IBM Teams with Vendors for Open Source Storage

IBM Corp. and seven other storage vendors are teaming up to form an open-source organization initially called Aperi, Big Blue announced Tuesday. The companies intend to work together to develop common storage software to manage different vendors’ systems, making it easier for users dealing with disparate storage systems. The software will be made available free of charge.

The Aperi name comes from the Latin word meaning “to open.” The vendors will contribute code to the Aperi effort, with IBM making the first donation of some of its storage infrastructure management technology, according to a release from the company. The group will be managed by an independent, nonprofit organization with a multivendor board of directors, with more details to emerge shortly about the organization and the composition of the board, the release stated.

Aperi will be modeled after the Eclipse consortium set up by IBM in conjunction with other vendors to handle open-source projects to create development tools and frameworks for building software. Eclipse was spun out from IBM in early 2004 to become an independent, nonprofit organization called the Eclipse Foundation.

IBM’s partners in Aperi are Brocade Communications Systems Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Computer Associates International Inc., Engenio Information Technologies Inc., Fujitsu Ltd., McData Corp. and Network Appliance Inc. This is a roll call of some but not all of the leading storage vendors. Missing are EMC Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Symantec Corp.

Aperi intends to use existing open-storage standards, including the Storage Network Industry Association’s Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S), according to the IBM release.

IBM is holding a teleconference Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. ET to discuss Aperi.

By China Martens, IDG News Service