The Aperi community made available the latest release of the open source Aperi framework, which includes Eclipse Europa update support, improved installation, as well as the ability to run the Aperi data agent inside a Xen Virtual Machine. The Aperi community has also worked hard to add support for CIM agent 5.2.1, which is based on the Storage Management Initiative specification (SMI–S) 1.1. Users can also enjoy the ability to view HTML pages with a SWT browser widget. Lastly, users can download the SAN Simulator, a software tool that enables one to simulate a storage area network (SAN) environment without actually having access to a real SAN.

The new release underscores an Aperi objective to create a standards–based storage management framework and to nurture an open source community around the framework. Key objectives of Aperi are to promote interoperability, eliminate complexity, foster greater opportunity for innovation, and provide a greater choice and added–value functionality for end–users.

• Building a common framework based on standards
• Promoting interoperability through open source collaboration
• Encouraging innovation with modular architecture
• Backed by ten leading storage vendors

Aperi is an open–source storage management project at the Eclipse Foundation, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to cultivating an open–source community and ecosystem of complementary products, capabilities, and services. The community includes some of today’s leading storage vendors, like Brocade Communication Systems, CA, Cisco Systems, LSI (Engenio Storage Group), Emulex, IBM, Fujitsu Limited, Network Appliance, Novell, and Yotta Yotta.

The project continues to develop and promote a common, open source framework to spur innovation and help end users and storage vendors overcome the complexity and interoperability challenges in today’s storage environments. As part of its commitment to supporting industry standards, the Aperi project intends to continue working closely with the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) on interoperability programs for its Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI–S) standard and on advancing new storage standards. To that end, the Aperi framework has passed the SNIA Conformance Testing Program (CTP) for disk array discovery and disk array management at the latest levels.

The Aperi open source framework also is designed to provide an extensible component architecture and basic storage management capabilities upon which end users and vendors can develop application plug–ins. At no charge, vendors can use the entire open–source framework, or select components, as part of their own offerings, which allows them to focus more of their resources on high–value functions. The modular design, along with the ability for users to modify the source code, should afford a tremendous amount of flexibility for both vendors and end users. The following diagram provides a view of the Aperi framework.

Figure 1: Aperi Framework Architecture

IBM and Aperi

As a strategic member of Eclipse and one of the founding members of the Aperi project, IBM intends to continue being a key contributor to the project. In addition to contributing to Aperi one million lines of code from the IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center, Version 3.1, the company’s popular storage resource management (SRM) offering, IBM plans to re–use the Aperi framework within upcoming versions of the product.

With respect to its companywide commitment to encourage interoperability across the data center, IBM has been a notable supporter of and contributor to open standards and open–source projects. Currently, IBM has over 1000 developers and participates in more than 150 projects across the open–source community, including Linux, Mozilla, Apache, Eclipse, Aperi, Derby, Geronimo, Globus, Higgins, and Open Ajax.

The variety of heterogeneous technologies making up today’s storage environments is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to manage. IBM’s active involvement in the Aperi project is yet another way for IBM to work with the storage community to reduce the barriers of interoperability and help mitigate the rising costs associated with increased data–center complexity.

For information on the Aperi Project, the technical roadmap, and on how to join the community, please visit the Aperi project Website at the Eclipse Foundation.

* SNIA and the SNIA SMI–S design mark are trademarks and service marks of the Storage Networking Industry Association.