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By extending the DMTF Redfish API protocol and schema, the SNIA Swordfish specification helps to provide a unified approach for the management of storage and servers in hyperscale and cloud infrastructure environments, making it easier for IT administrators to integrate scalable solutions into their data centres. The same easy-to-use RESTful interface is used, along with JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) and Open Data Protocol (OData), to seamlessly manage storage equipment and storage services in addition to servers.

“SNIA Swordfish is designed to integrate with the technologies used in cloud data centre environments and can be used to accomplish a broad range of storage management tasks from the simple to the advanced,” said Don Deel, chair of SNIA’s Storage Management Initiative. “SNIA Swordfish is easier to understand and implement than legacy standards, which will accelerate its adoption and use by storage equipment vendors and management application vendors."

SNIA Swordfish has been designed around management use cases that focus on what IT administrators need to do with storage equipment and storage services in a data centre. As a result, the API provides functionality that simplifies the way storage can be allocated, monitored, and managed. For example, the API is able to associate different classes of service with storage systems having different levels of performance in a data centre. Once this has been done, an IT administrator can allocate storage to servers or virtual machines by specifying the storage class of service needed, without worrying about many of the details associated with finding or configuring a particular storage system with the desired performance characteristics. The API defined by the specification also supports having value-add, vendor-specific functionality alongside standardised functionality, to accommodate future storage-related capabilities.
Defined by the SNIA Scalable Storage Management Technical Work Group, the SNIA Swordfish specification is the result of a broad industry collaboration involving the leading companies in the storage industry.

Jeffrey Snover, technical fellow, Microsoft commented, “Microsoft is an active participant in the SNIA Technical Work Group developing SNIA Swordfish to make sure the most important scenarios for this specification will work well with our products. Because SNIA Swordfish is an extension of Redfish that will be widely adopted in virtualised environments, vendors will no longer need to produce versions for any one particular operating system.”

Jeff Hilland, president, DMTF added, “By extending DMTF’s groundbreaking Redfish standard, SNIA Swordfish brings the ability to manage storage and storage services in a way that is consistent with how servers and fabrics are managed. This is the type of approach needed for the management of today’s hyperscale and cloud infrastructures.”

Storage management industry experts are presenting more information on SNIA Swordfish at the SNIA Storage Developer Conference this week in Santa Clara, California, including:

Introduction and Overview of Redfish
Overview of Swordfish: Scalable Storage Management
Swordfish Deep-dive: Scalable Storage Management