storage management initiative specification (SNIA) (SMI-S)

In 2000, the Storage Networking Industry Association( SNIA) set up a working group to develop a cross-vendor standard for storage management.

The aim of the SMI-S working group was to standardize a concept with which storage systems can be administered from a central storage management system.

The SNIA specifications developed for this purpose, Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S), include the sharing of storage resources, backup systems and remote mirroring. Included in the SMI-S concept are a wide variety of hardware components such as switches, storage arrays, servers, storage networks, tape libraries and other components. Software for the SMI-S clients includes configuration discovery, data security, asset management, event management, cost management and data protection.