Cloud computing

Human experts in specific IT infrastructure and business domains possess substantial knowledge about prevention, remediation, and optimization of systems. However, there is a significant challenge in capturing, combining, and leveraging this siloed knowledge across domains.
 
SAF is a catalog-based XML collaborative knowledge framework that is designed to address these challenges by automating appropriate responses to changing business conditions and integrating contributions from diverse domains to provide competitive advantage. SAF has applicability in IT and business including cloud computing, service management, governance, security, energy, eGov, financial, emergency management, healthcare, and communications.
 
Cloud computing, in particular, exacerbates the separation between consumer-based business requirements and provider-supplied IT responses. SAF facilitates knowledge sharing across these domains, allowing consumer and provider to work cooperatively together to ensure adequate capacity, maximize quality of service, and reduce cost. The SAF technical committee considers cloud computing to be an area where the value of existing and developing standards could be significantly enhanced using SAF.
 
For more information on SAF, see the TC Charter, the FAQ, and the (working) Symptoms Automation Framework Documents.

The Security TWG provides architectures and frameworks for the establishment of information security capabilities within the storage networking industry, including that of stored information in heterogeneous environments. The focus of the Security Work Group is directed toward long-term security solutions, taking into account any security inherent in underlying transports or technologies.

The SSM TWG is a technical work group of the SNIA Technical Committee defining the Swordfish specification that extends the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF)'s Redfish specification (API) to handle the emanagement of storage equipment and storage services found in modern data centers.

The target market for this interface is Cloud and Web-based IT professionals for scalable storage management and related data services. Within this community, the focus is on usability by non-computing science degree personnel. The interface should be simple to use, accessible, and compatible with the existing tool chains and with modern transports.

The primary focus of the I/O Traces, Tools, and Analysis (IOTTA) TWG is to create a worldwide repository for storage-related I/O trace collection and analysis tools, application workloads, I/O traces, and best practices around such topics. That repository is located at http://iotta.snia.org

The I/O traces of interest to the IOTTA TWG include those up at the host (e.g., system call, file system), those involving a file server (e.g., NFS, CIFS) and those at the "transport level" (e.g., SCSI, Fibre Channel). I/O traces of application workloads along with the analysis and definition of common, recommended semantics and formats for I/O traces are also specific areas of focus for the TWG. Standardized I/O trace formats/semantics will enable the development and use of common I/O trace collection and analysis tools as well as facilitate the sharing of the I/O traces themselves.

The IOTTA TWG is for those interested in the use of empirical data/metrics to better understand the actual operation and performance characteristics of storage I/O, especially as they pertain to application workloads. This includes not only storage vendors but also storage users as well as those within the academic community who are performing research related to storage I/O and storage devices.

The Cloud Storage TWG acts as the primary technical entity for the SNIA to identify, develop, and coordinate systems standards for Cloud Storage. This group aims to produce a comprehensive set of specifications and drives consistency of interface standards and messages across the various Cloud Storage related efforts. The TWG also documents system-level requirements and shares these with other Cloud Storage standards organizations under the guidance of the SNIA Technical Council and in cooperation with the SNIA Strategic Alliances Committee.

This document defines the artifacts and APIs that need to be offered by a Platform as a Service (PaaS) cloud to manage the building, running, administration, monitoring and patching of applications in the cloud. Its purpose is to enable interoperability among self-service interfaces to PaaS clouds by defining artifacts and formats that can be used with any conforming cloud and enable independent vendors to create tools and services that interact with any conforming cloud using the defined interfaces. Cloud vendors can use these interfaces to develop new PaaS offerings that will interact with independently developed tools and components.

Convergence of Social, Mobile and Cloud: 7 Steps to Ensure Success is a practical reference to help enterprise information technology (IT) and business decision makers analyze and consider the implications of social, mobile and cloud technologies on their business. Organizations increasingly value how these technologies can improve customer engagement, forge new partnerships and drive competitive advantage and seek to understand the impact on new and existing business processes.
 
This guide contains guidance and strategies to help decision makers evaluate and compare offerings in key areas from different providers. Along with the base technologies of social, mobile and cloud, the guide discusses the importance of supporting technologies like integration, Big Data analytics and DevOps that enhance the business value of convergence. Industry-specific use cases are used to highlight business impact.

Convergence of Social, Mobile and Cloud: 7 Steps to Ensure Success is a practical reference to help enterprise information technology (IT) and business decision makers analyze and consider the implications of social, mobile and cloud technologies on their business. Organizations increasingly value how these technologies can improve customer engagement, forge new partnerships and drive competitive advantage and seek to understand the impact on new and existing business processes.
 
This guide contains guidance and strategies to help decision makers evaluate and compare offerings in key areas from different providers. Along with the base technologies of social, mobile and cloud, the guide discusses the importance of supporting technologies like integration, Big Data analytics and DevOps that enhance the business value of convergence. Industry-specific use cases are used to highlight business impact.

Migrating Applications to Public Cloud Services: Roadmap for Success was written to provide a practical reference to help enterprise information technology (IT) and business decision makers analyze and consider application migration to the cloud. This paper details strategic and tactical activities for developing a business plan and detailed migration plan. Guidance is provided on the types of applications that are best suited for migration to the cloud.
 
Key considerations include costs of migration, the potential need for application redesign, longevity, performance and availability, security and privacy requirements, the selection of locations, and other potential regulatory requirements.
 
Version 2.0 takes into account the increasing diversity of approaches used to migrate applications to the cloud. Much of this focuses on the use of containers, virtual machines, and serverless functions, as well as on the increasing use of hybrid cloud solutions. Concerns related to security, privacy, and data residency have also become stronger since the initial version. The guide addresses how to mitigate those issues.

Cloud Customer Architecture for Enterprise Social Collaboration describes how to leverage social collaboration tools to harness ideas, exchange information, and increase the speed of innovation across the business.
 
This cloud reference architecture was written for enterprise Information Technology (IT) and business decision makers to assist in understanding the technical capabilities and integration requirements necessary to deliver Enterprise Social Collaboration solutions. It is a vendor-neutral and best practices approach to describe the flows and relationships between business capabilities, functional areas, and architectural components delivered as a cloud solution.
 
This paper discusses how social collaboration solutions can be applied to different industries and aligned with key business initiatives.

Blockchain technology has the potential to have a major impact on how institutions process transactions and conduct business.
 
Blockchain technology provides a secure transaction ledger database through a decentralized network. It has the potential to reduce operational costs and friction, create transaction records that are secure and immutable, enable transparent ledgers with nearly instant updates, and open up new opportunities for growth.
 
This whitepaper introduces basic blockchain concepts that define a standard reference architecture that can be used in creating blockchain applications.
 
Sections of the paper include:

• Blockchain fundamentals
• Key characteristics of a blockchain network
• Blockchain reference architecture capabilities
• An example supply chain scenario using the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain implementation
• Cloud deployment considerations
• Specific examples of blockchain applications

Hybrid Cloud Considerations for Big Data and Analytics is a companion guide to the CSCC's Cloud Customer Architecture for Big Data and Analytics.
 
Today, the majority of big data and analytics use cases are running on hybrid cloud computing infrastructure. A hybrid cloud is a combination of on-premises and local cloud resources integrated with one or more dedicated cloud(s) and one or more public cloud(s), allowing for increased scalability and computational power for big data and analytics capabilities.
 
This whitepaper summarizes what hybrid cloud is, explains why it is important in the context of big data and analytics, and discusses implementation considerations