Compared with Toigos organization, at least, the ASNP is reasonably cheap. While the membership fee for the Data Management Institute is a cool $1,000 a year, Delshad will charge only $199 annually -- and, he says, the first 1,000 members will be able to join for free. [Ed. note: Plus, free Fibre Channel reference charts for the kids!]
Still, some industry players think that even this nominal fee is too much. I dont understand an end-user association thats not non-profit, says a member of another storage user organization, who has asked to remain anonymous.
But Dan Pollack, principal system administrator at AOL, and now ASNPs regional director of the mid-Atlantic, says the price is not a big deal. Plenty of organizations have dues in this cost bracket, he says. That shouldnt be a particularly big hurdle.
The ASNP is beginning to recruit members today, and Delshad says he hopes the association will have 1,000 members by the end of the year, and at least 2,000 by the end of 2004. And were being very conservative on our numbers, he says.
Eugénie "Snugs" Larson, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch