Why Your Company Should Join the

The Storage Bridge Bay Working Group (SBB) is a cooperative, non-profit organization created to drive standardization in entry-level external storage. The SBB will define mechanical and electrical interface requirements between storage arrays and the controller card that give the array its identity – identities such as JBOD (just a bunch of disks) , RAID (redundant array of independent disks), iSCSI, Fibre Channel SAN and NAS (networked attached storage).  As a result, a storage controller card based on the SBB specification will be able to fit, connect and electrically operate within a SBB-compliant storage array.

How your company will benefit from SBB membership
Becoming a member of the SBB and participating in its Technical Subgroups will provide your company an opportunity to be involved in a standardization effort that will address the following areas:  engineering/design improvements and increased customer benefits.

Engineering and Design Improvements
The SBB standard will simplify the engineering and design process for independent hardware vendors (IHVs) and system vendors. With standardized SBB technology, IHVs can create a single controller design that is compatible with a number of disk enclosures, lowering development costs. With shortened development cycles enabled by the SBB standard, system vendors can devote more of their efforts on innovation and driving simplicity. The SBB standard will speed the delivery of emerging storage technologies, such as iSCSI (Internet small computer systems interface), SAS (serial attached SCSI), archiving and virtual tape libraries.

Increased Customer Benefits
The engineering and design process improvements resulting from the SBB standard are expected to yield significant improvements for customers by decreasing costs and providing quicker access to new storage technology. A wider base of customers will have the opportunity to deploy advanced storage capabilities previously limited to enterprise-class solutions. This collaborative effort by the SBB marks the next advancement in storage – one in which standardized storage products are available quicker, giving customers more choices, value and a wider range of technology features.

How to become a SBB member
For more information about the SBB and to request membership, please contact the SBB Administrator at:

Storage Bridge Bay Working Group (SBB)
643 Bair Island Road, Suite 103
Redwood City, CA 94043-2755
Phone: (650) 556-9380 x111
FAX: (650) 556-9385
SBBadmin@SBBwg.org