The DAFS Collaborative is an industry special-interest group established to develop the DAFS protocol Specification with the intent to submit version 1.0 of the Specification to an accredited standards organization by summer 2001. Intel Corporation and Network Appliance are the Promoters of the DAFS Collaborative. In addition more than 85 companies joined the DAFS Collaborative as Contributors.

In September 2001, the DAFS Collaborative completed v1.0 of the DAFS Protocol Specification, and submitted it to the IETF for consideration as an Internet Draft. This completed the mission DAFS Collaborative.

The DAFS initiative is now moving from the specification phase to the product delivery phase, with a new industry group appropriate to supporting multi-vendor product delivery. This successor organization to the DAFS Collaborative is the DAFS Implementers Forum (an industry forum within the Storage Networking Industry Association).

The charter of the DAFS Implementers' Forum is to market and promote storage networking solutions based on the DAFS protocol, and to advance the development and delivery of interoperable DAFS implementations. More specifically, the DAFS Implementers' Forum will:
Expand market awareness of DAFS as a storage networking technology
Identify and promote the distribution of DAFS reference implementations
Engage ISVs and IT end users on requirements and tools for the integration of DAFS with data center applications
Demonstrate interoperable DAFS solutions on all relevant transports
Foster a collaborative ecosystem of vendors focused on the delivery of component technologies for DAFS-based storage networking solutions
Participation in the DAFS Implementers Forum is open to SNIA members who pay the requisite participation fee. For more information, follow the Forums/DAFS Implementers links from www.SNIA.org or contact David Dale.