[news.eclipse.technology.aperi] Eclipse Foundation and SNIA sign allianc

["Brenda Haynes" <bhaynes@xxxxxxxxxx>]

SNIA and the Eclipse Foundation Announce Alliance

New Alliance Increases Collaboration to Further Storage Management Standards 
Efforts Between the SNIA and Eclipse's Aperi Open Source Project

San Diego, CA (April 16, 2007) - The Storage Networking Industry Association 
(SNIA) and the Eclipse Foundation today announced that the two organizations 
will increase their collaboration around open storage management standards 
such as the Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S) and the 
Eclipse Aperi open source project.

"This alliance emphasizes both the SNIA's and Aperi's shared vision for 
delivering more choice and greater interoperability to end users," said 
Vincent Franceschini, Chairman of the Board of the SNIA. "We are very 
pleased that SNIA and Aperi will be formalizing our collaboration to help 
ensure that SMI-S delivers on its promise to the industry. Together, we plan 
to accelerate further the adoption of SMI-S and help ensure that end users 
have the confidence that Aperi development efforts are complementary to the 
SNIA's SMI-S progress."

In addition to Aperi software conforming to the SNIA SMI-S standard, the 
collaboration between the two organizations will span a variety of focus 
areas including conformance testing, marketing, education, and end user 
outreach. Additionally, this alliance allows members of Aperi to participate 
in the SNIA's Storage Management Initiative, SNIA Conformance Testing 
Program (SNIA-CTP), and the more recently announced SNIA Management 
Framework activities surrounding SMI-S, while providing the SNIA with a new 
opportunity to further penetrate the storage management landscape with SMI-S 
enabled products.

Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation, added, "Open 
standards and open source implementations are key to driving the adoption of 
new technology. We are excited to enter into this relationship with SNIA to 
further the momentum of emerging storage network standards."

Already, the Aperi code version 0.1 has been tested and passed the SNIA 
Conformance Testing Program for both disk array discovery and disk array 
management. By passing the test, Aperi v 0.1 is now conformant to SMI-S 
version 1.1.0 - providing confidence for end users and vendors that Aperi's 
developments are consistent with the progress of the SMI-S. Already, more 
than 450 products have passed conformance testing for the SMI-S standard.

This alliance is also focused on achieving three core goals, which include:

1. Encourage the release of Aperi-based vendor products coming to market to 
solve storage management problems for end users

2. Deepen vendor collaboration on SMI-S to spur innovation and reduce 
barriers to interoperability

3. Help address interoperability challenges by allowing vendors to 
contribute code directly to the Aperi software project

For more information on the SNIA and Aperi alliance, please visit