HP Developers Program Targets ‘Bluefin’

Hoping to improve its own web-based provisioning architecture, Hewlett-Packard Wednesday launched a new developers program designed for building storage systems.

Based on the Storage Management Interface Specification (SMI-S), previously known as “Bluefin”, the HP SMI-S Developers Program will simplify the interoperability challenges developers often face when managing multi-vendor network storage.The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) is expected to ratify the SMI-S specification by this summer.
SMI-S links clients with agents, and is attractive to both customers and vendors because applications may be created using one open standard, as opposed to installing proprietary interfaces that cannot communicate with other vendors’ devices.

The program is open and free to qualified HP partners. Currently, HP’s roster of partners includes AppIQ, BMC Software, CreekPath Systems, Storability Software and VERITAS Software. Computer Associates, EMC, IBM, Sun Microsystems, and VERITAS are also onboard to support the storage standard.

“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,” states HP Storage Software Division director of marketing Don Langeberg. “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.”

HP says the program gives partners a head start in developing storage management applications that interoperate with HP storage arrays, including the HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA), Extended Platform (XP), Virtual Array (VA) and Enterprise Modular Array (EMA) families. StorageWorks is an integral part of the HP’s OpenView management platform and Adaptive Enterprise strategy.

In addition, the program delivers a set of services to HP’s development partners, including development, support, and marketing. A software developer’s kit includes early versions of array providers and device management software, sample code providing examples of how partners can write to SMI-S-compliant interfaces, and supplementary documents.

SNIA recently accepted the HP interoperability conformance test as its first tool for multi-vendor use in assessing the conformance of industry products to the SMI-S standard.

HP is currently shipping pre-release 1.0 SMI-S interfaces with the HP StorageWorks Disk Array XP and VA families and plans to add SMI-S providers to the StorageWorks EVA and EMA families later this year.

This story originally appeared on Internet News.

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