Industry standard Application Programming Interface used for management of SAN Devices
– Standard APIs in development:
• FC HBA API
– Standardized Discovery and Management of FC HBAs
• FDMI - Fabric Device Management Initiative
– Enables management of HBAs from within the Fabric
•FC Switch API
– Standardized Management of Fabric Switches
• FAIS - Fabric Application Interface Standard
– Storage Application Services, Virtualization, Snapshots, Mirroring, etc.
– API licensing between vendors:
• HP and IBM • HP, EMC, and HDS • IBM and HDS •Others
Standard APIs are another way to enable cross-vendor management. Two standards-based APIs are the FC Host Bus Adapter (HBA) API and the Fabric Device Management Initiative (FDMI) API for managing HBAs. The HBA API was developed under the oversight of a Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) work group, has now been accepted by the ANSI T11 committee as a draft specification, and has broad support from storage vendors.