IBM opens EMEA CIM/Bluefin Competence Centre in Mainz

IBM today opens a CIM/Bluefin Competence Centre, extending the test options available to clients.

The new centre offers customers the opportunity to test and evaluate storage products which are based on the open storage standard SMIS, (Storage Management Interface Specification), codenamed Bluefin, in a multi-vendor environment.

The new Competence Centre, located in Mainz, Germany, will meet the increasing demand for standardised interfaces for storage.

Storage area networks (SANs) are an established technology in IT systems of large and middle enterprises, but the different components of a storage network are still delivered with proprietary administrative tools. The integrated tools which make central administration, monitoring and reporting of storage networks possible are missing. With the use of more, and larger, storage networks a simplification of the administration of storage networks becomes much more important.

Users require uniform standards, so that storage management between products of different manufacturers becomes possible. As a result of this development organisations such as the SNIA emerged, under whose umbrella CIM/Bluefin technology was recently developed with technical support from companies including IBM. CIM/Bluefin consists of several Interfaces (APIs) which reduce the administration of the products in an multi-vendor SAN environment.

"The establishment of a CIM/Bluefin Competence Centre in Mainz is the logical consequence from IBM`s commitment to standardised storage management," said Kause Peise, Director, IBM Storage Sales, Central Region. "It is possible to test the products before purchasing them in a physical environment, as well as hold training sessions and briefings now. That helps our customers to make the optimal purchase decision."

The IBM Enterprise Storage Server (Shark) will be the first IBM storage product to support the CIM/Bluefin interface. This support is planned for mid-February.