Aperi is an open source project that aims to simplify the management of storage environments through a standards-based, open source software framework. The Aperi open source project is committed to working closely with the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) to promote interoperability and eliminate complexity in today’s storage environments.

The Aperi open community was first announced last October and includes industry leaders
Brocade Communication Systems, Cisco Systems, CA, Fujitsu Limited, IBM, LSI Logic , McData, Network Appliance, and Novell.

What is Aperi’s Mission?
The mission of the Aperi project is to create a standards-based, open source storage management framework and to cultivate a free software community and ecosystem for complementary products, capabilities, and services around the framework. Key objectives of Aperi are to promote interoperability, eliminate complexity, foster greater opportunity for innovation, and provide a greater choice and added-value functionality for end-users.

How Can an Open Source Storage Project Benefit Users?
Open standards and collaborative communities help spur innovation in the market and eliminate many barriers to interoperability. Through its implementation of the popular SMI-S standard and with the backing of some of the storage industry’s biggest names, Aperi hopes to benefit users by helping advance the interoperability across storage systems, devices, and software and by fostering greater flexibility and choice across storage offerings.

How Can an Open Source Storage Project Benefit Storage Vendors?
Vendors can enable their respective offerings through the open Aperi framework by contributing code directly to it or by interfacing with it. As more vendors participate, the entire community should benefit from the expanding interoperability of the common framework.

What Capabilities Will the Aperi Open Source Framework Include?
Community participants have discussed requirements for heterogeneous functions such as:

Resource discovery, monitoring, and reporting

Topology mapping

Event management

Disk and Tape management

Device configuration and LUN assignment

SAN fabric management

Basic asset management

User Interface

Aperi is an open source project at the Eclipse Foundation. Interested parties can go to the Aperi web site for additional information and details.