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Anita Wong
Strategic/Ampersand Inc
Phone: 416 961-5595
Email Anita Wong
For release: 21 Sep 2004
Storage Networking Industry Association Expands into Canada
Through education, services and delivering standards, SNIA Canada to help Canadian organizations understand, implement and manage storage networking technologies
SCARBOROUGH, Ontario September 21, 2004 — The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), a non-profit association comprising storage networking vendors, resellers and end users, has announced its expansion into Canada with the launch of SNIA Canada, a geography forum of the association. As a vendor-neutral organization, SNIA Canada will continue the associations mission of making storage networking technologies understandable, simpler to implement, easier to manage and recognized as valued assets to the business process. SNIA Canada will focus on educational and promotional activities for the Canadian storage networking market through end-user groups and interfacing with channel partners.
We are very excited about SNIAs expansion into Canada, said Wayne Hogan, Acting Chair, SNIA Canada. Our goals at SNIA Canada are to accelerate the adoption of storage network technologies and to highlight standards-based interoperability of storage network products and applications from an industry standpoint.
According to IDC Canada, Canadian storage spending for storage area networks (SAN) and network attached storage (NAS) is projected to increase by a five-year compound annual growth rate of 19 per cent from 2003 to 20081. Alan Freedman, IDC Canadas Research Manager for Infrastructure Hardware, said, The ever-growing data volume plus interoperability and compatibility with existing IT infrastructure are two of the main storage challenges facing users going forward. Organizations are looking for ways to consolidate applications, servers and storage in an easy-to-manage hopefully open and interoperable infrastructure in order to cost-effectively manage their information while minimizing investment in new equipment. The availability of standards-based networked storage solutions goes a long way towards easing the burden on IT and storage administrators, allowing them to focus on solving business issues instead of being mired with technical concerns.
SNIA Canadas mandate includes educating and informing the IT community about storage networking related products, applications and technologies from an agnostic standpoint; providing a collaborative forum for the IT community and storage vendors to address real business issues; and identifying and developing standards. Through SNIA Canada, storage networking professionals are able to strengthen their skills and provide enhanced career path growth.
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SNIA Canada Membership
There are four categories of membership availability for SNIA Canada:
Vendors - open to all storage industry vendors, including original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), software vendors and professional services vendors.
Channel members - includes distributors, system integrators, value-added resellers (VARs), value-added distributors (VADs) and others designated within the channel.
End users - includes IT professionals, business managers, staff and interested individuals.
Non-profit institutions - open to qualified non-profit colleges and universities, teaching hospitals, federal, provincial and municipal government agencies, and military organizations.
Vendor and channel members are the voting members of SNIA while the remaining categories make up the associate membership. The association also offers its members the opportunity to network and build relationships with peers, participate in Technical Work Groups which further storage networking technologies and promote the development of standards, and to achieve professional certification through the SNIA Storage Networking Certification Program.
Some of SNIA Canadas members include Cisco Systems, EMC Canada, FalconStor, Hitachi Data Systems, Infostream Technologies, StorageTek, Sun Microsystems and Xiotech. For more information or to join SNIA Canada, please visit http://www.snia.ca.
The SNIA IP Storage Forum recently launched a new series of North American seminars in the fall, including seminars in Toronto (Oct. 14) and Montreal (Oct. 18). The seminars are designed for anyone with an interest in complementing their existing SAN infrastructure with IP Storage or in cost-effectively consolidating storage and managing data by leveraging the IP-native SAN solutions. For more information, visit http://www.snia.org/ipstorage/news/ontheroad/.
About the SNIA
The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) is a not-for-profit organization, made up of more than 300 companies and individuals spanning virtually the entire storage industry. SNIA members share a common goal: to advance the adoption of storage networks as complete and trusted solutions. To this end, the SNIA is uniquely committed to delivering standards, education and services that will propel open storage networking solutions into the broader market. For information on SNIA and SNIA Canada, visit http://www.snia.org and http://www.snia.ca.
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1. IDC Canada, Canadian Disk Storage Forecast, May 2004
For more information, please contact:
Anita Wong / Sarah Henriques
Strategic/Ampersand Inc.
416 961-5595
anita@stratamp.com / sarah@stratamp.com
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