What is the relationship of the SAS Consortium to the STA?
The SAS Consortium is a separate entity from the SCSI Trade Association (STA), but supports the STA mission in promoting SAS technology, specifically through the technical efforts related to interoperability and conformance testing relative to the SAS specification. One of the original goals of the STA was to administer and organize a series of SAS plugfests. Because of the IOL’s past experience in hosting plugfests for numerous technologies, the STA collaborated with the IOL to hold these test events at the IOL’s group testing facility in Durham, NH. While the test events are held at the IOL, they are formally sponsored by STA, and are not considered a part of any IOL consortium activity. However, as part of their involvement, the IOL also worked with the STA to provide additional support and development of various physical and phy layer tests for use at the STA plugfests. The IOL has provided support for limited physical and phy layer testing at the SAS plugfests to date, to the exte
