Introduction to the Storage Networking Industry Association
The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) is the largest storage industry association in existence, and one of the largest in IT. It is comprised of over 170 leading industry organizations, and 2,500 contributing members that serve more than 50,000 IT and storage professionals worldwide.
During the nineties, the nascent storage networking field needed a strong voice to communicate the value of storage area networks (SANs) and the Fibre Channel (FC) protocol. SNIA emerged in 1997 when a handful of storage experts realized that there was a need for a unified voice and vendor-neutral education on these emerging technologies to ensure that storage networks became feature complete, interoperable and trusted solutions across the IT landscape.
Since then, SNIA has earned a reputation for developing technologies that have emerged as industry standards. There standards relate to data, storage and information management, and address such challenges as interoperability, usability, complexity and security.
Today, SNIA is the recognized authority for storage leadership, standards and technology expertise. As such, it is our job to develop and promote vendor-neutral architectures, standards, best practices, certification and educational services that facilitate the efficient management, movement and security of information.
Through these and many other avenues, SNIA plays a pivotal role in technology acceleration and adoption. Our current areas of focus are centered upon nine strategic areas:
- Physical storage: Solid state storage, hyperscale storage, and object drives, as well as related connectors, form factors and transceivers
- Data management: Protection, integrity and retention of data
- Data security: Storage security, privacy and data protection regulations
- Cloud Storage Technologies: Data orchestration, and movement into and out of the cloud
- Persistent memory: Non-Volatile Memory Programming Model, NVDIMMs and new persistent media
- Power efficiency measurement: Solid state storage component & system performance, as well as the SNIA Emerald Power Efficiency program
- New-Generation Data Centers: Software-defined storage, composable infrastructure and new-generation storage management Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)
- Networked storage: Data access protocols and various networking technologies for storage
- Storage management: Device and system management
These nine areas of focus are each actively supported by formed and functioning Technical Work Groups. Individuals from all facets of IT dedicate themselves to programs that unite the storage industry with the purpose of taking our technology to the next level.
As the Executive Director for SNIA, I find the future of storage to be promising and exciting! We’re in the middle of historical transformation and innovation – and SNIA is center stage for a brave new world of storage. Data is being generated at unprecedented rates…and accelerating still…technology has to change to support the new business models of today and tomorrow. When I look at the strong history, and the robust technical focus of the organization and its members today, I know that together we can write a very bright future for the industry and the world. So join us in this dynamic journey to the next big discovery and fundamental technologies that are the basis for recording and saving the world’s history and humanity’s memories.
Sincerely,
Michael Oros, Executive Director of the Storage Networking Industry Association