November 2024 was a memorable month to engage with audiences at The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis (SC) 24 and Technology Live! to provide the latest on collaborative standards development and discuss high performance computing, artificial intelligence, and the future of storage. At SC24, seven industry consortiums participated in an Open Standards Pavilion to discuss their joint activities in memory and interconnect standards, storage standards, networking fabric standards, and management and orchestration. Technology leaders from DMTF, Fibre Channel Industry Association, OpenFabrics Alliance, SNIA, Ultra Accelerator Link Consortium, Ultra Ethernet Consortium, and Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express™ Consortium shared how these standards are collaborating to foster innovation as technology trends accelerate. CXL® Consortium, NVM Express®, and PCI-SIG® joined these groups in a lively panel discussion moderated by Richelle Ahlvers, Vice Chair SNIA Board of Directors, on their cooperation in standards development.     With the acceleration of AI and HPC technologies, industry standards bodies are essential to guarantee interoperability and facilitate faster deployment. Collaboration among industry standards groups fosters the development and deployment of advanced HPC solutions, driving innovation, collaboration, and efficiency. Joint activities from these industry associations include memory and interconnect standards, storage standards, networking fabric standards, and management and orchestration. During SC24, SNIA engaged with analysts, partners, member companies, manufacturers, and end users to provide updates on their latest technical activities. SNIA Compute, Memory, and Storage Initiative discussed computational storage work from SNIA and NVM Express and new opportunities for audiences interested in CXL to program CXL memory modules in the SNIA Innovation Lab. SNIA Swordfish® discussed their collaboration with DMTF Redfish, OFA Sunfish, NVMe, and CXL on a unified approach to open storage management. SNIA SFF Technology Affiliate presented their technical releases in SSD E1, E3, U.2 and M.2 form factor standards. The SNIA STA Forum showcased 24G SAS products highlighting the technology's cutting-edge capabilities, discussing the benefits of SAS for high-performance computing environments and SAS's critical role in delivering reliability, scalability, and performance for modern data-driven applications. Check out our post-event video on LinkedIn! At Technology Live! in London, the SNIA STA Forum shared insights with editors, analysts and influencers on the future of storage. [caption id="attachment_3945" align="alignleft" width="300"] Photo Credit: A3 Communications[/caption] STA Chair Cameron T. Brett attended the event to represent SNIA, fostering an informed and balanced conversation within the industry. Later in the day, he delivered a comprehensive update on the latest advancements in SAS technology, including 24G+ SAS developments, recent tech enhancements, and the updated SAS Roadmap. His presentation also highlighted new market data, and explored innovative applications such as SAS in space. A lively discussion around AI and its transformative impact on storage further demonstrated SAS's ability to meet the demands of emerging technologies. These conversations reinforced SAS's vital role in shaping next-generation data infrastructures. Watch the YouTube video of Cameron Brett’s SAS Presentation. Looking forward to even more engagements in 2025! If you have not already, subscribe to SNIA Matters for the latest on ongoing SNIA activities and events!

With another successful year of SNIA Storage Developer Conferences (SDC) completed, SNIA on Storage spoke with Mark Carlson, SNIA Technical Council Co-Chair, on 2018 highlights and 2019 plans to educate and support this important technical community. SNIA On Storage (SOS):  In 2018, SNIA volunteers provided key resources and time supporting our storage developer community, a central focus for the Technical Council.  What activities were the TC most pleased with in 2018? Mark Carlson (MC):  For the past several years we have been pushing SDC to expand globally. Starting with SDC India and this year adding SDC EMEA, we are reaching developers around the world now with educational content. Each year we get better and better talk proposals and the hard part is not being able to present more content. I always encourage developers to submit talks on their latest discoveries and architectures. Other developers want to hear about it. SOS:  There was a lot of good feedback on the content from SDC North America in 2018.  What was your overall impression of this 21^st SDC event? MC:  We had more folks than ever attending SDC 2018 and there was great energy in the sessions – particularly those hallway track ones.  We had strong topics and speakers with 16 keynotes as well as the breakout sessions and BoFs. I enjoyed hearing about new architectures such as Computational Storage and composable infrastructure. And for those who missed attending in person, all 100 session presentations are available for download from the SNIA web site. SOS:  What are some of the highlights for those who could not attend? MC:  SNIA’s new activities on computational storage were well received.  The keynote from Andy Walker on the Evolution of Solid State Memory was of high interest. Also Storage Lessons from High Performance Computing by Gary Grider of Los Alamos Labs generated lots of good questions. SNIA recorded all the keynotes and general sessions, which are available on the SNIA Video channel.  The Technical Council has also chosen the audio recordings of the best breakout sessions to be available as podcasts, with a new one released every week.  They can be found on the SNIA podcast site and are available on Apple iTunes.  The 2018 podcasts begin with #76.  You can also find podcasts from previous years on that page. SOS:  Now that SDC has expanded beyond North America, what’s on tap for 2019? MC:  SNIA returns to Tel Aviv, Israel with the second annual SDC EMEA on January 30, 2019. Delegate registration is now open and is rapidly filling up. SDC EMEA 2019 is also running an SMB Plugfest all week and has also scheduled an afternoon Technical Seminar on SMB.  You can register and learn more at https://www.snia.org/events/sdcemea SDC will also return to Bangalore, India on May 23-24, 2019.  The call for presentations is open at https://www.snia.org/events/sdcindia.  The SNIA India developer community is very strong and has an important role in establishing this agenda. We welcome all companies with developer activities in India to participate in SDC and also in the SNIA India T/E/N meetups which happen throughout the year. SOS:  Great talking with you, Mark, and we look forward to an excellent year of storage developer education in 2019.

For the third consecutive year, SNIA will present their highly successful Storage Developer Conference (SDC) in Bangalore, India, on May 25-26, 2017 at the My Fortune Hotel.  The 2017 agenda, developed under the supervision of the SNIA India agenda committee, leads off with a keynote by Indian Institute of Science Professor P. Vijay Kumar on Codes for Big Data:  Error-Correction for Distributed Storage, followed by Amar Tunballi, Engineering Manager at Red Hat, speaking on Software Defined Storage and Why It Will Continue To Be Relevant.  Thursday keynotes will feature Anand Ghatnekar, Country Manager, Cloud Systems, Seagate on The Power of Edge, and Chirag Shah, IT Transformation Consultant, DELL EMC on New Age Data Centre. Breakout tracks will feature sessions on storage ecosystem management with SNIA Swordfish^TM, hybrid clouds, object storage, open storage, NVMe over Fabrics, and performance optimization.  Also featured at the conference is a Cloud Interoperability Plugfest and the opportunity to network with partners Red Hat, Dell EMC, IBM, Mindteck, NetApp, and Tata Consultancy  Services. Check out the full schedule at https://www.snia.org/events/sdc-india/2017-sdc-india-agenda. According to Paul Talbut, SNIA India Executive Director, SDC India is ”ideal for storage software and hardware developers, storage product and solution architects, product line CTOs, storage product customer support engineers, and in house IT development staff.” Talbut emphasized that SDC India “is the place to learn from the experts, and get insights on the tools, technologies ,and tactics needed in data storage management and the cloud.“  Learn more - conference registration and full details on SDC India can be found at https://www.snia.org/sdcindia.

The SNIA Storage Networking Certification Program (SNCP) provides a strong foundation of vendor-neutral, systems-level credentials that integrate with and complement individual vendor certifications. Its four credentials – SNIA Certified Storage Professional; SNIA Certified Storage Engineer; SNIA Certified Storage Architect; and SNIA Certified Storage Networking Expert  - reflect the advancement and growth of storage networking technologies, and establish a uniform standard by which individual knowledge and skill sets can be evaluated, thereby providing employers in the storage industry with an independent assessment of the individual. Should you become certified? With heterogeneous data centers as the de facto environment today, IT certification can be of great value especially if it’s in a career area where you are trying to advance, and even more importantly if it is a vendor-neutral certification which complements specific product skills. And with surveys saying IT storage professionals may anticipate six-figure salaries, going for certification seems like a good idea.  Don't just take our word for it -  CIO Magazine has cited SNIA Certified Storage Networking Expert (SCSN-E) as #2 of their top seven storage certifications - and the way to join an elite group of storage professionals at the top of their games. SNIA now makes it even easier to take its three exams – Foundations; Management/Administration; and Assessment, Planning, and Design.  Exams are now available for on-site test takers globally via a new relationship with Kryterion Testing Network.  The Kryterion Testing Network utilizes over 900 Testing Centers in 120 countries to securely proctor exams worldwide for SNIA Certification Exam candidates. If you would like to know more about Kryterion or locate your nearest testing center please go to: www.kryteriononline.com/Locate-Test-Center . For more information about SNIA’s SNCP, visit https://www.snia.org/education/certification.

By Paul Talbut, SNIA Global Education and Regional Affiliate Program Director It is widely accepted that those who are considered knowledge workers (those who use a screen or the internet as a part of their daily work routine) face constant disruption and distractions. The constant flow of emails, online news feeds, social media, and personal interests tend to draw people away from the need to concentrate on the job at hand. Recent studies suggest that workers are interrupted on average every five minutes, ironically often by work applications or collaboration tools. If this is happening to the work function, then it is not surprising that the opportunity to undergo training or personal development, where focus and concentration without distraction is key to learning, is severely restricted. The same studies suggest that around 1% of the working week is all that workers have to devote to focus on training and development. This has led to a dramatic shift in the way people consume their training content. It is no longer practical or cost effective to lock people away in a training room for five days. Any such educational value is now much more likely to be absorbed on the train or the bus on the way to work, and so the nature of the content delivery has to change. Educational content needs to be delivered in modules and in a variety of formats to match the plethora of personal devices and platforms available today. Even without the formality of instructional design and a comprehensive curriculum, content such as podcasts, webcasts, and training materials need to be accessible on the move and in such bite-size chunks that we can give people the information they need and make it available at the times that suit them best. SNIA is changing the way study guides and materials are made available to our constituents by collaborating with our members and training partners to focus on a wide variety of educational channels. Materials and study guides are now available via e-book, PDF, YouTube, BrightTALK webcasts, podcasts, and online instructor led courses. The challenge now is to make the content compelling and attractive enough to compete with all the other digital content available for consumption, and provide the opportunity to learn something new about storage rather than watching ice-buckets, mannequins or the latest cute cat. To date, SNIA has certified over 12,000 storage professionals worldwide, and our vendor-neutral certification program continues to be the industry leader in the independent assessment of storage technology skills.  

Each year, at the Annual Members Symposium, SNIA members recognize their own - volunteers and organizations who have dedicated expertise and time to contribute to the important work done by SNIA technical work groups, committees, and initiatives.  SNIA recognizes with a "Volunteer of the Year" award an individual contributor  who has stepped up to help SNIA achieve new and groundbreaking work or significantly advanced an existing program.  Past winners have included Mark Carlson of Toshiba, Jim Ryan of Intel, and Alex McDonald of NetApp.  With the Exceptional Leadership award, SNIA recognizes an individual who has advanced a cause for SNIA leading to an impact on the industry or the Association.  Past winners have included Wayne Adams of EMC, Eric Hibbard of Hitachi, and Paul von Behren of Intel. SNIA also recognizes unsung heroes who work tirelessly under the radar expecting no attention but who in fact probably deserve more than the rest, and new contributors of the year who begin work in new areas. SNIA also recognizes groups with several awards, including outstanding achievement of a SNIA Technology Community, significant contribution by a SNIA Committee or Regional Affiliate, significant impact by a previously existing SNIA Technical Work Group or Task Force, and contributions by new SNIA groups.  Previous recipients have been acknowledged for their work in Persistent Memory, Solid State Storage, Storage Management, and Object Drives, and with SNIA India and the SNIA Global Steering Committee.  A list of all individuals and groups recognized since 2008 can be found at http://www.snia.org/about/awards. Also at the Annual Members Symposium, SNIA honors Deborah Kay Johnson, a SNIA member whose volunteer dedication to educating the industry on technology left a lasting impact, with the Deborah Kay Johnson Memorial Award.  Past winners of this award for their outstanding contributions to education include Charles Tasse, Dell; Nancy Clay, SNIA; and David Deming, Solution Technology; all recipients are listed at http://www.snia.org/about/awards/dkj. It's time for the 2016 awards, and SNIA encourages all members to enter their nominations for both individual and group categories.  The window to submit is open until December 9 and your selections can be made at this link.  Awards will be announced during the SNIA Annual Members Symposium, January 17-20, 2017, at the Westin San Jose.  Register here to attend the Symposium and view the agenda.