Leading Storage Vendors to Drive CIM Product Rollout

In a move that underscores the importance of open storage management standards, and to address storage customers’ needs for a lower total cost of ownership, Storage Network Industry Association (SNIA) members Hitachi and Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, IBM, Sun and VERITAS announced today a new effort dedicated to the promotion and progress of SNIA’s Common Information Model (CIM), Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) technology and Storage Management Initiative (SMI) specifications (formerly Bluefin) for SAN based storage management.

As part of this effort, the companies are also announcing their individual plans to roll out CIM/WBEM-based products in calendar year 2003. CIM/WBEM has been endorsed by SNIA as the technology to help enable simplified multi-vendor management of storage networks. Hitachi Data Systems, IBM, Sun and VERITAS are active members of SNIA and contributed to drafting the SNIA-adopted Bluefin/SMI specifications. These specifications define how CIM technology is used to manage storage environments.

Companies participating in the effort, which is open to all storage vendors, are publicly demonstrating their commitment to deploy open storage networks. The companies are also promoting an open invite to all other storage vendors to join them in supporting CIM/WBEM standards.

Participating companies would be expected to:

• Ship CIM/WBEM based storage management software commercially
  in calendar year 2003.
• Support the emerging SMI specifications endorsed by SNIA.
• Make their CIM Providers (SMI Agents) available to others for
  testing.
• Conduct joint interoperability testing and qualifications.
• Support the CIM/WBEM interface as specified by SNIA’s
  Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF).

“Storage customers want management solutions that lower TCO, open the door to heterogeneous solutions and are standards based,” said Brad Stamas, chairman of SNIA. “The SNIA recognizes the importance of CIM/WBEM standards in building and achieving open, interoperable storage management, and believes that this announcement will accelerate development and acknowledgment of CIM/WBEM standards-based solutions in the industry.”