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McDATA Corporation Announces Availability of Storage Management Initiative Specification Interface

Strategic Insights

— 2 min read

McDATA Corporation, a leading provider of storage networking solutions, has announced the availability of its Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S) Interface, which is certified as SNIA-CTP v1.1 compliant. The SMI-S Interface is a Common Information Model (CIM) provider for McDATA's Intrepid directors and Sphereon fabric switches, allowing third-party management applications to discover, monitor, and configure McDATA devices. This move is seen as a key step towards improving manageability, security, and network reliability in data centers.

McDATA's SMI-S Interface is being leveraged by HP's SMI-S client, and it is planned to be used by IBM and other vendors in the future. The president and CEO of McDATA, Wayne Morris, emphasized the company's commitment to delivering open, standards-based products that benefit end-users. Frank Harbist, vice president of StorageWorks Division at HP, noted that purchasing decisions are increasingly influenced by interoperability and system manageability, making open standards a key differentiator.

James Gruener, Tivoli Storage Market Manager at IBM, also expressed support for the SMI-S interface, stating that integrating IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center with McDATA environments using SMI-S would enable customers to manage their Storage Area Networks (SANs) more effectively. The Storage Networking Industry Association's Storage Management Initiative was created to standardize interoperable storage management technologies and improve network-wide management, integration of resources, and interoperability.

Key Takeaways:

  • McDATA Corporation has released its Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S) Interface, certified as SNIA-CTP v1.1 compliant.
  • The SMI-S Interface provides a Common Information Model (CIM) provider for McDATA's Intrepid directors and Sphereon fabric switches.
  • The SMI-S Interface allows third-party management applications to discover, monitor, and configure McDATA devices.
  • McDATA's SMI-S Interface is being leveraged by HP's SMI-S client, and it is planned to be used by IBM and other vendors in the future.
  • McDATA is committed to delivering open, standards-based products that benefit end-users, as stated by Wayne Morris, senior vice president of worldwide marketing.
  • Purchasing decisions are increasingly influenced by interoperability and system manageability, making open standards a key differentiator, as noted by Frank Harbist, vice president of StorageWorks Division at HP.
  • James Gruener, Tivoli Storage Market Manager at IBM, expressed support for integrating IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center with McDATA environments using SMI-S.

Statistics:

  • Two-thirds of networked data is connected by McDATA solutions (source: McDATA Corporation).
  • McDATA has nearly 25 years of experience developing SAN products, services, and solutions (source: McDATA Corporation).
  • McDATA's SMI-S Interface is certified as SNIA-CTP v1.1 compliant (source: SNIA-CTP).

Sources:

  • McDATA Corporation press release, dated 2004.
  • SNIA-CTP certification, dated 2004.
  • McDATA Corporation website (www.mcdata.com).
  • HP press release, dated 2004.
  • IBM press release, dated 2004.

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