The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) announced today at SNW Spring 2010, the formal approval of the Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI) as a SNIA Architecture standard. This milestone marks the first industry-developed open standard for cloud computing and will allow for interoperable cloud storage implementations from cloud service providers and storage vendors.

The standard is applicable to public, private and hybrid storage clouds and is expected to be implemented by service providers and cloud infrastructure vendors for all cloud deployment models. More than just a data path to the cloud, the CDMI also includes the ability to manage service levels that data receives when it is stored in the cloud. The CDMI also includes a common interoperable data exchange format for securely moving data and its associated data requirements from cloud to cloud. The new standard, produced in record time for an open standard, was created by the SNIA Cloud Storage Technical Work Group (TWG) which consists of more than 180 members from more than 60 different organizations around the world. The Cloud Storage TWG, which was started at Storage Networking World Spring 2010, has completed the specification in less than 12 months.

"This milestone means that we should soon start to see open cloud interfaces for public and private clouds," said NetApp's Val Bercovici, who serves as Chair of the SNIA Cloud Storage Initiative. "These interfaces will appear side-by-side with the existing proprietary interfaces, but the extensible nature of the CDMI standard means that implementations can expose their entire functionality and will not be limited to a lowest common denominator approach. We would like to thank Mark Carlson, Chair of the SNIA Cloud Storage TWG, and the many other contributors for their dedication and hard work on the CDMI."

Based on a RESTful HTTP protocol, the CDMI standard requires adopters to implement strong access controls as well as providing for encryption of the data on the underlying storage media to accomodate secure multi-tenant cloud environments. The use of CDMI by cloud computing and storage providers enhances the types of storage services they can offer their customers, addressing enterprise computing and storage needs for higher service levels on their data. CDMI takes the novel approach of marking cloud storage containers and data objects with Data System Metadata to express service-level requirements, allowing data services such as backup, archive, deduplication, encryption and others to meet these needs automatically.

Activities at this year's Storage Networking World Spring include: Cloud Storage Tutorials, the CSI Cloud Pavilion, a Cloud Storage Hands on Lab as well as a Cloud Storage Birds of a Feather (BoF) session.

Industry Support for the SNIA CDMI:

Dennis Martin, Demartek:
"Since starting the storage cloud work less than a year ago, the SNIA has delivered a string of very important educational and technical assets to the industry. Being able to deliver the Cloud Data Management Interface specification in such a short amount of time will reset the market dynamics for current and emerging service providers. By establishing this concise standard within the industry, the SNIA continues to deliver both the technology and the education to help accelerate the acceptance and adoption of Cloud Storage."

Joseph Martins, Data Mobility Group:
"The SNIA has delivered on its promise, made a year ago, to deliver a Data Storage as a Service standard. With the availability of the CDMI specification, providers and storage vendors can augment their current interfaces to enable data portability across clouds. Cloud customers should now start demanding their cloud vendors and equipment providers show plans for implementing this important SNIA standard."

Arun Taneja, Taneja Group:
"The SNIA CDMI enables the development of rich storage clouds and realizes those benefits in a standard fashion. Anytime a standard such as this is utilized, the winner is the end user, as the functionality and added value can be the differentiating factor among providers. With broad CDMI adoption, the cloud market can reach its fullest potential."

Russ Fellows, Evaluator Group:
"The SNIA has been actively driving standards for nearly a decade. They have gained a reputation for vendor neutral collaboration, while developing and promoting standards that benefit the entire storage community. The release of the CDMI specification provides a critical building block for the cloud storage industry. This specification provides the interoperability needed to enable vendors and users alike to take the next step towards widespread cloud computing."