• SMI‐S does not solve the problem of hardware incompatibility between devices from different vendors.
– Compatibility of devices on a storage network is the domain of other standards bodies such FCIA (Fibre Channel Industry Association).
• Backup and remote replication are not covered by the current specification.
• A specification for defining implementations for the various operations of storage management is not included.
What SMI-S is not. As with any standards, it is more important to define what the specification cannot do, as much as what it can do. SMI-S defines the structure and behavior of individual devices in the storage infrastructure. It helps in the process of discovery, configuration, event, and status management of individual devices and logical paths between devices. SMI-S does not solve the problem of hardware incompatibility between devices from different vendors. SMI-S is evolving, and there are certain areas of storage management that are not covered by the current specification, such as backup and remote replication. While individual device performance capabilities are available, a comprehensive performance management capability will not be available until a later release of the standard. Also not in the current version is a specification for defining implementations for the various operations of storage management to ensure interoperability of management software.