D.5 Committees

Much of the nontechnical activity of the SNIA is conducted through committees. Committees may be chaired by SNIA board members or other volunteers, with volunteer participation by member companies. Committees are chartered with various tasks that must be performed within the vendor-neutral culture of the parent organization. Committees and work groups have face-to-face meetings at least four times a year as well as periodic conference calls to track their progress and assign tasks.

The Storage Management Initiative (SMI) Steering Committee provides marketing support to the SNIA's CIM/WBEM storage standards effort. Whereas technical work groups work on standards requirements and definitions, the SMI Steering Committee is responsible for promoting industry and customer adoption of a uniform storage management interface and for organizing support for interoperability and showcase demonstrations.

The Conference Committee is responsible for organizing SNIA participation in Storage Networking World (SNW) and other major events. SNW is the product of a cooperative agreement between the SNIA and Computerworld. SNW conferences are held twice a year, typically in Palm Desert, California, in the spring and Orlando, Florida, in the fall. Attendance at SNW events has grown from a few hundred to several thousand, and SNW has become the premier event for storage networking.

The Education Committee is responsible for creating training and certification programs for the SNIA. This activity ranges from training classes held at the SNIA Technology Center to technology certification through various partnerships. The Education Committee also produced the "SNIA Dictionary of Storage Networking Terminology." (See Appendix F)

The Finance Committee is responsible for developing the SNIA annual operating budget and for ensuring that the fiscal responsibilities of the organization are met.

The Interoperability Committee has had multiple responsibilities, including initial organization of the Technology Center, development of standards compliance test suites, and staging of interoperability demonstrations at SNW and other events. Of these activities, the visibility provided by the SNW Interoperability Lab has encouraged participation in the Interoperability Committee, with more than 65 vendors represented in recent SNWs. For test suite development, the Interoperability Committee has solicited contributions of code and programming expertise from member companies to accelerate development of standards compliance tests. Initial compliance tests are being developed for the iSCSI, iSNS, and SMI specifications.

The Marketing Committee is responsible for preparation of press releases, press and analyst reviews, and marketing material and for coordination of marketing events in support of SNIA committees and work groups.

The Membership Committee is responsible for recruitment and maintenance of the SNIA membership and for explaining the benefits of SNIA participation to vendors and customers.

The Web Committee has assumed the task of maintenance and revision of the SNIA Web site. The SNIA URL (www.snia.org) is a resource for customers and members and includes information on SNIA activity as well as technical resources such as the SNIA dictionary and source code.

Depending on their available time and resources, SNIA member companies may participate in any or all of the SNIA committees. Although committee activity is vendor-neutral and is focused on the industry as a whole, participation is a means to ensure that a company is adequately represented in the creation of policies, processes, and events that provide visibility in the market. Committee participation is also a means to monitor the state of the industry and thus shape vendor strategies to the consensus of industry peers.