Woodside, CA - April 4, 2001 -- The DAFS Collaborative, an industry group established to specify and promote the Direct Access File System (DAFS) protocol, announced today that it expects to release DAFS Specification Version 1.0 precisely on schedule, in July 2001.
The DAFS Collaborative will hold its 5th Developer Conference on April 12, immediately following Storage Networking World 2001. Representatives will be available to discuss the status of this technology initiative at Storage Networking World, April 9-11 in Palm Desert, CA.
"Last summer, we set out to create the DAFS protocol Spec, and publish it within a year," said David Dale, co-chair of the DAFS Collaborative and industry evangelist for Network Appliance. "I'm pleased to say we're right on schedule. The Spec is 75% complete. We're closing in on the final feature definitions and folding in requirements from key target applications. We expect to release v1.0 of the Spec in July."
The DAFS protocol is a new file access protocol, specifically designed to take advantage of standard memory-to-memory interconnect technologies such as VI (the Virtual Interface Architecture) and InfiniBand in high-performance clustered data center environments. DAFS enables applications to access network interface hardware without operating system intervention, and carry out bulk data transfers directly to or from application buffers with minimal CPU overhead. The result is low-latency, high-performance shared file access between heterogeneous clusters of application servers, database servers and network-attached storage devices, connected via Fibre Channel, Gigabit Ethernet or InfiniBand fabrics.
The DAFS Collaborative was formed by Network Appliance, Intel, and other leading systems, storage and networking vendors, with the goal of making the Direct Access File System protocol available to the industry. Today, more than 65 companies are members of the DAFS Collaborative. New members joining in the first quarter of 2001 include Alcita Technologies, Brocade Communications, Congruent Software, Ikadega, Independent Storage, Interphase, inRAID, Mellanox, Oracle, Quest Software, Texas Memory Systems, Voltaire and Xyratex.
"Our membership has grown enormously since last summer, and we are enthusiastic about the road ahead. We expect this new file access protocol to deliver significant benefits to developers and users of I/O intensive applications such as e-commerce and database operations," said Werner Glinka, executive director of the DAFS Collaborative.
Additional participants are welcome and can join online. For more information visit www.DAFScollaborative.org.
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