I think Brocdata would be out of business if anyways, you’ve forgotten both QLogic and Emulex make switches But here nor there.

SNIA is still doing good things. For instance, VSANs have become an industry standard. While it may take some time for this to really catch on, I think it is an absolute boon for the industry.

Also Trunking. Believe it or not, there is a trunking standard. Unfortunately, AFAIK to date the only one using it is QLogic. Imagine how nice life would be if you could run two cables between a Cisco and a Brocade switch and have trunking *just work*.

I guess overall I agree with snig, that the real problem is companies aren’t willing to follow the open standards they agree on. There will come a point in time when the open standards catch up to the proprietary standards the big two/three are currently using, and customers will realize there’s no reason to be stuck in proprietary land (Either that or cisco will buy Q). If and when it does occur, everyone will benefit because prices will drop like a rock. I think we all know that’s a LONGGGG ways off though, nobody is jumping up and down to lose their 40%+profit margin.

Again, I apologize, this isn’t worded quite how I wanted, or all of my thoughts, but there was no way I was going to retype all that and even attempt to be eloquent about it :>

I used to attend the End User Council meetings a few years ago, but I quickly found that they weren't discussing anything real in those meetings so I lost interest and stopped attending.  The meetings were either discussing the upcoming SNW or whatever the vendor marketing message was at the time.  I did get a nice portfolio notebook from them, so that's not all bad.

As I said in the blog Im open to being wrong as I dont take much of an interest in what they do. However, I have to disagree with some of what you’ve said -
You say that without SNIA we couldn’t plug our QLogics into a Cisco switch or our Emulex HBA’s into a Brocade. If I couldnt plug an Emulex into a Brocade then it wouldnt be longbefore Emulex were out of business and the same for Brocade and QLogic – but may be not for Cisco

I do however, see the need for a standards committe/body. May be you’re right and we wouldnt be quite where we are today as far as standards go etc if we didnt have the SNIA?? Who knows?

Snig – I take it you’re not a member then

The fact of the matter is that all of this cooperation and plug-fests would have happened without the SNIA eventually. In order for these companies to continue to do business, they have to bend to end user requirements and wants eventually.

My opinion is that the SNIA was in the right place at the right time when the market really started to sour and vendors couldn’t charge what they had been charging leading up to Y2K. The vendors needed an outlet to say “see we really are listening to the end user needs” and the SNIA was a convenient outlet for them to do that. No one jumped into the SMI-S craze until EMC² announced WideSky and then everyone jumped on the bandwagon.

The SNIA really needs to reinvent itself and become a more streamlined organization. Vendors should be made to conform to standards in the same manner, which means the organization writing the standards needs to use stronger language and not leave them up to interpretation.

Why can’t we get detailed performance data from an open standard from any storage vendor? This data is some of the most critical data in a properly managed environment and yet the vendors aren’t letting this data loose in the current SMI-S standard. Frickin’ ridiculous in my opinion and it just goes back to the greedy industry that only wants your money and not what’s best for the user.

As far me not having a job if it weren’t for the SNIA. There was always a need for storage before the SNIA and there will always be a need for storage after the SNIA. Users will end up winning the battle over licensing and exorbitantly high cost with or without the SNIA. We just have to come together and share the knowledge we have. Why should I pay a membership fee to do that?

judging by the lack of comments