The rise of solid state storage has been incredibly beneficial to users in a variety of industries. Solid state technology presents a more reliable and efficient alternative to traditional storage devices. However, these benefits have not come without unforeseen drawbacks in other areas. For those in the data recovery and data erase industries, for example, solid state storage has presented challenges. The obstacles to data recovery and selective erasure capabilities are not only a problem for those in these industries, but they can also make end users more hesitant to adopt solid state storage technology.
Recently a new Data Recovery and Erase Special Interest Group (SIG) has been formed within the Solid State Storage Initiative (SSSI) within the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA). SNIA’s mission is to “lead the storage industry worldwide in developing and promoting standards, technologies and educational services to empower organizations in the management of information.” This fantastic organization has given the Data Recovery and Erase SIG a solid platform on which to build the initiative.
The new group has held a number of introductory open meetings for SNIA members and non-members to promote the group and develop the group’s charter. For its initial meetings, the group sought to recruit both SNIA members and non-members that were key stakeholders in fields related to the SIG. This includes data recovery providers, erase solution providers and solid state storage device manufacturers. Aside from these groups, members of leading standards bodies and major solid state storage device consumers were also included in the group’s initial formation.
The group’s main purpose is to be an open forum of discussion among all key stakeholders. In the past, there have been few opportunities for representatives from different industries to work together, and collaboration had often been on an individual basis rather than as a group. With the formation of this group, members intend to cooperate between industries on a collective basis in order to foster a more constructive dialogue incorporating the opinions and feedback of multiple parties.
During the initial meetings of the Data Recovery and Erase SIG, members agreed on a charter to outline the group’s purpose and goals. The main objective is to foster collaboration among all parties to ensure consumer demands for data recovery and erase services on solid state storage technology can be performed in a cost-effective, timely and fully successful manner
In order to achieve this goal, the group has laid out six steps needed, involving all relevant stakeholders:
- Build the business case to support the need for effective data recovery and erase capabilities on solid state technology by using use cases and real examples from end users with these needs.
- Create a feedback loop allowing data recovery providers to provide failure information to manufacturers in order to improve product design.
- Foster cooperation between solid state manufacturers and data recovery and erase providers to determine what information is necessary to improve capabilities.
- Protect sensitive intellectual property shared between data recovery and erase providers and solid state storage manufacturers.
- Work with standards bodies to ensure future revisions of their specifications account for capabilities necessary to enable data recovery and erase functionality on solid state storage.
- Collaborate with solid state storage manufacturers to incorporate capabilities needed to perform data recovery and erase in product design for future device models.
The success of this special interest group depends not only on the hard work of the current members, but also in a diverse membership base of representatives from different industries. We will be at Flash Memory Summit in booth 820 to meet you in person! Or you can visit our website at www.snia.org/forums/sssi for more information on this new initiative and all solid state storage happenings at SNIA. If you’re a SNIA member and you’d like to learn more about the Data Recovery/Erase SIG or you think you’d be a good fit for membership, we’d love to speak with you. Not a SNIA member yet? Email marty.foltyn@snia.org for details on joining.