League of Professional System Administrators (LOPSA) and UCSD's Information Storage Industry Center (ISIC) Sign Letter of Understanding Outlining Collaboration.

SAN DIEGO -- Partnership Activities to be Facilitated through the ISIC's StorageNetworking.org Initiative

The League of Professional System Administrators (LOPSA) and the Information Storage Industry Center (ISIC) recently signed an agreement outlining their intentions for future collaboration and partnership. The collaboration with the ISIC will be facilitated through the ISIC's StorageNetworking.org Initiative -- a UCSD-based program addressing the educational needs of data storage professionals.

"We are pleased to announce this partnership. LOPSA and the ISIC have much in common when it comes to our educational goals and the members we serve, so it only makes sense to collaborate," said Sam Albrecht, Executive Director for LOPSA. "LOPSA is a fast-growing dynamic organization and ISIC has paved the way for some great joint efforts."

This agreement comes at a time when systems administrators are becoming increasingly involved in the management and security of critical corporate information, and their interest in topics related to data storage technologies is growing.

"This educational partnership between StorageNetworking.org and LOPSA is, in many ways, driven by the fact that the importance of data management issues is increasingly blurring the line between systems and storage administrators," said Ron Durbin, ISIC's Director of Industry Relations.

"Since we're dedicated to the mission of creating smarter storage managers, we want to reach out wherever possible to all those impacted by data management issues and technologies."

As part of the agreement, LOPSA and the ISIC commit to maximizing cooperation, communication and collaboration on issues of joint concern. Specifically, in the near future the two organizations will cross-promote existing educational resources on storage and systems administration, and they will collaborate on the creation of new educational and networking opportunities for their respective participants.

The ISIC is one of 25 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Industry Centers at leading universities across the country. The StorageNetworking.org Initiative is funded through foundation grants and charitable gifts. Current sponsors include the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), Hewlett-Packard, McDATA, Computer Associates, Symantec, EMC Corporation, Trainer Communications, Servergraph, NeoPath Networks, Diogenes Labs, Storage magazine, InfoStor magazine, and Byte and Switch.

About StorageNetworking.org

StorageNetworking.org is a university-based initiative managed by the Sloan Foundation Information Storage Industry Center (ISIC) at UCSD. Its mission is to address the educational needs of data storage technology users. The initiative supports a network of Storage Networking User Groups (or SNUGs) and manages an online resource portal. For more information, go to http://www.StorageNetworking.org.