specification, version 1.1.
This will include support for the SNIA Copy Services profile, and support for tape libraries, and together they are expected to deliver real business value to IT users by providing data management and protection services based on SMI-S standard functions.
Mark Carlson, the chairman of the SMI Technical Steering Group, said that with a single set of SMI-S commands to operate the copy services functions of conforming storage devices, networked storage solutions can be managed holistically to support the life of stored information on succeeding generations of storage devices.
"SMI-S Copy Services is the first open standard for managing data availability and movement across heterogeneous devices at the physical device and storage block level."
SNIA believes that the Copy Services profile defines how SMI-S v1.1 enables data protection and management services through a standard set of configuration and monitoring capabilities for local and remote mirroring, snapshot and clone management.
The organisation expects that by standardising these functions, storage administrators will have more agility in choosing devices and greater management control over their data protection infrastructure investments.
In addition, SNIA believes that the longevity of a solution constructed to safeguard a data repository can be increased if the underlying technology is independent of the specific make and model of the underlying storage system.
Related Article: